Bordeaux 2016 Primeurs: Pessac-Léognan, White
Throwing my suitcase into the boot of my hire car and hopping in (into the driver’s seat, not the boot), I set off into the dark and murky night. That it was still so dark was not surprising; after all, having finally given up trying to get back to sleep I was setting off about two hours earlier for my appointment at Château La Mission Haut-Brion than I had originally planned. It was a bleary-eyed, owl-hooting, pitch-black 5:30 am, a time when all sensible wine writers attending the primeurs are still out partying, washing down oysters and caviar with 1921 Château d’Yquem and 1947 Château Cheval Blanc. It certainly wasn’t a time to be thinking about heading out to do a day’s work, especially not a long day like today. I was not due at my first Pessac-Léognan tasting until 8am, but thereafter I had a string of appointments lined up, ending up in Barsac at about 7pm. It was set to be a busy day, one that would certainly run best after a full night of refreshing sleep, not the patchy three hours I had achieved.
So it was dark, but it was also rather murky. Overnight a thick fog had descended over Bordeaux, reducing visibility by a considerable degree. Setting off, I edged my hire car forwards in a quite gingerly fashion, through the Bordeaux version of a pea-souper. Would that be a velouté de petits pois? Perhaps, I thought to myself, setting off this early might be a good idea. This looked like the sort of weather that could easily cause the Rocade to grind to a halt; it would only take one foggy rush-hour shunt to see Bordeaux’s ring road metamorphose instantaneously into a very large car park.
Happily on this day there was no such concern, and after an hour of peering into the foggy abyss, white knuckles tightly clutching the steering wheel, I turned onto the Avenue Jean Jaurès. I briefly considered knocking on the door of Château La Mission Haut-Brion to see if they fancied starting the tasting now, at 6:30 am. Would Jean-Philippe Delmas, hearing of my early appearance, immediately rush round in his pyjamas and dressing gown to pull the corks? Probably not, I concluded. And so, with an hour-and-a-half to spare before the first tasting of the day, there was only one thing for it. I parked up on the periphery of the Haut-Brion vineyard, locked the doors, reclined the seat, pulled my jacket around myself and closed my eyes. I wouldn’t say I make a habit of sleeping in cars; the last time I recall doing so was when camping in Switzerland many years ago. On that occasion I abandoned my tent just before it set sail across Lake Geneva, launched onto the inky waters by a torrential downpour. At least this time I was dry, I told myself, even if the front seat of a Fiat 500 is about as bed-like as a sack of spanners in a shoe box.
