Bordeaux 2021 at Two Years: The Rest of The Left
Sitting at a desk in the first-floor room in my accommodation, situated just a few hundred metres from the waters of the Gironde, my tastings continued into the night. An hour or more had passed since the sun had set, and outside the vines were slumbering soundly, their twisted forms shielded from view by a blanket of velvety black.
I was nearing the end now; I had just a few more bottles from the Haut-Médoc and Médoc appellations to go, followed by a pair from St Estèphe, my ‘homework’ for the evening. Once I had dispatched these I could finally switch off, relax for an hour or so, and maybe – if I could find something suitable – rustle up something to eat. After a long day of swirling and scribbling the thought was, to say the least, enticing.
It was as I reached for bottle number 86 that something in the periphery of my vision, flickering bright and orange-gold, caught my attention.
Fire!
Happily, not in my room (thank heavens). But outside, at the foot of the vineyard, there was a large fire illuminating the inky night. It was too late for it to be the vineyard workers burning their sarments, the cuttings generated by the winter pruning. And it was also far too large a fire; only a small mountain of wood, perhaps old stakes and pulled-up vines, could have fuelled such an impressive blaze.
I watched for a while, mesmerised, memories of childhood bonfires filling my mind. I saw no reason to act; after all, the fire was too far from the château where I was holed up for the night to do any damage.
It seems not everybody felt the same way though; a call had apparently been made, because a few moments later I caught sight of a convoy of twinkling blue lights in the distance. They approached along the road from Pauillac, before coming to a halt alongside the vineyard. Soon the bottom end of the vineyard was populated by shadowy figures, silhouetted against the light of the fire. The sapeurs-pompiers set to work, and before long the light began to dim, and smoke gave way to steam.
My entertainment brought to an halt, I returned to the bottles, continuing with bottle number 87. The hunger, at least, had passed.
