Bordeaux 2024 Primeurs: Pessac-Léognan, White
I slowly regained consciousness, as distant waves of nausea receded.
My head throbbed. Really throbbed. Yesterday I had been hit over the head several times with a gigantic tastevin, but this was more of a headache than was deserved.
Opening my eyes, I saw the room was on a gentle spin, or at least appeared to be. Above me there dangled a bare, flickering, buzzing light bulb; it seemed to trace out a circle against the ceiling, as if carving out a vortex.
I blinked several times. Lots of blinking. The bulb and indeed the entire room continued its perpetual spin, albeit perhaps a touch more slowly.
I thought I should maybe try to stand up, but did not seem to be able to move my arms, or my legs. The most I could do was flex my fingers, or wiggle my toes. Nothing more.
I felt the rope around my wrists and ankles. Hmm. I was tied to the bed. Why?
Fractured and fragmented memories began to filter through the mental fog. A day of red wines in Pessac-Léognan. A relaxed evening at a wine bar in the centre of Bordeaux. A glass of Champagne as a nightcap.
An unusually bitter and cloudy glass of Champagne.
Drugged!
There could only be one person who would do this. And no, I don’t mean anyone in Vouvray. I lifted my head and scanned the room, and my eyes soon found her. A menacing form, dressed in a black hoodie decorated with a sequined tiger’s face, matched with a pair of thigh-high, skin-tight satin boots, in a shocking blood red hue.
The figure was unmistakable; it was the manifestation of primeurs past, made real in the shape of Taylor Swift. And I recognised her clothes immediately; an iconic outfit, from one of her music videos, but which one? The one that starts in the graveyard. And then in the giant birdcage. Yes, yes, but which one was that, which one? I racked my brains, but it would not come. The pharmaceutically induced mental fog had not quite dissipated.
“Look what you made me do,” said Taylor.
“Yes!” I exclaimed. “That’s the one!”
Taylor ignored my seemingly nonsensical response, and continued.
“Look what you just made me do. Your reports don’t seem to be going well, so the UGC had no choice but to send you a little message. And of course, I have to be the messenger.” She approached the bed, and I could see she held, cradled in her two hands, a jet-black scorpion.
“I thought you were Taylor Swift, not Billie Eilish,” I said, putting on a jokey air. But the tiny beads of sweat already appearing on my brow betrayed the rising panic inside.
“Billie likes spiders, silly,” said Taylor, unsmiling, as she lowered the scorpion onto my face.
“This is Tityus obscurus, otherwise known as the Amazon black scorpion,” continued Taylor. “Its venom is rich in neurotoxins and cardiotoxins, and one sting will bring about a range of symptoms, including heart failure, arrhythmias, hallucinations and convulsions. Of course, being a nocturnal creature, it is quite docile right now, and unlikely to sting. Unless I give it a little prod of course. Now, let’s have a chat about today’s scores for the white wines. Are they going to be a little higher than for the reds?”
I nodded, as best as one can nod without moving one’s head. I guess I nodded with my eyes.
“And we’re not going to have any of this nonsense about there being insufficient acidity in this vintage?”
Another eye nod.
“And certainly no silly diatribes about how the best source of white wines, if you enjoy wines of quality, with minerality and personality, is the Loire Valley?”
And again. I was getting quite good at this eye nod thing.
“Very good,” concluded the spirit of primeurs past, as she collected her arachnid persuader and moved to untie my limbs. “Then let’s go.”
-o-
My journey through the white wines of Pessac-Léognan follows the pattern described in my report on the red wines. Indeed, the suspicious reader might suspect that I tasted both reds and whites during each visit. Well, I never!
