“Alors,” said Michel, “you can’t walk around with an empty glass. What are you going to have?”
There was too much choice. I didn’t know where to start. Would Michel guide me through the barrels? I could see that the others had something in their goldfish bowls; I’d have the same.
Michel nodded. That would be best, he said, because we only had two hours, and he didn’t want to waste our time on the very young wines when there were so many treasures that were ready to drink. I was glad I’d had the olive oil. Anything that qualified as a treasure was hardly spitting material. But two hours of swallowing would have me as supine as one of the barrels, and I asked if one was permitted to spit.
Michel waved his glass at a small drain that marked the entrance of the Boulevard Côtes-du-Rhône. “Crachez si vous voulez, mais …” It was clear that he thought it would be tragic to deny oneself the pleasure of the swallow, the bursting forth of flavors, the well-rounded finish, and the profound satisfaction that comes from drinking a work of art.
The maître de chai, a wiry old man in a cotton jacket the color of faded blue sky, appeared with a device that reminded me of a giant eye-dropper—three feet of glass tubing with a fist-sized rubber globe at one end. He aimed the nozzle and squeezed a generous measure of white wine into my glass, muttering a prayer as he squeezed: “Hermitage ’86, bouquet aux aromes de fleurs d’accacia. Sec, mais sans trop d’acidité.”
I swirled and sniffed and rinsed and swallowed. Delicious. Michel was quite right. It would be a sin to consign this to the drain. With some relief, I saw that the others were tipping what they didn’t drink into a large jug that stood on a nearby trestle table. Later, this would be transferred into a jar containing a mère vinaigre, and the result would be four-star vinegar.
Slowly, we worked our way down the boulevards. At each stop, the maître de chai climbed up his portable ladder to the top of the barrel, knocked out the bung, and inserted his thirsty nozzle, returning down the ladder as carefully as if he were carrying a loaded weapon—which, as the tasting progressed, it began to resemble.
The first few shots had been confined to the whites, the rosés, and the lighter reds. But as we moved into the deeper gloom at the back of the cave, the wines too became darker. And heavier. And noticeably stronger. Each of them was served to the accompaniment of its own short but reverent litany. The red Hermitage, with its nose of violets, raspberries, and mulberries, was a vin viril. The Côtes-du-Rhöne “Grande Cuvée” was an elegant thoroughbred, fine and étoffé. I was impressed almost as much by the inventive vocabulary as by the wines themselves—fleshy, animal, muscular, well-built, voluptuous, sinewy—and the maître never repeated himself. I wondered whether he had been born with lyrical descriptive powers or whether he took a thesaurus to bed with him every night.
We finally arrived at Michel’s merveille, the 1981 Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Although it would keep for several years to come, it was already a masterpiece, with its robe profonde, its hints of spice and truffle, its warmth, its balance—not to mention its alcoholic content, which was nudging fifteen percent. I thought Michel was going to take a header into his glass. It’s nice to see a man who loves his work.
With some reluctance, he put down his glass and looked at his watch. “We must go,” he said. “I’ll get something to drink with lunch.” He went to an office at the front of the cave, and came out carrying a crate of a dozen bottles. He was followed by a colleague, carrying another dozen. Eight of us were going to lunch. How many would survive?
We left the cave and winced under the force of the sun. I had restrained myself to sips rather than mouthfuls; nevertheless, my head gave one sharp throb in warning as I walked to the car. Water. I must have water before even sniffing any more wine.
Michel thumped me on the back. “There’s nothing like a dégustation to give you a thirst,” he said. “Don’t worry. We have a sufficiency.” Good grief.
The restaurant Michel had chosen was half an hour away, in the country outside Cavaillon. It was a ferme auberge, serving what he described as correct Provençal food in rustic surroundings. It was tucked away and hard to find, so I should stick closely to his car.
Easier said than done. So far as I know, there are no statistics to support my theory, but observation and heart-stopping personal experience have convinced me that a Frenchman with an empty stomach drives twice as fast as a Frenchman with a full stomach (which is already too fast for sanity and speed limits). And so it was with Michel. One minute he was there; the next he was a dust-smudged blur on the shimmering horizon, clipping the dry grass verges on the bends, booming through the narrow streets of villages in their midday coma, his gastronomic juices in overdrive. By the time we reached the restaurant, all pious thoughts of water were gone. I needed a drink.