The Naked Sommelier by Claire Doyle

Author:Claire Doyle [Doyle, Claire]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Range Organic Woman
Published: 2018-05-14T04:00:00+00:00

35

Today was a fruit day and we were driving to Shinn Estate Vineyards in the North Fork where most of Long Island’s vineyards are. Shinn Estate was having a superabundant flowering, not just the vines but the clovers, dandelions, mustards, sorrels and chicories used as cover crops on the soil between the vines.

“What about the terroir?” I asked as we parked the car.

“They practice biodynamics here. All those cover crops make the vine roots dig deeper and become stronger. Not to mention all the insects and they’ve got their own honeybees as well.” We poked our fingers around in the soil with the winemaker and as I looked up I saw a couple of happy chickens pecking between the vines. I was a happy chicken too. The soil was lush, like a forest floor.

We began tasting the Brut Sparkling. I was happy. I gave a little swirl, a little sniff and a little sip. I felt my heart beat with happiness. I was in America! With a gorgeous French sommelier! He was only twenty-nine! I was having a moment on this wonderful fruit day, a moment in time with wine. The little bubbles moussed their creamy pleasure directly onto my tongue and into my bloodstream. What would others be doing right now? Little Lilly, my beloved feline friend–do you miss me? Leo was in his element once more. He expressed delight that the wines were fermented with yeasts from the vineyard.

“You have closed the circle,” he said to the winemaker. “Everything you use comes from right here, even the yeasts. And your cover crops …”

“When the vine shares the soil with other plants, it has to dig deeper for nutrients. The struggle of the vine expresses itself in the grape and hence, the wine,” said the winemaker.

“Alive but poor–that’s what makes a great vineyard soil. It makes for great minerality.”

“So that’s why it tastes so good.” I said.

Yes, it was all about the terroir, each wine with its own signature of time, place, soil, weather and human consciousness. The day you open the bottle and sip is unique, a never to be replaced experience to be drunk but never forgotten. A natural biodynamic and sparkling wine–there was nothing better. A quantum blanc.

We moved onto a rosé, the wine for love and then onto the most expensive wine I had tasted thus far in my life, a wondrous being, a 2007 Clarity. Black fruits and coffee. How I loved those coffee aromas.

He became talkative later in the car. “You know, I can walk into any wine bar in the world and I can make a friend when I tell them I’m a sommelier from France."

“You don’t seem to even drink much of it,” I said.

“I have a cellar in France. It’s full of wine. I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Why don’t you drink it?”

“Because of the married woman. She gave me all this wine. She was seducing me. The boss’ wife. It couldn’t have been worse. There were other women too but with her … it went on for over two years.

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