Spilt Wine

47. Coming Together

Michel phoned late Wednesday afternoon to tell me that Vrouwe Catharina was safely in the dock. During the draining of the dock chamber, he had seen a small stream of water coming from the end of a long crease in the round of her starboard bilge. "It looks as though it scraped along a sharp rock, and when it got to the frame, the metal there was pierced. The frame is bent, and likely we'll find associated weld fractures there as well. She will be dry inside when we go back on Monday."

"Monday?"

"Tomorrow is the first of May."

I scrolled the first of May across my mind. All of France shuts down for Labour Day. On Friday nearly everyone will fait le pont – make the bridge to the weekend – another French tradition. Labourers don't labour on Saturdays and Sundays are sacred, a day when labourers take another break to practice for the slowness of Monday.

Sunday 4 May 1986

Yet here we were on a Sunday, down in the ageing cellar racking wine. With memories from helping Louis' father with it on some of my visits, added to Catherine's experience from regularly assisting Louis, we discussed how to proceed.

It was a long process. Gently pump the wine off its sediment and into a clean pièce, then filter the last bit from the barrel bottom, before moving the emptied pièce out and trundling it along to the water wand, washing its interior and setting it bung down to drain. The next barrel along is broached to continue topping up the pièce while the washed and drained pièce is trundled back to its slot. When the next barrel has been filled, it is bunged, and the pumping continues into the fresh empty pièce. The vineyard name chalked on the butt end is checked and, if necessary, washed off and replaced with the correct name and vintage. Repeat.

At the final pièce of each vineyard lot, if there is sufficient extra in the collection of feuillettes, quartauts and bidons, the pièce is topped up and bunged. If their contents are insufficient, the wine is pumped off its sediment into the appropriate combination of feuillette, quartaut and bidons, which are then chalked and wheeled to the remainders storage. Repeat with each vineyard lot.

We paused just before noon for a baguette and some cheese after we had finished the Clos de Bèze. "Four and three-quarter hours, fourteen pièces, that's just over twenty minutes per pièce. We're speeding up as we refine the technique."

"Louis and I would aim for three per hour, forty per day."

"So with three hundred and eighty-eight pièces down there, we'll be done in ten days."

"No, well before that. The '84s are bung-on-side. They were closed a couple of months ago, finished their racking before Grotkopf came to take his purchase. They all looked good when they came back down here, whenever that was, I've lost track."

"With them eliminated from our list, how many need racking?"

"We don't have to do the Village wines either. We'll be racking those straight into the bottling tank in a few weeks when we get to that."

"That leaves us with how many, now?"

"From my look at the list a couple of days ago, about two hundred and forty. It should take us six days."

"That's far better than ten." I looked in the pantry and fridge for more cheese. "We'll need lots more fuel to keep us running, we're down to the last of the cheese and persillé."

"We're out of nearly everything. There are still things in the freezer, but we're out of nearly everything fresh. I feel like we're in prison here. Maybe we'll have to resign ourselves to bread and water."

"We'll talk with Grattien tomorrow. Arrange to go shopping."

We ate and returned to the cellar to continue racking, completing the Clos-de-la-Roche. We were well past the midway point with the Bonnes-Mares when Catherine stopped suddenly. She looked up at me from the pump switch and asked, "How did Philippe know we would be on the barge?"

"Stupid, isn't it?" I furrowed my brow. "I hadn't thought of that at all."

We remained fixed in our postures, staring at each other while thoughts and images reeled through our minds. Then as wine roiled up from the bunghole, I called, "Merde! Switch off the pump."

When the pump stopped, I leaned against the barrel, licked the wine off my wet hand and chuckled. "Not the ideal way to taste Bonnes-Mares. But I'm disturbed with thoughts of Philippe – how he knew."

As soon as she had switched off the pump, Catherine rose to join me, and we continued the glazed look as our minds spun. "We have five, no four pièces left of the Bonnes-Mares," she said after a long silence. "Then we're finished the Grands Crus. Do you want to stop now?"

"No, let's complete what we set for ourselves, the forty-one pièces. We can focus on that and slow our minds from churning. The answer will come when we stop thinking about it."

Two pièces later, Catherine switched off the pump and looked up at me. "Someone at our celebration of Louis was part of the Grotkopf operation."

"Possibly from the tank farm on the Hautes Côtes."

"Or from his chais in Nuits."

"Maybe the Marseille connection."

"The only person I talked with about Vrouwe Catharina is Grattien. Nobody else there even knows about the barge."

"We could have been overheard."

"Most likely the answer. Too late to call Grattien now. We'll call him in the morning. Let's finish this then go clean up. Long hot showers. Those steaks will be well thawed. I could eat a horse right now."

"You'll have to settle for a steer tonight," she laughed, "I took out Charolais tenderloin."

Later, as we walked up the stairs toward our rooms to clean before preparing dinner, Catherine paused. She turned, took my hand and softly said, "We could save water, David. I'm too stiff to do my own back – some help would be welcome."

Oh, God! Naked with her. Can I handle it without ...

My thoughts were interrupted by her sweet voice, "Your shower or mine?"