I can remember looking through old menus from the early 20th century for somewhere like The Ritz and although I was supposed to be looking for inspiration from the food, I was more drawn to the wine lists.
I noticed that some very rare wines seemed to be a lot cheaper than I expected. For example, German wines seemed to be in fashion and were more expensive than Chambertin, Romanée-Conti and the like. The latter were relatively cheap.
It stirred up feelings from when I was a history teacher and I used to ask the children where they would go if they had a time machine. I admired the ones who missed the point entirely and wanted to go into the future - clearly physics students - and most of them just wanted to go back to the Vietnam War; they were obsessed with Rambo, as it was the 80s. I realise that as a responsible adult historian I should want to go back and study the early political structures of the Roman republic, or get to the bottom of the Zinoviev letter, but what I really wanted to do was go back to when these menus were written and buy up all the undervalued wine.
I’m so shallow.
Although it wasn’t quite a time machine I did experience a very similar idea on an industrial estate on the fringes of Calais. From the very beginning of The Sportsman I have been going over to France every two weeks to buy dry store goods for the pub.
There are great advantages to being able to use a French cash and carry rather than the English version, Bookers. In fact I was so depressed after using our local branch of Bookers in Canterbury that I resolved never to go again. Instead I would drive through the Channel Tunnel at 7 a.m., buy up all of the sel gris, duck fat and T80 flour that I could fit into the back of my brother Phil’s estate car and be back by 1 p.m. on the same day. I worked out that I couldn’t even get to Borough market and back in the same time.
When I told people that I went on buying trips to France they would imagine a leisurely day prodding cheeses and waiting on quaysides, but the reality was that my only indulgence was the odd visit to the Wine Shops Of Calais.
The industrial estate that housed the cash and carry was also home to a lot of booze cruise warehouses. These were the 'pile it high and sell it cheap’ places that attracted the English in search of beer and wine at half the price it was in the UK.
One day I noticed that there was a warehouse that seemed a bit different. Instead of being called ‘Eastenders’ or ‘Boozers’ it was clearly French. When I went inside it looked just like the other places with piles of not very interesting, cheap wine and beer but with one difference. There was a mock plastic cave in the middle of the warehouse which, by implication, contained the more expensive wine.
On my first visit I didn’teven go into the cave but instead bought some half bottles of Champagne as I was determined to learn the house style of the Grand Marques - a life skill, I thought - and this seemed a good place to start.
On my second visit I found myself drawn into the cave and was immediately in a magic kingdom. Time seemed to stand still and, rather like the changing rooms in the old BBC children’s programme Mr Benn, it was a portal to a fantasy world. I studied the wines and found a huge range of very interesting bottles at ridiculous prices. 1998 Domaine Leroy pommard ‘Les Vignots’ was £27 a bottle (I looked it up on Vivino.com just now and it was about £500 a bottle). I hate to mention the price, as it was the contents of the bottle which blew me away. Somehow this wine tasted like it contained the concentrated juice of a whole vineyard, but was still light and delicate. For someone in constant search of that Pinot Noir kick this was a dream and I became a fan of Domaine Leroy for life.
I worried as I waited for my next visit that someone would realise what treasures were contained in the cave and buy them all up. Of course they would, I just got lucky and it couldn’t happen again. I almost ran from my car on my next visit and tried not to give away how nervous and excited I was. The man on the till took on a less benign character and seemed to be complicit in my excitement. He became the shopkeeper in Mr Benn. He knew something but would just flash an ambiguous smile.
I rushed to the plastic cave and started to rustle through the contents. Dauvissat ler Cru Chablis for £12 a bottle, Dugat-Py old vines Gevrey for £16, Coche-Dury red and white ler Crus for £30 and Rousseau Clos de la Roche 1999 for £25.1 didn’t just wade in and buy a massive amount but instead bought four or five bottles to last me until my next trip in two weeks’ time. Somehow buying up all the star wines seemed heavy-handed, and by now I had realised that the warehouse was always empty.
The shelves inside my magic cave were virtually the same visit after visit There was the occasional addition, and the day I saw 1999 Domaine Leflaive Puligny- Montrachet ‘Clavoillon’ I had a feeling it was something special.
The intense but pure roasted pistachio nut aroma sent my girlfriend Emma and me wild, and I’ve been a big fan ever since. I also learnt from experience that the 99 vintage was truly great at this address, and I still have quite a few bottles of Grand Cru left
Nothing ever lasts for ever, and the empty wine warehouse closed.
I couldn’t complain as I had enjoyed five years of buying wine that was often not available in the UK. I had learnt who my favourite producers were and the different vintages - and at prices which, since the 2005 vintage, make me realise I really got lucky. These wines will never be as cheap and accessible again because something has fundamentally changed in the wine market A naive discovery like this is not going to happen again unless someone unearths future classics in regions currently unknown, and isn’t this really the reason we read articles like these? Rev up the time machine!
