legends · 4 min read ·
Cellar Book
A restaurant cellar holds a case of wine sealed with a date five years from now.
**The Fenwick Arms — Cellar Book (head sommelier: Gil Rossiter)**
*Bin number, producer, vintage, bottles in stock, tasting note.*
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**Bin 14 · Château Aubrac, Pauillac · 2009 · 36 btls**
*Cassis, graphite, a little cedar. Drinking beautifully. Decant for an hour.*
**Bin 22 · Domaine Lerat, Meursault · 2014 · 24 btls**
*Hazelnut, butter, a mineral edge. Best at 11°C. Pairs with the turbot.*
**Bin 31 · Quinta da Serra, Douro · 2005 · 12 btls**
*Ripe plum and dried fig. At peak. Drink by 2028.*
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**Bin 40 · Unlabelled, Left Bank · 12 btls · found 12 Oct, deep cellar**
Found behind the racking at the back of the old coal store, a case of twelve bottles with plain black capsules and no label. Cork brands read: *Mis en bouteille, 2031.*
I thought it a typo. I opened one.
Colour: deep ruby, no rim. Nose: blackcurrant, iron, wet stone, and something I can only call a corridor, a long cool passage with a door at the end. Palate: perfectly balanced. Tannins like silk. Long. A finish that went on past the point where the taste stopped and the memory of it continued.
I have tasted a great many wines. This is the best thing I have ever put in my mouth.
*Drinking window: now. Best before: 2026.*
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**Cellar book (continued)**
**14 Oct.** Opened a second bottle of Bin 40 to check the first. It was the same, but older. The colour had turned to brick at the rim. The finish was shorter. I thought: it is ageing in the bottle as I open it.
**15 Oct.** Two bottles gone. Ten remain. I decided not to sell it. It is not mine to sell. It has no provenance and no producer. Yet I find myself going down to the cellar after service to look at the case.
**16 Oct.** Served one glass to the proprietor, Mrs. Fenwick, who is eighty-four. She tasted it, put down the glass, and said: "That was my husband's wine. It was in the cellar when we bought the place." Her husband died in 1988. She asked for a second glass and did not speak again that night.
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**Cellar book (continued)**
**20 Oct.** Eight bottles. I have been using the wine in the tasting menu without charge. A man from the Wine Society asked me what it was. I said: "I don't know. I think it is from the future." He laughed and wrote nothing down. I saw him later, at the bar, staring into the glass, and he took a long time to finish it.
**22 Oct.** Opened Bin 40 for a customer who said she had not slept in weeks. She tasted it, shut her eyes, and said: "It tastes like the end of something." She asked what year it was. I told her. She said: "No. Tell me what year it *is*."
**23 Oct.** I looked at the cork brands again. *2031* is not the vintage. I turned the cork over. Under a lens, in the grain of the cork, printed small in ink, was a second line: *Drink by yesterday.*
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**Letter from Harcourt & Dane, Fine Wine Auctioneers (28 Oct)**
*Dear Mr. Rossiter, Thank you for sending a sample of Bin 40 for authentication. We have submitted the bottle to our laboratory. The wine is not a known cuvée and the glass is of a type not produced before 2029. The ink on the cork brand has not yet been manufactured.*
*We would very much like to see the remaining bottles. We are told that the estate that owns the cellar has only recently been compiled in the records and that we should look to the vendor's name, which is yours.*
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**Cellar book (final entry)**
**31 Oct.** Six bottles left. I have been using the last of them, one a night, after service, alone in the cellar.
It has occurred to me what the date on the cork means. A wine is laid down to be drunk later. The person who laid this down meant it to be drunk at a certain time, which has passed. I am not late. I am drinking it now, as instructed.
Tasting note, Bin 40, bottle seven: *Blackcurrant, iron, wet stone. Silk. Long.* The finish this evening has a new note I cannot place, like a hand on the back of the neck. I decanted it for an hour and sat down to it and the glass was already empty before I had put it to my lips.