ONE afternoon, after I got back from work in London, Peter, our builder, asked if I wanted a cellar. My heart jumped—of course, but how much would it cost? ‘Not much, the digger’s already here.’ In the end, the electric door in the utility floor was double the price of the cellar itself.
My new cellar has only three bottles of wine in it. But what a start they are. Each of them is from Château Troplong Mondot, a Premier Grand Cru Classé from Saint-Émilion, France. It is one of Bordeaux’s greatest wines, which, this year, has celebrated 20 years of insecticide and herbicide-free cultivation. The land is ploughed by a team of 12 horses, as Indian runner ducks control the slugs. Best of all, I went to stay there…
