The Vineyard Picnic – Part 1: Skipping the Fair

"We're supposed to be at the tasting," said Claire.

"We are going to a tasting," said Étienne. "A better one."

They stood outside the exhibition hall in Bordeaux, in the sun, with their lanyards still round their necks. She was forty-two, a wine importer, brisk and elegant, with a chignon and a cream linen suit. He was forty-five, a sommelier, comfortable, bearded, with kind brown eyes and a canvas bag over his shoulder. Twenty years married. Three days in a trade fair, with eleven hundred strangers and not a single minute alone.

"The car's here," he said.

"You hired a car?"

"I stole an afternoon."

They drove out of the city through gentle green hills striped with vines. The windows were down. The air smelled of warm earth and grapes. At the end of a dirt track, among rows of ripening Merlot, he stopped the car.

"A friend's vineyard," said Étienne. "He's away. He said use it."

He unpacked the bag with the air of a conjuror: a quilt, a baguette, a wedge of ripe cheese, a tub of olives, two glasses and a bottle without a label. They spread the quilt in the shade of an old oak at the top of a slope. Beneath them the vines fell away in long green rows, bright in the late sun.

"Take off the lanyard," said Étienne.

She took it off. He took off his. They laughed, a little giddily, and tossed them onto the grass.

"What's in the bottle?" asked Claire.

"His very first vintage. Never sold."

He poured. It was deep ruby, perfumed with cherries and violets, soft as velvet. She closed her eyes.

"Oh," she said.

"Yes."

"Can I ask you something?" said Claire.

"Yes."

"When did we last do nothing?"

"Seven years," said Étienne. "I counted."

"Green?" she said, the old word.

"Green," said Étienne, tenderly. "Very green. Lie back."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Golden Hour.