Wine pairing: Domaine Jean Collet & Fils Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons, 2019
There I am drinking white again, when red is seemingly all that exists in Kami no Shizuku’s cellar. It’s puzzling how white wines have almost no role in this story – it’s not like they aren’t popular in Japan. One could make the same point about geography too, to an extent. We had the little diversion to Italy with Honma-san’s introduction, but basically the borders for this story’s wine pretty much end with France. So far at least. Far be it for me to complain, I suppose, as I’m drinking a 1er Cru Chablis (a half-bottle I got on closeout) – and a banger it is too.
It may simply be a function of a ridiculously compacted adaptation rate, but in this series the side stories and the “Apostles” so far are inexorably linked. It is indeed time for Apostle #2, and this time the clue is more or less the Mona Lisa. Yutaka’s clue is a tale of a trip in the Italian countryside, a diversion to an artist’s studio in an old house, and two paintings side-by-side. His preference for the one on the left – “painted in the spring, of a woman who had just conceived” – is obviously the salient hint. But what does that mean, exactly?
So far at least one can narrow their search down to France before even getting the clue.The first Apostle was a Burgundy, and this one is a Bordeaux if early indications are to be believed. For Issei’s part, he’s abstaining from wine in order to force thirst upon himself. And he jets off to the Taklamakan Desert in northwest China. A cold desert climate whose name in Uyghur apparently means “enter and you’ll never leave”, it seems as odd choice for a Japanese critic chasing a wine mystery. But it’s the sort of romantic fairy tale move that’s very much in line with this series’ M.O..
The mystery angle this time (it’s always a femme fatale, I notice) is Natsuyagi-sensei. She’s a mystery writer who consulted with Yutaka-san about a wine-themed novel years earlier. Now she’s received a mysterious bottle with a black label and a letter labeled “Bacchus” seemingly threatening her life if she can’t identify the contents by the time of her book release party that weekend. She’s come to Yutaka’s old estate manager Yoshida for help, but on re-acquainting with Shizuku as he visits the old chap, she decides to have him head up the investigation.
The wine in the bottle does put Shizuku in mind of the Mona Lisa – but “before she was painted”, he says. A visit to her house – where she’s in the midst of a rendezvous with her editor, Nikaidou – and her cellar reveals her aversion to “second wines”. Every major chateau in Bordeaux and most famous wineries worldwide have them, and sometimes third and fourths too. They can be great but Natsuyagi-sensei is snobbish enough (or has other reasons) to refuse them). Shizuku finds a bottle of “Alter Ego“, Chateau Palmer’s second label, and swaps it for the bottle Miyabi had brought as a gift. And indeed, the Alter Ego seems to be the mysterious black bottle wine.
Just what the heck is going on here? Shizuku quickly realizes that Nikaidou and Natsuyagi are having an affair – she doesn’t seem to be married, no idea about him – and this is clearly connected to the mystery bottle. In The Drops of God no coincidence is too big to be an actual coincidence, but it does seem as if the Second Apostle, the mystery bottle, and the threat on Natsuyaga’s life are related. And interestingly, it’s after drinking water at her party that she’s stricken and in distress (at least by appearances). I suspect there’s a deeper reason for her aversion to second wines, and it’s going to be part of the explanation for all this.
