Wine pairing: Domaine Jean Collet & Fils Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons, 2019 (encore performance)
I’m having a lot of fun here, but one has to be OK with a generous amount of silliness where The Drops of God is concerned. Yeah, wine is like that – it does send the mind on romantic footloose flights of fancy free. Me personally I don’t see Italian painters or long lost relatives when I sip it, no matter how revelatory it is. But it does tend to express itself poetically rather than prosaically, at least when it’s good. If you love wine you understand what I mean. And I think enjoying this series hinges partly on understanding what it’s trying to be, and what it isn’t.
Natsugaya-sensei orchestrating her own poisoning pretty much tracks with what we know about her. And figuring that out tracks with what we know about Shizuku. The whole threat letter-mystery wine thing was a hoax, then. I could note that Natsugaya shouldn’t be drinking when she’s pregnant, but given what she was planning to do I guess that’s rather pointless. I think one could also take issue with Nikaidou telling the doctor to save the baby even if means putting her life in danger, though as the father he’s obviously involved. Will he acknowledge the child and put his own marriage at risk? If not, he was pretty far out of line doing what he did.
Our friend Issei is having quite the time of it over in the Taklamakan Desert. Bandits, cold, dust storms – it all seems quite far out of his comfort zone. He and Loulan are hitting it off though – I assume he’s going to keep that information to himself once he settles back in Tokyo. The gist of all this is that he’s trying to restore his “thirst” I suppose – a lesson his mother taught him as a child. Ironically but not coincidentally he and Shizuku are on opposite tacks in their wine race here. Even as Tomine tries to reset himself and taste with a true sense of wonder again, Shizuku is becoming more and more embedded in the vagaries of the wine trade.
Shizuku is pretty sure he’s gamed out the Second Apostle – the “first” version of the Alter Ego from last week, 2000 Chateau Palmer. But he declines to taste it to be sure, because he wants to have a fresh palate at the time of judgement. Why? If both men correctly identity the Apostle the winner of the round is decided by their description (I assume Robert would judge this). Kind of an odd rule I’m not so certain about – you’d think it would be a draw. Issei is late for the tasting (getting back from the Taklamakan isn’t so easy) but Shizuku declines to accept a forfeit.
In fact Shizuku needn’t have bothered avoiding the first bottlings from Palmer, as he chose the wrong vintage. It was the ’99, which Issei correctly deduced (he saw the Mona Lisa, Shizuku saw Da Vinci himself). Tripped up by Cépage – we’ve all been there, bro. Those percentages do change depending on the vintage. And second wines from the Left Bank are often more Merlot-heavy so as to be softer and more approachable young. Shizuku is like a young wine in its sick period – out of his fresh and lively phase but not yet mature enough for secondary notes to be at their most agreeable. Tie game, only ten more rounds to go.
