2007 Colin-Deléger Chassagne-Montrachet “En Remilly”

He’s not sick but he’s not healthy. His wife, ex-wife, girlfriend, ex-girlfriends, children, enemies, even his partners—anyone who’s gone down the river with him—will tell you as much. He’s not violent but he’s not peaceful. He’ll forgive but he can’t forget. He’d like to, but his mind won’t let him.

He wins at poker but loses at bridge. He’s not stingy, but God help you if you make the mistake of calling him generous. He likes to be flattered but has what you might call an allergic reaction to pity. He may be cagey but he can’t keep a secret. He’ll listen but he’ll be the first to tell you he was not put on this earth to be influenced by your best intentions. He accepts fatigue and insecurity as signs of trust but regards boundless optimism and unwavering confidence as sales techniques.

He likes sex, and he’s crazy about love, but he has issues with intimacy. If you ask him what those issues are, he’ll tell you that intimacy is honesty, but that honesty is a performance. “Which puts me at a serious disadvantage,” he likes to say, “because I have the worst case of performance anxiety in the history of mankind. Don’t get me wrong. I can overcome it. It’s not like I’m a victim of anything, including my own anticipation. When it comes to realizing my fantasies, I’m right there in the front row. But what is a performance? It’s an act, is what it is. An act you rehearse. It’s like the cellist who stops the lady on Broadway and says, ‘How do you get to Carnegie Hall?’ And the lady says, ‘Practice, practice, practice.’ Which works like a charm with music, or sports, or meditation, maybe even with buying and selling, but not so much with sex. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Climb into bed with a woman who’s more beautiful than the day is long and use her body as my weight room? The last woman I was lucky enough to sleep with wanted performance, and she wasn’t shy about asking for it, but what she really wanted was for me to be real. ‘Being authentic,’ as she put it. She wanted to have sex with a human being, not with some calculating schmuck in training for the midnight Olympics. The more you practice, the less spontaneous you become. And if you can’t be spontaneous in bed, where can you be spontaneous?”

Which brings us to the 2007 Colin-Deléger Chassagne-Montrachet “En Remilly.”

In the glass, Colin’s-Deléger’s En Remilly does a flawless impersonation of the light at the end of the tunnel. Its pale-gold color acts both as an invitation and as a reward for accepting that invitation. The bouquet is packed with dignity, which is to say that it lacks the aggressive notes of beeswax and butterscotch that perform on the stage otherwise known as “an ultra-premium California Chardonnay”. On the palate, the En Remilly asks more questions than it answers. How does a white Burgundy with such a careful bouquet deliver all these layers of flavor? Where do the statements end and the suggestions begin? The finish is like the sound two crystal wine glasses make when they touch. The more it fades into silence, the more you appreciate what it said when you could still hear it.

He mistrusts certainty but worships ambiguity. “If you think about it,” he likes to say, “the modern world is obsessed with specifics. From the day we’re born we’re trained to communicate, and communication is all about the message. If you’re specific you make sense to people, even if your message makes no sense. But when they can’t understand what you’re saying, people assume you’re a deviant, or, worse, that you’re making fun of their ignorance. And then it’s game over, no questions asked, even if your message makes all the sense in the world. So I get the modern world’s obsession with quantification, especially when it comes to money. The better you are with the numbers, the more liquidity you create. Hats off to the quants! They spared us from illiquidity. But what happens when you take your diligently accumulated, dollar-denominated liquidity and use it to buy your way into the world of beauty? Can you count on beauty the way you counted the money you used to buy it? Plenty of swinging dicks have tried, but their success rate has been an embarrassment—to both sides of the coin. People say truth is beauty. The truth is, truth hides in beauty. You can look at a lovely work of art, a sunset over the water, or a beautiful woman’s face all you want. You can spend your whole life looking, but the truth is under no obligation to show its face, just because you know how to pay attention. The numbers may not lie, but that doesn’t mean they tell the truth. Beauty is beautiful because you can’t put your finger on what makes it so beautiful. Beauty is beautiful because it refuses to be measured. The only way to approach beauty is on your knees, with your head in the clouds. That’s why I like things that make sense up to a point, but then turn the corner and keep going. Where are they going? Your guess is as good as mine.”

One Bottle is dedicated to the appreciation of good wines and good times, one bottle at a time. You can write to Joshua Baer at jb@onebottle.com.