If he accompanies us without reluctance in the staircase which sinks in the entrails of the town hall, Pierre Hurmic does not intend to play the wine guide. At the end of August, a little more than two years after being elected mayor of Bordeaux under the Europe Ecologie-Les Verts banner, it is only the second time that he has set foot in the wine cellar.
“I visited it after my election, but I have no particular reason to go down there”, he justifies. Before adding, just to smooth things over with a world of wine that does not always look favorably on elected Greens, “even if it is an ever-renewed pleasure to be able to contemplate treasures that reflect the diversity of Bordeaux wines”.
For this visit, the mayor therefore preferred to surround himself. Laurent Gros is in front. Responsible for the reception in the city, he is one of the privileged trio, with his chef and the sommelier of the town hall, to hold the keys to the cellar for twenty-two years. Behind the mayor, Brigitte Bloch, delegate municipal councilor in charge of tourism and wine and vice-president of the metropolis, is delighted with the establishment this summer of a “wine route” in the city, equipped with sound capsules, to enhance their intertwining: “We had to explain to what extent Bordeaux is marked, architecturally and in its urban construction, by the wine economy. »
Three small rooms
A tall man brings up the rear. This is Jean-Pierre Rousseau, Grand Chancellor of the Bordeaux Wine Academy. It is the first time that he has come here and been moved by it. He praises the constant temperature of the place, between 14 and 16°C, admires the labels.
These are enough to make your head spin. As soon as you enter, the oldest bottle in the cellar welcomes the (very rare) visitor: Mouton-Rothschild 1944. The prestigious names follow one another: Château Pavie 1994, Cheval blanc 1986, Latour 1982, Léoville Poyferré 1961, Lynch-Bages 1966, Haut-Brion 1982, La Gaffelière 1967. “Do we still serve it or keep it, this one?” »asks the group. “I am sure that the 1967 vintage is suitable for consumption, while a 1977 would have been to be forgotten”reassures the Grand Chancellor.
The cellar is made up of three small rooms, with a few casings. The shelves occupy the entire space, the spans are reduced to a minimum, less than 60 centimeters wide. The group must sneak in, in single file. The places are cluttered with no decoration, reduced to their simple function, a place of storage. Barely a few bottles of Pernod pastis and Dubonnet vermouth, forgotten on a shelf above a door since the 1970s, brighten up the basement.
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