“When you drank wine, Gaultier had said, you’re sipping time and weather, the rising and setting sun, even tasting your own mortality.”
An ambitious young enologist is hired by an entitled, largely absent vineyard owner to oversee that season’s harvest, setting in motion a cascading sequence of tragic events. Mort transports us deep into Bordeaux country, its traditions and rhythms, its heady concoction of toil and passion, a pulsing heat that loosens morals and fosters incaution. At its heart is a story of love, lust and revenge, of temptation and consequence. I typically prefer stories less crafted than this, but Mort’s brilliance as both poet and skillful storyteller wins me around.
First published in Terroir, Seren Press, 2015 and available to read online here
A Personal Anthology 