The new Chai au Quai...lost for words...only for a while...

"Wonderful day". That was as far as I got. Overwhelmed by it all.

Now pulled self together...

It was good timing; turned up just as the builders left... except the legs under the tasting room sink.

All was already working. Jean-Marc and Mark were giving a nice Belgian Bordeaux producer and his samples a thorough going over on their new zinc bench with its peerless river views. Their room is the heart of the Chai.

Petit Denis and Chris were working the barrels into the new Dordogne Chai, beyond. Libby was prettying up the Keyholder's room; great piles of bottles to sort. "See the swish Toilettes" she says - now there's a change! - "and the little kitchen" - built into the old wine tanks we no longer use.

And now there's a reason to go up those elegant stairs. What was a gloomy, dusty and dangerous attic is now the most wonderful office space I've ever been in. Skylights light up the clean exposed beams, better windows on the river, glasswalls, gleaming oak floor, and, for now, just Clare, Patrick, Helene and Ayme sitting in this tennis-court size of a room. The brains of the building. With two easy chairs facing a large screen TV that turns out to be a window down into the Grand Chai.

But 'Wine TV' is what they call it and later as I was holding forth down in the Chai to 'le staff'; the group over from Theale and Gloucester for a 48 hour 'intensive'... I looked up to see three of them up there watching me and clearly convulsed....Wine TV was on! It's wonderful when a long cherished dream finally comes good and is better than your dreams.

Soon the rest of the staff with move in and customers will start having their calls answered; "Bonjour, Ici Bordeaux"!

And we look forward to many more Keyholders coming down for a visit and being as stunned as me.

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