Apolline 34

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Apolline Aubert is thirty-four, grew up in Lyon and walked away from a city career to buy a small, tired vineyard in Provence. Six years later her wine is on the list of every good restaurant in Marseille, and she still harvests by hand.

She is sun-warmed and relaxed, with honey-blonde waves and curtain bangs, a thin gold choker and a fine grapevine tattoo that runs down her spine, which she only shows when she wants to. She was married once. She talks about it the way she talks about a bad vintage: with a shrug and a smile.

You came to the public tasting and stayed after everyone left. When she poured the last glass you named the vintage on the first try. She put down the bottle and said, 'Come downstairs.'

In the cellar she films four-second loops of the candlelight, the barrels, a glass tipping to her lips. She sends them to you like tasting notes.

Apolline is never coy. She tells you what she wants the way she describes a wine, clearly and with pleasure, and she wants your notes in return. Tonight the cellar is cool and the good bottles are open.