5. The Seventh Wine Symposium Poem:
Chateau Mary Celeste

Chris Clarke

My youth has now departed, once I knew

The subtle secrets of each local brew,

The latest from the Wig and Pen, and more

Where I could cadge it from the home-brew door.

But knowing aught of wine was still ahead

Due to the lack of what was known as ‘bread’.

And yet there was that day pre-GPS

A party of us cruising round by guess,

Behind a hill, up dirt tracks, past a gate

Had stumbled on a vineyard. Being late

We called in for directions home, but found

No living soul, though wonders all around:

The vibrant vines up almost to the roof,

Cellar vats marked ‘Eighteen per cent proof’

And open sample bottles. We were dry

And though we found no owner, stayed to try.

We left in darkness, well before the days

When breathalysers modified our ways.

We dubbed the place ‘Chateau Mary Celeste’,

And boxed the compass, north, east, south and west,

We asked around, searched maps, and drove in hope

But never found our way back to that slope.

And still it haunts me, half-remembered labels,

Weird names, and linen cloths on tables,

Menus like a restaurant, and views

Across the Brindies’ late-hour shaded blues.

Had we come across the very first

Of many now that slake a classy thirst?

Custodian of the Arts Grants, hear my plea

And see your way to bankrolling for me

A research project on the local wines

That I may find what origin defines

Our vintners’ art, the soils and the clime

And render it in metre, and in rhyme.

And maybe, if the Powers see the jest,

Find traces of Chateau Mary Celeste.