1152: Eleanor of Aquitaine marries Henry Plantagenet, and Bordeaux's wine sails into English hands for three centuries. At the City's Vintry wharf, merchants haul the casks ashore by the Three Cranes; London gives the wine its own word — claret — and never quite gives up the habit. Vintry Claret keeps that imported gravity: a red weathered toward brown, warmth held in reserve. The shade of a long lease, not a quick toast.