We carried on through the verdant Burgundy landscape to Mailly-la-Ville for a lunch stop, then on to the mooring at Bailly, arriving late afternoon in very warm weather. The mooring was great, with free power and water, and, even better, we were the only boat there.

Even better than that was the nearby wine cave of Bailly Lapierre. We thought we might be too late to go wine tasting, but as it happened they were open till 7pm, so we strolled the short distance up the hill to the cave entrance.

The underground limestone caverns are the result of quarrying, the stone destined for some iconic buildings such as Notre Dame in Paris, Chartres Cathedral, and the Pantheon.

Underground quarrying at the Bailly site continued from the 12th century right through to the beginning of the 20th, leaving behind four hectares of cool, dark caverns ideal for the fermentation and storage of wine.

As we approached the huge opening in the limestone rock face we could feel cool air rushing out and over us - a welcome breeze given the sultry warmth of the day. The other thing that took us by surprise was that the road led straight in through the rock, and within seconds we were walking along a wide rock tunnel, with twinkling lights identifying the edges of the roadway, and a golden glow in the distance around a bend.

It felt like a James Bond movie set - the entrance to the bad guy's underground base from which his evil missiles would be launched at the world's major cities, or in this case more likely the world's major winemakers.

'Good evening Mr Bond, I've been expecting you,' said Goldrinker, twirling a glass of '61 Lafite-Rothschild in his pudgy hand and sniffing its aroma. 'Welcome to my little "wine cellar". I will offer you a glass to celebrate shortly, so you can appreciate that the wine I have stored here will be worth a hundred times what it is today, once I've destroyed all the world's Bordeaux stocks!'

Goldrinker slurped a generous gulp and tilted the glass to consider the contents. 'A good nose and a full yet elegant body,' he proclaimed. 'Rather like myself!' He chuckled at his pathetic joke. 'And also a long farewell, which is quite appropriate Mr Bond, since it is almost time to say goodbye!' Goldrinker set the glass down on a Louis XIV wine table beside him.

Bond cocked an eyebrow, feigned indifference, and slowly felt for the corkscrew in his pocket...

We reached the source of the golden light - a cavernous tasting room and sales area off to the left, carved out of the limestone. On the right, disappearing into the cool darkness we could see tantalising glimpses of thousands and thousands of bottles resting on their sides. A sign indicated we were not to go adventuring without a guide, so we strolled into the tasting area.

By a stroke of luck we were in time for the last tour of the day, guided by a lovely dark-haired young madamoiselle who spoke good English, and divided her commentary more in our favour (we thought) than the French tourists in our little group. We missed her name, but she looked to me like a Sandrine more than an Amily or a Michelle.

Sandrine led us by her LED torch along wide underground avenues of bottles, around eight million in all, and stopped at strategically-placed photo displays here and there to explain the fermentation process behind Bailly Lapierre's sparkling wines. Basically it's the Methode Champenoise, where the initial tank fermentation is followed up by a secondary fermentation in the bottle before the dead yeast cells are degorged, the wine topped-up, and a cork wired on to keep the contents under pressure.

Sandrine was careful not to refer to the process as being the same as Champagne, and only mentioned the word once in the whole tour. Instead, she informed us, Bailly Lapierre makes 'Crémant' wine, in a range that goes from Extra Brut to Sec and includes a rosé. But to all intents and purposes it is Champagne - it's just not made within the designated Champagne growing area and therefore cannot legally use or even borrow the appellation. If it did, the chances are a team of Champagne makers would filter south in the dead of night and dynamite the entrance to the caverns, sealing off all eight million bottles and Sandrine with them. At least she would die happy.

But back in reality-land we learned that while the grapes were picked by hand, there's quite a degree of mechanisation in the rest of the method, including a robotic arm to stack multiple bottles at once using a vacuum grip, and that the wines are turned and tilted over a period of three days to bring the dead yeast cells to the neck by a riddling machine. Gone are the days of human riddlers, along with the Occupational Overuse Syndrome that almost certainly went with the job.

Every now and then Sandrine would stop and draw our attention to large carvings in the walls of the subterranean avenues, the result of Bailly Lapierre regularly inviting sculptors to create reliefs in the limestone. These ranged from homages to the grape and winemaking process to more avant garde carvings at which we were invited to provide our own interpretations. One carving even showed a man carving a naked female out of the rock, and we were told this was the sculptor himself, who had said it represented him creating his 'perfect woman'. In the sculpture he had completed the torso of his goddess and was about to start on her nether regions. He had a look of glee on his face.

We also learned that the constant 12-degree temperature and darkness were an ideal combination for growing mushrooms, and that the caverns had been used for this prior to their being turned over to the Bailly winemakers' cooperative in 1972. Sandrine used her torch to point out dark fluffy fungi growing on some of the walls and ceilings as evidence.

After around forty minutes we arrived back at the tasting area, where we'd left Bond and Goldrinker earlier, and Sandrine announced it was now time to taste the product. Excellent! And it was; just as you'd expect from a wine made from the proper Champenoise method; the bead - or bubbles - very fine, the nose yeasty, and the taste a mouth-filling explosion of effervescence. Liz and I like dry bubblies so the Extra Brut was our favourite, and between our friends and us we purchased a dozen. Sandrine gave us our tasting glasses to take away.

I asked her in my halting French whether she was a wine expert and if she particularly liked the Bailly Lapierre crémant wines, but disappointlingly she said she doesn't drink, and prefers fruit juice.

Ah well, it's hard to find the perfect woman. Maybe that's why the sculptor was carving his own.

Postscript: What happened to Bond...

Bond deftly threw his hat onto the top hook of the coat stand in the corner of the office.

'James! You're back!' said Moneypenny.

'Couldn't stand being away from you any longer, Moneypenny,' Bond smiled.

'M's waiting. You're to go straight in.'

Bond went through the green leather twin doors. M looked up from a file.

'Ah 007, good to have you back. So, what happened? I gather Goldrinker is no longer a threat?'

Bond sat in the proffered chair. 'No sir, he's not.'

'So how did you escape? Your report was sketchy in details...'

Bond relaxed into the leather wingback. 'It wasn't difficult. Goldrinker offered me a final farewell drink - a glass of the '85 Margaux. I took out the corkscrew that Q had issued me at the start of the mission, and as Goldrinker set out the glasses I unscrewed both ends of the corkscrew handle. These, as you're no doubt aware, made two perfectly-sized earplugs, noise-cancelling too, which I inserted in my ears while Goldrinker's back was turned.

'I then twisted each side of the corkscrew handle to prime the mechanism. Goldrinker turned from the wine glasses. "Ah Mr Bond, I see you have come prepared with your own corkscrew! Excellent! I shall keep it as a souvenir - after you've gone." I handed him the implement.

'Goldrinker blew the dust off the Chateau Margaux and removed the lead capsule from the bottle. He smiled as he inserted the corkscrew, and I made a final adjustment to the earplugs.

He gave the corkscrew a hefty twist, which activated the sonic device. The whine began almost inaudibly at first, but grew in intensity within seconds until it reached maximum pitch. The wineglasses were first to go - they exploded into a million shards. It was only then that Goldrinker realised what was happening.

'The bottle of Margaux began to vibrate in his hands. He looked at it as though he'd never seen a bottle of wine before, and suddenly realised the significance.

'"You have tricked me Mr Bond!" he shouted over the noise, as the bottle exploded in his hand, showering him with glass. Blood and Bordeaux dribbled down in rivulets, as his face turned into a savage Munch-like Scream parody, full realisation finally dawning on him. In the nearby cavern Goldrinker heard his entire collection of Bordeaux wines - some 100,000 bottles - disintegrate into a gorgeously-hued red mass of glass and beautifully-perfumed wine, which ran across the floors, pooling blood-red under the dim lights of the cave.'

Bond shot his cuffs and looked at M. 'So his whole reason for destroying the world's Bordeaux stocks was removed in a trice.'

'Didn't he try and launch the missiles?' asked M.

'No sir,' said Bond with a half smile. 'I don't think he had the bottle.'