by Helen Fripp
‘Lift up my trunk and tie it down. I’m not going to be stopping much.’
‘You’re stubborn, but I never thought you were stupid.’
‘It will only take about a week to get to Amsterdam if I’m fast. Don’t worry, I’ll change horses on the way. Listen, Louis won’t leave Russia until the new consignment arrives. Things are desperate there since Napoléon’s advance – anyone French is under suspicion. I’m so worried about him; he’s already been robbed once. He says if I get everything to him in the next month, he promises to leave.
‘You know how it is. If I don’t go to Amsterdam alone to rescue my bottles, the whole town will write my business off, and I can’t afford another race to the border. Not with Moët – or any of the other vintners for that matter. Just tie up my trunk and wish me luck. Mentine is safe with my parents, and don’t forget to tell Madame Olivier I’m visiting Thérésa in Paris for the end of the season. That way, the whole town will know within hours. They’d much rather I was sifting through potential husbands in Paris than sorting my bottles in Amsterdam and earning an honest living.’
‘You’ll need a bloody miracle if you think you can do this alone,’ said Xavier, securing the ropes on the trunk.
‘Miracles happen every year, right here in my vineyards, and I’m not letting any of it go to waste.’
‘Do what you bloody well like then. Just don’t come crying to me when you get robbed or raped on the road, or break a wheel in a rut, or get kidnapped by one of those cheese-breathed, foul-mouthed Dutch sailors.’
‘I can’t come crying to you if I’ve been kidnapped,’ she retorted.
Xavier tutted, but with a glint of pride he grumbled, ‘Go, while it’s still dark. And don’t worry, I’ll pick up the pieces here while you’re off on your wild goose chase.’
She cracked the whip. The cool night air stung her cheeks; the road ahead was bright and moonlit. She flew as fast as the bay was willing until the vineyards turned to farmland and the sun introduced the new day with a blazing show of mackerel clouds.
Amsterdam was sultry; the docks were deserted again, the air so thick it was like breathing cotton wool. Her black widow’s dress clung to her and a bloated sun lolled on the horizon. Sailors and dock workers sprawled outside the taverns, still up from the night before, too much time on their hands with no ships sailing in or out, drunkenly catcalling clusters of prostitutes. Some of the girls were very young, emaciated and sallow, collarbones protruding above pushed-up breasts. Someone’s baby, now a dead-eyed skeleton. Fortunes rose and fell fast in war. At least she was keeping her own employees in work.
Nicole hurried past, grateful that the prostitutes rendered her invisible. When she reached the warehouse where Louis had sent the majority of her stock, she unhooked the keys from her belt, wiggled the lock open and turned the handle, dreading what she would find. The warehouse smelt musty. Pallet upon pallet was stacked high to the ceiling. Her heart sank. It would take weeks to get through them all. She unbuttoned her sleeves and focused on the pallet in front of her, pulled out a bottle and held it up to the light. A fungal finger gloated at her from inside the wine. Ruined. She started a reject pile, ready for the cart to take them to the merchant who would pour her precious wine down the drain and reuse the bottles.
She worked through ten pallets, each one the same story. Ruined, ruined, ruined. Nearly fifty thousand bottles, the result of battling the elements, back-breaking harvest, press, fermenting and careful blending, to end up going nowhere, crammed into this grim shed next to a dull grey sea. Such bad luck was just unfair. A day earlier and these bottles would have made the ship to Russia. It would be so much easier to leave the whole bloody lot to its fate.
After another ten pallets, the sun was already high outside the window. Time was elastic in this place and hunger pangs reminded Nicole to unwrap the neatly folded greased-paper package her hotel had provided. The baguette was as good as Natasha’s, still fresh, and it smelt like home.
She remembered Natasha’s parting words, You make your own luck, and you are a lucky person.
She devoured the rest of the baguette and set back to work.
It took three weeks of working day and night, acting as judge and jury for every one of her precious bottles. Each night, she huddled back along the canals to her small hotel, then rose at the first light of dawn to resume her task, the kindly owner of the hotel pressing a food package into her hands as she left in case she forgot to eat.
She was determined that she would save every good bottle. If she could get even five thousand bottles to Louis, it would be something. At least he’d come home and be safe from the escalating situation in Russia.
Chatting to the wine helped with the loneliness. Each bottle had its own personality, its own life to live. ‘You,’ she told a salvageable red, ‘will wind up a track in the sunshine where the larks hover above the poppies, crimson against yellow grass, to a mellow country house. There’ll be a simple wedding, with wild flowers and fiddles. And you,’ (the bottle of Chardonnay felt dangerously warm to the touch), ‘may lie for years in a cellar, waiting for a longed-for baby to be born. I hope for their sake you are opened.’ She picked up a bottle of champagne. ‘And you, my beautiful friend, are for starlit lovers.’
At last a good batch! She kissed the pristine bottle. Crystal clear, a smart cordon of fizz, corks intact. She remembered her abandoned riddling experiment in the basement and resolved to try again. And keep trying. She’d be rich if she could guarantee this quality every time and François’ name, the name he had given her, would be famous down the generations. She’d be laughed out of town if anyone knew the extent of her ambition, but barely a day passed when she didn’t turn the problem over in her mind and try to find a solution.
Each good bottle received a kiss as she lined them up: enough to supply a whole palace! She remembered Louis’ news that the Tsarina Elizabeth was five months pregnant. It would be these bottles that would help celebrate the royal birth in December. It was possible to get it all overland to Louis by then. Surely Natasha could conjure up just a little bit of extra luck for the journey!
At last, when the task was nearly complete, she summoned Xavier’s driver from Reims. When he arrived, she was relieved to see that he had a kind, open face and she recognised him as one of the boys who was always in the square, now grown up, who she’d known forever, even if she didn’t know his name. Good, Xavier had chosen well. She needed all the friends she could get. She nodded a bright hello.
‘Pack these carefully. The roads will be rough. Make a nest of hay for each bottle and don’t spare it.’
She supervised until she was satisfied, then continued sorting, giving the driver the map Louis had sent her with the best and safest routes into Russia. She tucked a note on the final champagne bottle in the batch for Louis.
The minute this is sold, you are to come back immediately…
She pictured Louis touching the bottles she had kissed.
Come straight back, you are needed here. Your Nicole.
She thought better of the kiss and smudged it out.
Finally she was standing on the docks next to a glowering sea, surveying her work, the wind knifing at her hair. Most bottles were condemned to death and piled on wagons, ready to be poured away. The cheque in her hand was pathetic. The scrapped bottles yielded one hundredth of what they would have been worth had they survived.
But four thousand were piled up on her wagon bound for Louis, enough to prove once more the worth of her vineyards and blends. Enough to establish the name of Veuve Clicquot in the valuable Russian markets. Enough to get Louis out of there the moment his business was done.
‘Go!’ She dismissed the driver. ‘Make sure every single one of these bottles gets there. You will be rewarded for speed.’
As the wagon jolted away, she allowed herself to think of it. A year ago today, François died. She checked the position of the sun. François’ champagne was finally going to Russia. The wind was blowi
ng in from the east, the direction her bottles were headed in. Natasha would say that was a good omen, and why not believe it?
When the wagon disappeared, the weariness came over her like lead. She could go to sleep now, right here on the docks. A coil of rope would be a featherbed, but there was no time. Back home it was harvest and she belonged there.
The journey home was exhausting, but at the final leg before Reims, her faithful Pinot was waiting for her, fresh and watered. Xavier’s dire predictions about her travelling alone had come to nothing and, as she jolted into the vineyards, the morning mist clinging to the vines, the sky was soft with sunrise and the field hands were already out picking, small dark figures moving purposefully. Thank God again for Xavier.
She jumped down and bit into a grape. The hot summer was in the sweetness, mixed with the taste of the chalky earth that had nurtured it. A good harvest. Borrowing a knife from a picker, she sliced off a bunch and placed it with the others in the basket.
‘For you,’ she whispered to François. He had planted these vines with his own hands.
Chapter 14
The Women’s Tasting Committee
November 1806
September and October were seared with lack of news from either Louis or her bottles. Every time a letter was delivered, or a post horse churned up the dust, Nicole’s stomach lurched, and every time disappointment burned. What a relief to find hope in the arrival of the women’s tasting committee, who she would teach to help with the blends, and even replace the men who refused to help her. She also congratulated herself, developing allies at the epicentre of her detractors. When the horses kicked up the gravel in the press yard, she ran out to greet the carriage.
‘You’re early, but please come in. Xavier’s setting everything up for the tasting. Just the two of you?’ asked Nicole.
‘Just us. Quality, not quantity, my dear,’ said Madame Olivier.
Nicole stooped and picked a piece of milkweed from the gravel to hide her disappointment and took them to the tasting rooms. They’d been set up for at least five more people, with tall stools and tables, neatly laid-out spittoons, starched white napkins and polished wine glasses, all beautifully arranged in the simple brick room attached to the press for the purpose. She directed Xavier to take away some of the tables and chairs and his face darkened in sympathy.
‘May I introduce Mademoiselle Var,’ said Madame Olivier.
‘Please, call me Joelle,’ she said shyly. ‘How exciting, to be mistress of all you survey!’
‘It’s my life,’ said Nicole. ‘We’re waiting for Natasha, then we’ll be four. Still enough to make up a little tasting committee. Please, sit.’
‘Before Natasha arrives, is there time for advice from an old lady?’ said Madame Olivier.
‘And a sympathetic old maid?’ said Joelle.
‘Oh?’
‘They should just come out and say it, or it’s not fair,’ said Madame Olivier.
‘Who?’
‘Pretty much every woman of standing in this town.’
‘I’m not sure I want to hear this.’
‘You have a right to know. And a right to reply,’ said Madame Olivier. ‘They’re saying that you bring shame on your father.’
‘How? My father is more than capable of fighting his own battles, and I can definitely fight mine.’
‘Why fight battles? I am saying what you don’t want to hear, but your little daughter – Mentine, I think?’
Nicole nodded.
‘Mentine didn’t ask for her mother to bring shame on her little head. Rumour has it that your salesman is in Russia – a dangerous place for him to be in these times. Philippe Clicquot partly bankrolls your endeavours and all this risk – for what? For you to indulge yourself in this hobby, acting like a man?’
‘Mentine’s reputation is in danger because of people like you! I am running a business nearly every family in this town has a hand in. You blindly follow old rules and traditions, what for?’
‘Rules are made for a reason. Men do business, women look after the home, unless they have no choice, like your friend Natasha, for instance.’
‘Has the revolution changed nothing?’
‘Not for women.’
‘If you believe that, then why are you here?’ said Nicole, exasperated. ‘Did you just come for more fuel for your idle gossip?’
‘Come, come, my dear,’ said Madame Olivier. ‘I’m sure it’s escaped no one’s notice that I do like to know everyone’s business. But the way you spoke to me in the bakery did alter my opinion of you, and I must admit, we were intrigued. We came here to find out more about you, but also, who else in this town could teach us about what has always been a man’s domain? No one has ever singled me out for anything as interesting as this.’ Madame Olivier gestured to the wine-tasting accoutrements.
So she was a mere curiosity to be stared at. Nicole began to regret her invitation to these ladies.
‘I’m late, my apologies.’ Natasha stood in the doorway. ‘This is the first time I’ve closed the bakery in thirty years and it was difficult to leave.’
Xavier appeared carrying bottles. ‘Welcome to the coven,’ he growled.
Natasha sat up at the tasting tables with the others.
‘Now. You all look like you’ve seen a ghost!’ Natasha fished out some parcels from her bag and put them on the table. ‘Recognise these?’ Natasha said to Madame Olivier, revealing a key wrapped in velvet and an icon of Saint Rémi.
Madame Oliver didn’t reply.
‘You gave them to me when Daniel died. No one was kinder than you.’
‘The key to the bakery,’ said Madame Olivier quietly.
‘And Saint Rémi. You gave me the key to my new bakery and the rent has been far below the market value ever since, thanks to you. You said that the Saint Rémi meant I belonged to the town, when everyone else thought I should go back to Russia. You told me your husband was cruel and you wish he had died instead and that you had my freedom.’
Madame Olivier went pale. Natasha clasped her hand and pushed up her sleeve. The outline of a purple hand-shaped bruise revealed her story. Madame Olivier yanked down her sleeve, ashamed.
‘Still, after all these years?’ said Natasha. ‘Let Nicole be. I am an outsider. I see situations differently to you and I can see it’s in her blood. It makes her alive. Your influence in the town could set her free, my kind friend. And, Mademoiselle Var, I have something for you, too.’
Natasha pushed a linen pouch in her direction.
‘Open it.’
Mademoiselle Var spilled the contents onto the table. ‘Pips?’
‘Lemon pips. You’ve visited the bakery nearly every day since the revolution and made me tell you again and again how I travelled here from Russia, what I saw on the way, how things are at home. You tell me how much you’d like to see the sparkle of the Mediterranean, visit your relatives in the south, but you can never go, as your father refuses to take you and a woman can’t travel alone. What’s stopping you?’
‘It’s impossible for a woman to travel alone, obviously,’ said Mademoiselle Var, surprised that she even needed to explain.
‘Not for Nicole. She’s brave enough to flout the rules, but we punish her for it. Search your hearts, ask yourselves why? Because she’s doing what you feel you can’t. I don’t judge. We all create our own cages, but don’t create them for others too.’
‘We’ve said our piece,’ said Madame Olivier. ‘I’ve already gone on too much. I always do. Perhaps we should just press on with the tasting. At least if my mouth is full, I can’t put my foot in it again,’ said Madame Olivier apologetically.
Nicole poured out some glasses. ‘You haven’t told me anything I didn’t already know, Madame Olivier, and I appreciate your honesty. Sometimes the truth is hard to say, and to hear. Shall we just leave it at that?’
Natasha carefully wrapped the icon and the key back into their velvet pouch.
‘We’ll start with the white,’ sa
id Nicole. ‘Madame Olivier, I’m sure you know how it goes, but Natasha and Joelle, just breathe in the aroma deeply, take a big mouthful with some air, then spit. Don’t think about it too much. Just try to identify the taste – the first thing that comes into your head.’
‘Anything? I thought there were certain words you needed to use,’ said Joelle.
‘There are no rules, and everyone tastes differently, that’s part of the fun,’ said Nicole. ‘Just imagine you’re describing it to a child. Tell a story.’
Joelle took a sip, and spat. ‘The south, sunshine on water. Umm, lemon trees, almond blossom, the sea.’
‘The almond blossom is spot on!’ said Nicole. ‘A good wine transports us.’
‘Strawberries, hay, new riding gloves. The long summers before I married,’ said Madame Olivier, breathing deeply from the glass.
‘The perfect rosé, in that case. Xavier, this blend can be laid down.’
They moved on to the next wine.
‘Toasted flour, lemon custard, Black Sea salt – it has a very particular taste,’ mused Natasha.
‘You’re right, although I have no idea about the salt,’ said Nicole. ‘Nevertheless, a good set of notes for champagne.’
‘Of course it is. The fruits of my own labour, that one,’ said Xavier. ‘Louis’ll sell it for a fortune in Russia.’ He grinned, wiping out the glasses and pouring out her best red blend.
‘So your salesman is in Russia? You should get him out of there,’ said Madame Olivier.
‘He only made it as far as Saxony. There is a reasonable trade there, so that’s where he is. He’s German, so his contacts in the region are good…’ lied Nicole.
‘Not as good as Russia though. Especially for champagne. I’m probably saying too much again, and I know you take more risks than most, but if you value him, bring him back. Everyone has recalled their salespeople from London and St Petersburg. They’re arresting anyone French, I hear.’