by Peter May
Guy beamed. “Exactly. I have more than four thousand labels, Enzo, and nearly seventy thousand bottles. You couldn’t put a price on the collection. I have vintages down there that will never be drunk.”
Enzo frowned. “Why not?”
“Because they’re far too valuable to waste on a moment of fleeting pleasure.”
The cellar was accessed through a stout oak door off the reception area, just a few paces from the west-facing dining room. Guests were already assembling in the lounge to order aperitifs and await that day’s amuse-bouches, spoonfuls of flavour served on lacquer platters, whatever the chef might have dreamed up during the afternoon to whet the appetites of evening diners.
Guy flicked a light switch at the top of a flight of wooden steps leading down to the cellar. Lamps flickered and shed soft light on rows of wine racks stretching off into the chill gloom below them. The cellar was enormous, filling the footprint of the entire house, hacked out of the bedrock on which the foundations had been built. The floor was stone flagged, and the walls themselves bedrock rising to stone founds.
Guy’s voice boomed and echoed as he led Enzo down the steps. “The temperature down here never wavers,” he said. “Summer or winter. Better than any air-conditioning. A constant twelve degrees centigrade. Perfect to keep the wine in best condition.” He started off along a narrow passage between two towering rows of racks. “When success came we spent money on three things. The building itself, Marc’s kitchen, and my cellar. And I’m pretty sure I’ve assembled one of the best in France.” He stopped and turned to confront the following Enzo with a mask of incomprehension. He shook his head. “The strangest thing. Marc was possibly one of the best chefs this country has ever produced. He had an impeccable palate. Incredibly discerning. He should have revelled in the degustation, the tasting of the wines. But he didn’t drink. Only the odd glass. He had no interest in wine. None. Quite extraordinary.”
Enzo nodded his agreement. “Yes.” How anyone, never mind a three-star chef, could not enjoy a glass of good wine was beyond him.
“You’re a wine man yourself, I take it?”
Enzo grinned. “One of my great pleasures in life, Guy, is to sit back and enjoy a bottle of fine wine.”
Guy’s beam stretched his face. “Excellent! A man after my own heart, then. I know that you are here on… what shall we say… rather unpleasant business. But we’ll break open a few good bottles as compensation while you are. And have some damned good food, too. Marc would have approved of that.” He paused. “You’re from Cahors, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Yes… the black wine of Cahors. The Malbec is a difficult grape, but when it’s crafted properly the results can be magnificent.” He reached up and carefully drew out a dusty bottle. “Chateau La Caminade. Ninety-five. Wonderful with a civet de sanglier. The blood of the earth mixed with the blood of the wild boar. But I’m sure you’ve had many a bottle of La Caminade.”
“I have.” Enzo felt his mouth water with anticipation.
But to his disappointment Guy slipped it back into its rack, and headed off among the canyons of wine. Once again he stopped, stooping this time to very carefully extract a bottle from one of the lower racks. He turned, holding the bottle in both hands, to present the label to Enzo. “What, I am sure, you won’t have tasted before, is one of these.”
Enzo peered at the faded and browning label and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
Guy roared with laughter. “Shocked?”
Enzo couldn’t help but laugh. “I am a little.”
“Never expected a dyed in the wool Frenchman to have a Californian vintage in his cellar, did you?”
“I certainly didn’t.”
Guy turned the bottle to look at the label himself. “Opus One was the brainchild of two of the world’s great winemakers, you know. Baron Philippe de Rothschild and Robert Mondavi. They hatched the idea between them in Hawaii in 1970, and this was their first vintage, more than thirty years old now, but still wonderful. Cabernet sauvignon blended with sixteen percent cabernet franc and four percent merlot. It cost three hundred and fifty dollars when they first produced it. You can imagine what it is worth now.”
“Only as much as someone is prepared to pay for it.”
“True. But let me assure you Enzo, there are many people who would pay plenty for a bottle like this. Just to experience those flavours. That wonderfully evolved, intense and fragrant nose of cedar, black fruits, smoked meat, leather spice. So full of fruit and soft tannins, but still elegant in its complexity.”
Enzo felt saliva filling his mouth again. It was almost as if Guy were tormenting him on purpose, tantalising him with the promise of something he would never deliver. The Frenchman slipped the bottle back into its resting place, and set off again at pace. Enzo struggled to keep up.
“So many wines to choose from. You could debate with yourself all day which one to have.” He stopped at the end of a row. “I do understand, you know, that the cellar is ostensibly for the pleasure of our diners, that we offer them possibly one of the best wine lists in the world. But they are like my children, these bottles. Every last one of them. I hate to see them opened at the table of strangers. It’s like a little part of me dies each time one is drunk.”
He turned to his left and drew out a bottle at chest height. “Now this…” he swivelled, beaming, toward Enzo, “…is something you are only ever likely to see once in a lifetime. And most people never will. I have all the best vintages here from Bordeaux and Burgundy, from ‘59 to 2005. Cheval Blanc, Ausone, Haut Brion, Lafite, Margaux, Petrus…” He paused, eyes wide and shining with excitement at the recital of these unsurpassable vintages and labels, as if in owning the bottles he owned everything else about them, too. “But this… this is special.”
He turned the label toward Enzo with reverential hands.
Enzo’s eyes opened wide. “Chateau Latour, 1863,” he read. The label was only barely legible.
Guy almost trembled with the excitement of holding it. “Here. Take it.” He held it out toward Enzo, but the Scotsman shook his head.
“I couldn’t. What if I dropped it?”
Guy laughed heartily. “I would dispatch you in swift order to join my brother, wherever he might be.” He almost thrust it at Enzo. “Go on, take it!”
Enzo tensed as he grasped the bottle firmly, the glass cool on the skin of his palms, the smell of age rising from its label, and it felt like holding history in his hands. Such a bottle would never even appear on a wine list. No one could put a price on it. And yet Guy had acquired it, probably at auction. So he had put a price on it then. He wondered what it was, but knew Guy would never tell.
Guy watched him intently, knowing exactly how Enzo must be feeling, enjoying it, even second-hand. He took the bottle back, and Enzo breathed a sigh of relief, which Guy detected immediately. He grinned. “Like I said. There are some bottles that will never be drunk, simply treasured by their owners. Sometimes the joy of collecting is almost better than drinking.” He fed it gingerly back into its cradle and turned to Enzo, the tension of the moment evaporating into the cool air. He smiled. “Let’s show you the kitchen.”
Chapter Four
Sliding glass doors parted to usher Guy and Enzo into the kitchen. Enzo had been unsure what to expect, never having been in the kitchen of a three-star restaurant before, but this surpassed anything he might have imagined. It was vast. A huge rectangular space divided in two halves. One half was shared by a servers’ station where the cheese trolleys were loaded and the coffees made, and by the boulangerie-patisserie which baked the bread and prepared the desserts. The other half was where the serious cooking was done. There were hotplates and gas rings, ovens, freezers, larders, and a charcoal grill. A dazzling array of shiny, stainless steel surfaces.
The whole kitchen was alive with activity. Extractors hummed and timers pinged, and an extraordinary number of men and women in white, sporting long green aprons and tall white
hats, moved among the preparation and cooking areas with all the sure-footedness of a well-choreographed ballet company. Evening service was imminent.
“There are anything up to twenty chefs working here at any one time,” Guy said. “Although the bulk of them are stagiaires. Most trainees spend a season here, learning from the bottom up. But we have short term trainees, too, who normally come to us on release from college courses. The stagiaires get all the donkey work to do. Chopping vegetables, preparing stocks, jointing the birds, trimming the meat, washing the floor.” He wandered across the space that divided the two halves of the kitchen, where a long, low, marble table was laid out with three place settings. Beyond it, floor to ceiling glass windows gave on to what Enzo assumed must have been Marc’s office.
Servers in loose black tops and pants glided in and out bearing large silver trays loaded with amuse bouches prepared in the patisserie to serve guests in the lounge. Enzo was aware of curious eyes flickering in his direction, then away again. There couldn’t have been anyone in the kitchen who did not know why he was here.
“The organisation of the kitchen is fairly simple,” Guy said. “It is divided into four. The larder, or gare manger; the vegetable section; fish and meat; and the boulangerie-patisserie. There is a chef in charge of each, the chef de partie. Then there is the sous chef, or second, the chef de cuisine, and, of course, the chef himself. Le patron.”
“And who is le patron now?”
“Let me introduce you.”
Guy led Enzo across to where a work station was being set up with wooden chopping board, knives, and condiments below a blindingly bright heat lamp. The chef behind it, dressed all in white, was nearly extinguished by the light. A man in his early forties with a neatly trimmed ginger moustache and amber-flecked green eyes, he was almost painfully thin. Enzo wondered how anyone who enjoyed his food could be so emaciated.
“This is Georges Crozes. He was Marc’s second, promoted to chef when Marc died.”
Georges wiped a bony hand on a clean torchon dangling from his apron strings and reached over stainless steel to shake Enzo’s hand. He had unsmiling, guarded eyes. “ Enchante, monsieur.” But Enzo felt that he was less than enchanted to meet him.
Guy seemed oblivious. “Traditionally, when a three-star chef dies, Michelin takes away a star. They say it is a mark of respect for the deceased chef, since how could someone else immediately fill those three-star shoes? In reality, it usually means huge loss of income for the widow or whoever has inherited the restaurant.” He beamed appreciatively in the direction of Georges Crozes. “However, because of the circumstances of Marc’s death, they made an exception for us. And it is very much down to Georges that we have retained that third star ever since.”
Enzo said, “I understood that Michelin was thought to be on the point of taking away one of Marc’s stars anyway.”
Guy flicked him a glance. “A rumor. Whether it was true, we’ll never know. At any rate, Georges was his protege, schooled in the style Fraysse, and although he has introduced his own individual slant on things, it is still essentially Marc’s cuisine that we serve here. And since we still have those stars…” He shrugged to indicate he believed his point had been made.
“Monsieur Fraysse, your evening meal is ready.”
Enzo turned to find an older man smiling benignly at them. He was tall, a man in his sixties, almost completely bald, with a tightly trimmed silver moustache. He was dressed all in black like the other servers, but had the relaxed demeanour of someone in charge.
Guy nodded. “Thank you, Patrick.”
Patrick waved an open palm toward the marble table and Enzo saw that it was now laden with food. There were a large breadbasket with four different kinds of bread to be broken by hand and eaten with the fingers, bowls of salad and pasta, and a large steaming dish of freshly cooked mussels in a cream and garlic sauce.
Elisabeth Fraysse bustled out of the office as Guy and Enzo took their seats, and she sat opposite them while Patrick placed clean plates in front of each.
“Did you get that bottle I asked for?” Guy asked him.
Patrick made a small bow, for all the world like a well-practised butler, or an old family retainer. “I did, Monsieur Fraysse. I’ve had it breathing for you.”
Guy grinned at Enzo. “A little something to celebrate your arrival.”
As they loaded their plates with salad and pasta, and large scoops of shiny, gaping mussel shells revealing succulent orange moules, Patrick brought a bottle to the table and held it with the label toward Guy, bringing a smile to his employer’s face.
“Perfect.” He turned to Enzo as Patrick poured him a mouthful to taste. “A 1993 DRC Grand Cru, La Tache. Domaine de la Romanee Conti. Most people believe you should only drink white with fish and fruits de mer, but a good pinot noir will go with most seafood and is particularly good with moules.” He put his nose in the wine glass, breathed in, swirled it, breathed in again, then took a small sip to wash around his mouth. “Oh.” His eyes almost closed in ecstasy. “This is going to be so very good.”
Patrick filled Enzo’s glass, then Guy’s, but Enzo noticed that Madame Fraysse was drinking only sparkling mineral water. Guy raised his glass to touch Enzo’s, and they sipped at the pale liquid red. Its wonderful spicy light fruit filled Enzo’s mouth, and he caught Guy watching him for his reaction. “I hope,” Enzo said, “that watching me drink this doesn’t induce you to die a little.”
Guy laughed. “Never, when a bottle is shared with a friend. What do you think?”
“I think it’s an extraordinary wine, Guy.”
“What do you taste?”
It was, it seemed to Enzo, almost like a test. What did he really know about wines. He took another sip to roll around his mouth and said, “It’s light, elegant. But still rich. Full of plum, berry, and a touch of vanilla. Aged long enough, I guess, for most of the tannins to have turned to fruit.”
Guy grinned infectiously. “Spot on. You know your wines, Enzo. Not bad for a Scotsman.”
“Maybe we’ll try a whisky tasting some day, and we’ll see how you get on?”
Guy threw his head back and roared with laughter. “And I’ll bet there’s a thing or two about drinking whisky that you could teach me.”
Enzo smiled. “You would win that bet.”
He turned to the moules, breaking off a piece of bread to dip in their creamy juices, then extracting the first of them with his fork and popping it into his mouth. It was so soft and tender and full of flavour that it seemed to simply melt on his tongue. He used its empty shell as pincers to pick the others from their shells, savouring each one in turn, and cleansing his palate from time to time with some wine and the mildly dressed salad on his plate.
He looked up to find Elisabeth Fraysse watching him. Her smile was a little embarrassed, as if she had been caught spying on him. “I see you enjoy your food, Monsieur Macleod.”
Enzo grinned. “I do.” He patted his middle. “A little too much sometimes.” He mopped up more juices with another piece of bread. “What sort of waiting time is there for reservations at Chez Fraysse?”
“It’s about six months these days,” Madame Fraysse said. Enzo’s hand froze midway to his mouth, juices dripping from his mussel shell.
“You’re kidding? How can anyone know what they will be doing or where they will be in six months’ time.”
Guy said, “People who reserve with us know exactly where they’ll be and what they’ll be doing. They’ll be eating here.”
Enzo nodded thoughtfully. “You spoke earlier about trainees being with you for a ‘season’. What length is a season?”
“April to November,” Madame Fraysse said. “When Marc was alive he insisted we stay open all year round. But it was hopeless in the winter. When the weather was reasonable we could still only half-fill one of the dining rooms, even with three stars. When the weather was unreasonable, we would have cancellations. We get a lot of snow here in the winter months.”
Guy said, “After Marc died we took the decision to close from the end of October to the beginning of April. And we still make more money than most other restaurants do in a whole year.”
“We’re closing for the winter at the end of next week,” Madame Fraysse said, almost pointedly. As if warning him that his time there would be limited.
Enzo found himself momentarily distracted as he met the eye of an attractive young woman working behind the nearest stainless steel counter, where she was squeezing swirls of cream from a dispenser on to the tops of hollowed-out round courgettes filled with a steaming savoury stuffing. She had beautiful brown eyes and long blond hair piled up beneath her tall chef’s hat, accentuating fine cheekbones and the elegant line of a delicate jaw. The hint of a smile played around full lips, and Enzo felt his heart leap. Then her eyes dipped again to the courgettes.
“Shutting down in the winter also means that we stay true to the philosophy of Marc’s cuisine,” Elisabeth Fraysse was saying. “Perhaps even more than he did himself. Because, you see, out of season it was impossible to acquire the fresh herbs and vegetables that he insisted on using. Of course, he had evolved winter menus, but they were never quite the same.”
Guy said, “He only ever wanted the freshest of vegetables, prepared in the simplest of ways, so that they retained the essence of their true flavours. Which, of course, he enhanced with the herbs and wild flowers that only grow in these parts. The vegetable sauces and reductions and purees with which he decorated his plates were not just for presentation. They brought unique flavours to the plate to complement the meat or the fish. Of course, he was inspired by others, like Michel Guerard and the brilliant Michel Bras down in the Aveyron, but his cuisine was very much his own, developed from that wonderful palate of his.”
“And the herbs and flowers from his potager,” Marc’s widow added. “We’ve developed and expanded the kitchen garden that Marc started all those years ago. He would have loved what we’ve made of it. We have a gardener who looks after it full time now.”