Vintage

by Rosemary Friedman

  Pouring out samples of Château de Cluzac ’92 and ’93, she handed the glasses to the visite. With the exception of a few wine buffs, they pretended to assess its quality and aroma, about which they had not the first idea (the statutory wit declared it reminded him of his hamster’s cage), while wondering whether it was commeil faut to ask for refills. Several of them, Clare suspected, would have been equally satisfied had she given them a glass of vin, not château-bottled, but extremely ordinaire.

  ‘We’ve got a wine-tasting machine in Manchester…’ The speaker was bearded man who, despite his khaki shorts and sandals, looked, thought Clare – who was getting good at it – like a university lecturer. ‘Not in my department, I’m linguistics. In the Institute of Science and Technology.’

  ‘The Aromascan…’ Clare said. Halliday had been thorough in his briefing.

  ‘That will put the wine writers out of business!’

  The members of the group were getting friendly with each other.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Clare said, ‘the aromascan mistook a Matua Valley Chardonnay for a Drouhin red Beaune. It still has quite a long way to go.’

  ‘Back home we have an aroma wheel,’ a Californian, who later turned out to be the wine and spirit buyer for a cruise company and an invaluable contact, said. ‘It calibrates the experience of wine in the absence of sensory input. The University of California at Davis has identified twelve basic categories and a hundred and twenty-one experimentally distinguishable aromas which have been charted on a wheel. Each of them has a descriptive name. Wet dog is 2-methylbutanol; bell peppers is 2-isobutyl-3-methtoxyprazene, blackcurrant is 2,6,6-trimethyl-2-vinyl-4-acetoxytetrahydropyrane…’

  ‘They’ll be selling wine in the chemist’s soon,’ Manchester said, saving Clare the job of preventing California from usurping her role and giving a lecture, which would blind the holidaymakers with science as Halliday had blinded her.

  ‘Spinning-cone’ technology, developed in the Australian Wine Research Institute, used a fractional column, containing a stack of interlocking spinning cones, to separate out wine compounds and dismantle wine into its component parts. Finely tuned nostrils were then applied to specific aromas, which were graded according to their potency. The highly sophisticated, fractional column of the ‘spinning-cone’ was being used to remove unwanted flavours from wine, as well as to remove the alcohol for the alcohol-free wine, a contradiction in terms, which was gaining in popularity throughout the world.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Clare said, replying to the not-so-far-fetched suggestion that reconstructed wine would eventually be bought over the counter at the pharmacie. ‘Wine’ – she held up her glass – ‘is a complex substance. We’ve not yet succeeded in identifying all the chemical components’ (she heard Halliday’s voice in her ears) ‘which interact with one another in a variety of ways, according to their concentrations, and add up to a great deal more than a flavour. Hopefully – for the wine-producing estates – it will be a very, very long time before a Châteaux de Cluzac ninety-three can be reconstructed in the laboratory!’

  On that merry note, she tore the group away from the salle de reception and led them out through the courtyard and the formal gardens – where they stopped to take photographs of the geraniums – to the vineyards, where the vines, heavy with black-skinned grapes, were now almost shoulder high and the long hours of sunshine, combined with early-morning dews, presaged the fine harvest anticipated by the chef de culture.

  Waiting for the photographers to catch up with the others, Clare pointed in the direction of the Gironde.

  ‘You need a lot of water to make a good wine…’ It was the introduction to her vineyard spiel. ‘The wine of Bordeaux is a wine of rivers…’

  After a brief description of how the third ice age brought pebbles, shifted by the rivers Dordogne and Garonne, to form the terraces and hillocks of deep gravel which accounted for the body and bouquet of the wines assembled in the Médoc, she explained that, according to archaeological excavations, small vineyards had existed in Bordeaux since the time of the Roman occupation. Ending on a lighter note she recounted the story of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine who, according to legend, had first discovered the fruit of the vine and the art of making wine from it, and had spread the gift among mortals.

  ‘Are there any questions?’

  ‘What’s the significance of the roses?’ A tall American pointed to the pink Lili Marlène, Albert Rochas’ pride and joy, which flowered at the end of the rows.

  ‘Rose bushes are traditional in the Médoc. You’ll find them in a great many vineyards. Originally they were used to detect the first signs of mildew.’

  ‘The vines look real neat.’

  ‘One metre between them, and one metre between each row. The measurements are precise.’

  ‘You pick by machine?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Clare said. ‘Because of the tirage, the removing of the rotten grapes, the grapes are picked one bunch at a time. It takes two hours to pick one row.’

  Although many quality producers in the Médoc still preferred, as had the Baron, to pick by hand, there were, as Halliday Baines had pointed out, several advantages to harvesting by machine, over 1,500 of which were already in use in the undulating landscape of the Gironde. The most important of these was that, by working through the night, the grapes could be got out of the vineyard and into the winery while it was still cool. On a large estate, where the vendange could last anything between two and three weeks, this could result in a much higher percentage of the vintage being collected at optimum ripeness, and avoid disappointment should the weather change. Another benefit of the mechanical harvester was that it left unripe grapes behind, which ensured a more effective selection than that made by unskilled hand-pickers.

  Leading the group back to the courtyard, which for the past weeks had been filled with cars – coaches were parked in the long drive – Clare directed them to the shop, manned by Petronella, which sold wine and souvenirs.

  ‘I hope you enjoyed your tour of Château de Cluzac,’ she said brightly, and that you’ll visit us again. Bring your friends.’

  Filing into the shop at the far end of the chais, where refreshments were also available, the members of the group thanked her for her guidance. The American who had enquired about the roses thrust a twenty-franc note into her hand.

  The first time she had been given a tip, she had handed it back. Now, on the advice of Alain, to whom she related her embarrassment, she accepted the cash gracefully and saved it up to buy petrol for the car.

  The unremitting work, the organisation involved in running the château on a commercial basis and the gratuities were not the only things she had had to get used to. Whereas Baron Charles-Louis had usually taken his lunch alone in the dining-room, now, every day, there were visitors from abroad to entertain.

  Crossing the courtyard from where she had left the group to Petronella, she went into her office, where there was a fresh bunch of faxes on the desk, put there by Becky Elphinstone, the new secretary from Edinburgh she had taken on. Picking up her diary, she opened it at the day’s date.

  They were to be six for lunch. She was expecting a Finnish journalist, an Argentinian agent, an important Washington restaurateur, a buyer/broker from Hamburg and the sommelier of a Paris brasserie which served some one hundred covers a day.

  Faced with the daily business luncheons, Sidonie had at first rebelled.

  ‘Ce n’est pas mon travail, Mademoiselle!’ she had snapped. ‘Les invitées d’accord, mais pas tous les jours…’

  Sitting her down at the kitchen table, Clare had explained, as gently as she could, that her job and her home were on the line, and that if the château wasn’t made to pay it could fall into quite the wrong hands. As directrice, she needed all the help she could get to keep the estate up and running, and she was relying on Sidonie, whom she not only loved dearly but who was the best cook in the world, to back her up.

  Somewhat mollified, and with th
e promise of extra help in the kitchen, Sidonie, secretly flattered by Clare’s remarks, got out her recipe books and arrived at a simple menu which, with only minor variations (selon le marché) was served at the working lunches. The meal, of Quiche Lorraine, tournedos, cheese and Sidonie’s home-made ice-cream, was accompanied by Château de Cluzac wine (the vintage selected by Jean who had been read the riot act by Sidonie), according to the importance of the guests. Coffee was taken in the salon, where any deal that had been broached over lunch was hopefully clinched.

  Thirty-three

  Delphine Lamotte, carrying Bijou, and wearing only the narrow towel which she had wrapped round her narrow body after her early-morning swim, stood on the terrace of Le Moulin de la Misère. While Alain, having completed his statutory thirty lengths, frolicked with the children in the pool. She contemplated the leaden sky.

  ‘Qu’en penses tu, chéri?’

  Alain, who had one child screaming with delight on his broad shoulders and another, whom he held by her outstretched hands, with her skinny legs round his waist, attuned to Delphine’s shorthand, knew that what his wife wanted was not only his opinion of the weather, but, more specifically, to know if it was going to rain.

  The Lamotte fête champêtre, held annually, was an event to which anyone who was anyone in Bordeaux, and who had not gone away for the summer, was invited, together with their children.

  Dress was (by Bordeaux standards) informal and the guests were free to roam the spacious grounds, make use of the pool, play tennis or croquet on the lawn, join in the games organised by Alain, and generally make themselves at home. At two o’clock, or two-thirty, depending how things were going, tables of delicious food cooked by Delphine, who held a Cordon Bleu diploma, were set up in the shade of the old mill, rugs and cushions were distributed, and those who could not find deckchairs disposed themselves on the lawn, which ran down to the mill stream. It was a relaxed and popular occasion, the success of which depended to a large extent on the weather.

  ‘Alain!’ Delphine rubbed her wet hair on a corner of the towel.

  Lifting his younger daughter from his shoulders and depositing her back in the pool where she swam, in her Mickey Mouse armbands, like a tadpole to join her sister, Alain shrugged eloquently. Judging by the appearance of the clouds, it might well rain. He was more concerned about Clare’s grapes than the fête champêtre. Although Assurance Mondiale now had an appreciable stake in the success of the Château de Cluzac récolte, Alain’s interest in the estate was more than twenty-six per cent. It concerned its directrice, with whom he had, despite himself, fallen passionately in love.

  It was a coup de foudre. A madness quite beyond his control. From the time that Clare had walked into the Fête de la Fleur at Château Laurent on the arm of Jamie, her image had been imprinted on his retina, from which it refused to budge. From the moment he opened his eyes in the morning, until the time that he closed them at night, no matter what he was doing, how demanding the task on which he was engaged, whether he was slaving away over his computer, clinching a business deal, or making love to Delphine, whose mind was invariably elsewhere, he saw Clare de Cluzac with her luminous skin and lustrous eyes in tantalising proximity. She was even present in his dreams. The folly that possessed him, which was worse than any lunacy, as distressing as an illness, more addictive than any drug – he could not see enough of the object of his desire and turned up at Château de Cluzac on the flimsiest of pretexts – was not of his doing. He had not asked for it. He had not declared his infatuation to the object of it. Alain loved his wife.

  Hoping that he would get over whatever it was that possessed him, he had thrown himself with even more vigour than usual into his work and into his leisure pursuits. Slamming the squash ball against the wall, serving one of his legendary aces on the Lamotte tennis court at the far end of the garden – where already he was patiently teaching the little girls to hit the ball over the net – swimming, in his textbook crawl, until he was exhausted, and running, in preparation for the forthcoming marathon, he had tried to expunge Clare de Cluzac from his mind. To no avail.

  It was not as if he had never cheated on his marriage. There had been times when Delphine, who was no longer particularly interested in sex, had taken the children to Paris to see their grandparents or when he had travelled abroad on business, when he had indulged in extremely short-lived affairs. They had not been the grand passion which now obsessed him, and had been forgotten almost as soon as they were begun. This time there were warning bells. Being a cautious man (which contributed to his success at Assurance Mondiale) he heeded them. He had no intention of losing his wife whom he loved, his children with whom he was besotted, the home which he had created, the job to which he was wedded. His reticence was not without considerable cost to himself.

  Now, gazing at his wife’s tanned and shapely legs, which never failed to arouse him, as – having put Bijou down on the hammock – she flipped her long hair over her head and rubbed it with the towel, he tried to dispel the mental image of Clare de Cluzac, which was, as usual, superimposed on that of Delphine.

  ‘Tu as regardé la météo!’ he shouted in answer to Delphine’s question. The TV set was at the end of their bed and together, leaning side by side against the square pillows, they had watched the early-morning weather forecast. There had been small puffs of cloud over the area, but no mention of rain.

  ‘La météo!’ Delphine’s voice was scornful. ‘Ils se trompent toujours!’

  Lifting the little girls out of the pool, Alain followed them, dripping, to their mother’s side.

  Wrapping her daughters in their striped bath robes, Delphine despatched them to their room.

  Alain opened Delphine’s towel and pressed her to him.

  The Lamottes swam naked.

  ‘Come upstairs.’

  ‘Alain! J’ai mille choses à faire…’

  Listening to the impressive catalogue of domestic tasks she still had to carry out in preparation for the guests, Alain, feeling his disappointment like a pain, as if Delphine had doused his desire with a bucket of cold water, watched his wife snatch her poodle from the hammock and disappear into the house.

  To Delphine’s relief, the rain, which threatened all day, held off until lunch was almost finished. At which point, suddenly, and without any warning, the heavens opened, deluging guests, rugs and the remains of the buffet alike, and sending the women, fearful for their dresses and their coiffures, clutching whatever they could, and screaming for their children who were enjoying the diversion, scurrying for shelter.

  Clare had arrived late. After a flying weekend visit, she had taken Jamie to Mérignac, where she had bought flowers for Delphine in the airport. Alain had been afraid that she was not coming. Aware that he had been on tenterhooks, Clare shook hands formally with her host. She was amused by his agitation. Approaching Delphine, who was fussing over the decimated dishes on the buffet tables, she made her apologies.

  ‘Je m’excuse de ce retard, Madame…’

  ‘Delphine!’

  ‘Excusez-moi, Delphine.’ Clare handed her the flowers. ‘I had to take Jamie to the airport. The traffic was horrendous!’

  Delphine kissed her warmly.

  ‘I’m so glad you could come. I understand from Alain that Château de Cluzac is an enormous success.’

  ‘I’ve left Petronella in charge.’ Clare looked up at the sky. ‘She’s taking the visite. Unfortunately there’s not much that she can do about the rain.’

  ‘Summer rains…’ Alain handed her a glass of Laurent Rose, the extremely successful second wine of the Merciers, who sat together with the Balards at a table on the lawn. ‘They’re usually not too much of a problem…’

  ‘Alain is taking a great interest in your harvest.’ Delphine, who wore a white trouser-suit which emphasised her tan – if Delphine Lamotte were to fall down a drain, legend had it, she would come up smelling of violets – gave Clare a plate. It was bordered with a pattern of mignonettes and held couvert
s wrapped in a matching napkin. ‘N’est ce pas, chéri?’ She put a hand, with its delicate gold bracelet, on Alain’s shoulder and inclined her face intimately towards his. ‘You would think that Assurance Mondiale had a fifty-per-cent interest in the château. This one talks about nothing else.’

  Clare, dressed casually in khaki shorts crumpled from the long drive (she thought she had been coming to a picnic) with a taupe vest across which was slung the present Jamie had bought her – a tiny ‘coach’ bag in soft black leather – and her plimsolls, was oblivious of the stares of Delphine’s smart friends in their linen suits, in acid-drop colours, and diaphanous dresses. Escorted by Alain, she carried her plate of little white shrimps (caught in the river and cooked by Delphine with the fennel which grew in abundance in the Médoc), whiskery langoustines, frilled batavia leaves, and shining dollop of home-made mayonnaise. Picking at the shrimp as she went, she walked down the sloping garden in the direction of the mill stream.

  From her table, where she sat like an overstuffed pink silk cushion, Marie-Paule Balard followed her progress. ‘As high-handed as her father,’ she remarked in a loud voice. ‘Look at the state of her.’

  Exhilarated after Jamie’s brief visit, Clare had come to the fête champêtre only to please Alain, on whose help with the estate she depended. Skirting the Balards, Marie-Paule (fatter than ever) and Harry, with their heads conspiratorially together, Claude, napkin beneath his chin, concentrating on his lunch, Clare cared neither where she sat nor to whom she talked. By the look of it, some of the guests would not be talking to her. She was not bothered.

  Jamie, who had been hoping to get away on Friday, had been operating on an osteosarcoma of the femur, a lengthy procedure which entailed putting in a plastic and metal prosthesis. To her disappointment, he had missed his plane and not arrived until Saturday morning. Most of her day had been taken up with paperwork and visites, one of which Jamie had joined, mischievously asking unanswerable questions and putting Clare off her stride.