“Everything in moderation I suppose,” I mumbled. “Anyway, how did you get hold of a blood sample?” I had visions of a tiny robot mosquito flitting silently through my Little Chalfont window in the dead of night, sucking a droplet of my blood and winging its way back to Scotland Yard.
“It’s not difficult, Felix. Hairdressers don’t earn much at the best of times.”
That’s the last time I visit that barber, I thought. Christ, you can’t even leave your own hair clippings lying around these days without someone taking advantage. I suddenly realised I was talking too much. “I’m incriminating myself. I’m not sure I should answer any more of your questions.”
“We’ve been through this,” warned the man. “Given the evidence against you, there’s nothing you can say that’s going to make things any worse for you. If I were the FBI, I’d be very unhappy with your story so far.”
“You’re a bright chap, Felix,” said the woman, more softly. “You’ve already said this looks like false imprisonment. You must be aware that anything you say under duress is inadmissible in court. You haven’t been read your rights, nor do you have a lawyer present. So it’s impossible for you to incriminate yourself. Anything you confess here would be thrown straight out of a court of law.”
I considered this for a moment. I still didn’t like it but what choice did I have?
“Why don’t you tell us about the Bulgarians, Felix?” she asked, “we’d like to know more about them.”
“I was just getting to that. I met them soon after I started my new job as Assistant Wine Buyer at Charlie’s Cellar.”
***
Assistant Wine Buyer was, indeed, my title, but it soon became clear I was more of an assistant to the wine buyers. It was no great hardship – they were a genial and undemanding bunch.
Clive Willoughby was the boss of course, the Director of Wine. He would hold a sales meeting every Monday morning, make kindly suggestions to the buyers about improving sales or profit margins, then remain ensconced in his office for the rest of the week.
Gillian, the well-spoken pearl-wearing lady in her fifties, was in charge of Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese wines. She was a Minstrel of Wine, the most prestigious qualification in the oenological world and, although she was sweetness and light with us, her sharp tongue could put the fear of God into misbehaving suppliers.
Paul, a younger, rather intense beanpole of a man, looked after the ‘New World’ – wines from Australia, South Africa and the Americas. He was very quiet, happiest in a tasting room nosing his way through a hundred Napa Valley Cabernets. He was also a Minstrel of Wine.
Henri, the raffish Frenchman, was, unsurprisingly, in charge of French wines. “I do not ’ave zis Minstrel of Wine qualification,” he explained, with a conspiratorial wink, “but I am French so zat is enough.”
I warmed to Henri – he looked like he knew which side his baguette was buttered.
And I was in charge of everything else, which left the rather slim pickings of Eastern Europe, Kosher wines, and bag-in-box plonk. Not the most inspiring portfolio but everyone’s got to start somewhere. And in my case, ‘somewhere’ was Romanian Merlot, Bulgarian Cabernet and sweet Israeli wines for Passover.
I continued to live in the huge flat above the Little Chalfont branch with Tarzan-like Wodin, composter Fistule and dreadlocked Mercedes. I had my own room on the first floor and brought home a steady stream of wine samples as my contribution to the household budget.
Gary Richards, the Area Manager, soon found a new manager for the shop below – a task made much easier after I’d sent the local armed robber to his well-earned rest – and was perfectly happy for me to remain in the company-owned flat. After all, what was one extra squatter? The new manager had a home and family of his own, and no desire to join our merry commune.
Every morning I rattled into London on the tube from Little Chalfont to Great Portland Street, and walked the last half mile to Tinto Towers. I had my own broom-cupboard of an office, formerly occupied by the disgraced Benedict, with a window that faced a pebble-dashed building next door. The whole place was a bit of a dump, to be honest – a rabbits’ warren of corridors and faded little rooms, desks strewn with piles of white, pink and yellow copy paper, and the occasional yellowing pot plant to accentuate the sense of slow, beige death.
Most of my time was spent running sales reports for the senior members of the team or double checking shipping orders. But I was allowed to accompany the buyers into the tasting room and to wrap my tongue around dozens of samples of whatever was under consideration that day. It might be a run of Chilean Chardonnays or a line-up of fine Beaujolais crus. By listening and tasting alongside my more experienced colleagues, I soon developed an ability to tell a stunner from more ordinary fare.
Every Friday, Willoughby reserved a lunchtime table at the Royal Oak, a huge pub a quarter of a mile from the office. The five of us would sit around the same corner table and order the Friday roast. We had an agreement with the landlord that we could bring our own wine, in exchange for slipping him a few free samples. Over the food, each member of our team would bring out a mystery bottle of wine, its identity hidden inside a thick sock. Glasses would be poured and we would have to guess each wine from the aroma and taste. The buyer who made the most mistakes had to pay for the meal.
Being the least experienced and lowest paid, I was exempt from the financial penalty but I learnt more about the factors governing a wine’s character at those roaring Friday afternoon sessions than from all my time in tasting rooms and vineyards later in my career. Needless to say, Friday lunch marked the end of the working week – by the end of the day we’d be in a right royal state. I lost count of the number of times we had to carry Clive Willoughby to a taxi and send him on his sleepy way home to St Albans.
My own area of buying was concentrated on South Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, sales of wines from this area were in severe decline as the drinking public embraced the fruity, vibrant wines from Australia, Chile and California. It was pretty clear I’d been given the area because no-one else wanted it, and because I was unlikely to cause too much damage if I cocked it up.
My main supplier was a heavy-set Bulgarian named Georgi. He ran the export arm of Danubia Vineyards, a huge formerly state-owned winery which sold oceans of plonk to the Soviets in the olden days. In recent years, with the collapse of the Russian market, it had been privatised, slimmed down and was attempting to sell its wines to a wider range of countries.
I met Georgi every month or so to discuss the sales performance of his wines in Charlie’s Cellar. It was usually a fairly depressing affair. Customers for Bulgarian Chardonnay and Merlot were dwindling, seduced by smartly labelled Italian wines and the easy-drinking styles of the Aussies.
Georgi would close his folder with a sigh at the end of each meeting and, in his heavy Bulgarian accent say, “Fuck sales, let’s go drink.” Naturally, as an amenable and supportive customer – particularly when someone else was paying – I would agree, and we’d retire to his favourite Bulgarian restaurant, Plovdiv, for a dinner of meaty stew, sausages and pastries, washed down with frequently refilled glasses of rather good Bulgarian wine.
“These are the wines we Bulgarians keep for ourselves!” he would declare with a laugh. As the dinner progressed he would regale me with slurred but highly entertaining stories of travelling across the Soviet Union selling wine. “Good times, Felix,” he would emphasise, after a couple of glasses. “Central planning! Wonderful system. I never had to even try sell! Customers were already set up for me by apparatchiks – I only had to arrange logistics. Even if they didn’t want the wine, they still had to buy!”
I would simply nod, soaking up the atmosphere and the free wine.
Then, one afternoon, after a particularly depressing decline in sales, he pushed aside the bottle of wine. He beckoned the waiter, who set down a bottle of Rakia Plum Spirit and two small glasses. “Ukraine was great place. Ah!” He sank back in the seat for a
moment, lost in reverie. “You think it was all cold and depressing in Soviet times but no! Some places were magnificent!” He popped open the bottle and sloshed the dark spirit into our glasses. He raised his glass and pointed at me. “You could always get pussy in Odessa!”
“I’m glad to hear it, Georgi.” We clinked glasses.
“Nazdráve.” He emptied his glass. “And in Yalta too. But Sochi was my favourite, even better than Ukraine. Wow oh wow! My friend, that was crazy place in summer. There was no TV, no internet. Just fucking.”
“Sounds like paradise.”
“I met a girl there once, she had such big thighs. Pubes right down to her knees…” Georgi let out a little burp and sighed again, suddenly serious. “All gone to shit now. Unfashionable. Everyone goes to Spain, to Turkey. Same thing with the wines. So, mister clever buyer, tell me, how do we get the Bulgarian wine selling again?”
I knocked back the Rakia. It roared down my throat, settling into a fiery little pool in my stomach. “Well, you need a re-brand. Change the name of your country to Italy. And start growing Pinot Grigio.”
“Ha!” Georgi refilled the glasses. “I will speak to the authorities. I’m sure they would do it for a price, like everything!” He paused and looked at me. “The British people love Pinot Grigio, yes?”
“They certainly do. It’s quite the most fashionable grape variety at the moment. Easy to drink and pronounce. We can’t buy enough of it. The bloody Italians keep putting the price up, though. They’re making a killing.”
Georgi paused, taking this in. “Well, we have Pinot Grigio in Bulgaria.”
“I’m sure you do Georgi,” I winked. “Unfortunately, it tastes like Chardonnay.”
“No, I am serious. Bulgaria was part of Roman Empire. Thracia it was called. The Romans planted all their grapes in our country. We call it Rulandské Šedé but no-one want to buy it.”
“No shit Georgi. I wonder why not? It’s a great name.”
Georgi harrumphed good-humouredly and poured another glass. “I think you must come to Bulgaria for the harvest. Maybe we make a plan. Not all business either, we find some fun in Varna I think.”
At that I raised my glass. “To business!”
***
“Well, I’m impressed by your dedication Felix.” Clive Willoughby peered at me drily over his half-moons. “Most travel requests are for desperately important multi-week trips to Tuscany or the Napa Valley. But you want to go to Bulgaria.”
“I think it could pay off handsomely, sir. My sources tell me they have substantial plantings of Pinot Grigio, masquerading under some Slavic nickname. I suspect there might be a bargain to be had.”
“Well, we do like a bargain at Charlie’s Cellar. Very well, you can have a week. Don’t go running up any excessive expenses. Two-star hotels only.”
“Of course. I’ll treat every pound as if it’s my own.” Will I bollocks, I thought. Georgi was booking us into a five-star pleasure palace in Varna, and I was blowed if I was going to slum it with a bunch of pubescent backpackers.
“That’s the spirit, Felix. Have a good trip.”
***
“Just two hours of this crap, then we do things properly,” winked Georgi as we took our cramped budget airline seats a couple of weeks later.
Sure enough, on arrival in Varna, we were met by a swarthy looking character in a peaked cap. He gave us a grin and ushered us to a large limousine.
“This is big deal for Danubia Vineyards,” announced Georgi as the limo pulled away from the airport.
He shouted a few words in Bulgarian to our driver, who gestured backwards with his thumb. Georgi leant forward and pulled open a concealed flap in the seat in front of us. A light clicked on, revealing a minibar.
Georgi rummaged past the premium vodka brands and grasped a bottle of Champagne. “We drink local sparkling wine here in Bulgaria. But for this occasion, we drink French. Vintage Pol Roger ok?”
“A spot of Pol would be excellent, thank you.”
Good old Georgi. He was enjoying himself. The bottle gave a little hiss as he eased out the cork. He grasped a couple of slender glasses from the bar and slopped the wine into them, the fine bubbles cascading down the outside of the glass and dripping on the seat.
“Never mind, plenty more where that came from. Nazdráve!”
“Nazdráve.”
The exquisite Champagne was perfectly chilled, and we finished the bottle in the half hour it took us to reach the Hotel Occident, a huge pre-war pile that had seen invading armies come and go. It dominated the Black Sea Riviera, an old duchess wearing pawned jewellery, faded but still majestic.
“An hour to freshen up, then see you in the bar, ok Felix?”
“Right you are, Georgi.”
After checking in at the vast desk I followed the bell boy up to my room. The interior was much more up to date than the façade. I had an entire suite with a separate study, changing area and two bathrooms. A magnificent four-poster dominated the bedroom. The bell boy wordlessly pointed out the facilities, including a generously stocked, proper sized bar – there was nothing mini about it. Excellent, I thought, handing the boy a couple of US dollars. This beats sleeping on a mattress in the back of a village off-licence.
I went downstairs again within the hour and found Georgi lounging on a sofa in the spacious bar, immodestly dressed women simpering into each ear. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows the sky was darkening and the sea had disappeared into the gloom beyond the lights along the beachfront.
“Felix. Meet my business associates. This is Sharon and this is Diana.”
“Very nice to meet you.”
The women smiled.
“They do not speak English. Well, maybe a few words, the important ones. Eh, ladies?”
They laughed, delicate hands stroking Georgi’s enormous stomach. I sat and Diana transferred her attention to me.
Georgi waved to a waiter and more Champagne arrived. “Tomorrow we start early – the vineyards are long way from here. I show you our Pinot Grigio and you meet the owner.”
We made short work of the bottle and were shown into a private dining room. Georgi regaled us with tales of Varna in the seventies, when firm-bodied women from across the Soviet Bloc exercised vigorously at the lido by day and among the palm trees by night. Several excellent courses of caviar and steak later, not to mention a couple of bottles of good local wine, and we were stuffed and ready for bed.
I declined Diana’s kind offer to accompany me to my suite. I’m no prude, as you may have guessed, but after all that talk of the Soviet era I couldn’t help wondering whether there might be a hidden camera watching, silently, through a pinhole in the ceiling. Being blackmailed is never a good look. And besides, she probably had the clap.
A six o’clock alarm call and a fortifying shot of Turkish coffee, and we were on our way. After two rather unpleasant hours of pot-holed rural roads we arrived at the winery, an ugly squat concrete block. Four classical-style pillars had been tacked onto the front, giving the impression of a cut-price Greek temple attached to a cold-war bomb shelter.
A sharp-suited man met us at the entrance and Georgi introduced us. “Felix, meet Viktor, CEO and main investor in Danubia Vineyards.”
“Great to meet you.”
Viktor had a firm handshake and sparkling white teeth, his Bulgarian accent softened by a subtle American twang. “You are very welcome, Felix. I hope you enjoy your visit.”
We climbed into a Land Rover and bumped around the vineyards as Viktor regurgitated facts and figures about investments and yields. Then he stopped and pointed to the sloping valley before him. “This is all planted with Rulandské Šedé. Or, as you Westerners prefer to call it, Pinot Grigio.”
He leapt out and stooped in front of the nearest vine, breaking off a bunch of plump grapes and handed them to me. They were ripe and golden with a faint blush of pink. “The harvest will start next month and we can have the wine ready to ship by November.
“Ve
ry good. What price can you do for us?”
“Less than half the price of your Italian suppliers.”
I looked at Georgi, who was smiling and nodding at me. “I think we can do some business, eh Felix?”
“Gentlemen, I think Bulgaria is back!”
***
The buying team held their glasses of white wine up to the light. Clive Willoughby gave his a deep sniff. “Well, it smells like commercial Pinot Grigio. Then again, so do lots of things.”
It was two months after my return from Bulgaria, and Georgi had sent a courier with the newly bottled wine.
“They call it Rulandské Šedé out there,” I said, “but I’ve checked with the Board of Wine and Liquor and we’re allowed to call it Pinot Grigio.”
“And you can sell it for three quid a bottle? Well, that’s a result, Felix. If you pull this off we’ll take out adverts in the national press. We can give the supermarkets a bloody nose for a change.” Willoughby looked round the room. “What do the rest of you think?”
“Tastes clean, good fruit, c’est bon,” shrugged Henri, spitting a mouthful into the sink.
“I wouldn’t serve it at a dinner party but it’s fine for everyday drinking,” agreed Gillian.
Paul frowned at his glass and gave it another smell. Then he spoke, in his precise, quiet voice. “There’s nothing wrong with the wine. Except…”
My heart sank. Keep your bloody opinions to yourself, why don’t you?
“…how do we know it really is Pinot Grigio? They have lots of other grapes out there. They could have made a mistake. Or worse.”
Willoughby sighed. “Paul’s right. I’m sure your wine supplier is trustworthy Felix, but we can’t risk a mislabelled wine. The Board of Wine and Liquor would have our guts for garters. We’d have to withdraw the lot from sale, then you’d be on the hook for getting our money back.” He peered at me over his glasses. “And however good a negotiator you might be, Felix, I suspect you’ll struggle to sell a million bottles of suspect Pinot Grigio back to the Bulgarians.”
I thought of Georgi, reclining in his luxury hotel, high-class prostitutes nuzzling his neck. And Viktor, with his flashing teeth, holed up in his mock-classical nuclear bunker. Surely they were trustworthy? Bugger.
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