“Everything was late this year,” he said as we rode on. “The cold spring and summer delayed the vines by over a month. Usually they are this color far earlier.”
We cycled along until we got to an unassuming rock wall with Romanée-Conti carved into a rock lintel.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked.
“A vineyard?” I asked.
“Not just any vineyard.” Monsieur Beaupre got off his bike and I got off mine. We leaned them against the wall, and he motioned me to follow him inside the rock walls. “This is the vineyard that produces the most expensive wine in the world.”
“Really?” It was hard to believe. There was nobody around—no guards, no gates, no cameras—how could the most valuable grapes in the world be left alone like this, completely unprotected?
“Do you want to taste a grape?” He asked, looking more like a naughty seven-year-old boy than a suave business executive.
“Is that allowed?”
“Not really,” he admitted. “But we French never met a rule that we don’t long to break. Do you want me to take a picture of you eating it?”
“Ah…yes!” It would be an amazing souvenir, and the fact that it was slightly illicit made it even better.
He picked one of the few unharvested grapes on the vine. It was a little shriveled looking, but I wasn’t going to turn my nose up at one of the world’s most valued grapes.
I passed him my camera, and he positioned me beside the vine and instructed me when to eat the grape. It was definitely a little sour and perhaps had an aftertaste of mold, but all in all, it was quite edible. He snapped several pictures, and I took the camera back and we continued on our way. Soon, a huge stone building that was too boxy to be a castle, but far too large and majestic-looking to be a house, loomed in the distance.
“What’s that?” It didn’t appear to be part of any village but rose, solitary, from amongst the carpet of vineyards.
“That?” he said. “That is Clos de Vougeot!”
I stared at him blankly.
“You don’t know Clos de Vougeot? You haven’t heard of it back in Canada?”
“Non.” French people often thought that things that were famous here, like Nuits-Saint-Georges’ bell tower or the French singers that Julien would watch on his French variety shows, were famous all the world over. I always felt bad disillusioning them on this front. “I don’t think so.”
“It is the heart of winemaking in Burgundy,” he exclaimed with a grand hand gesture. “In fact, it is the birthplace of winemaking. It was built by Cistercian monks in the twelfth century when they began to cultivate wine here. We’ll bring you back to visit. I cannot believe we have not done that already.”
“I’d like that.” The sun warmed my shoulders and I breathed in that unique scent of limestone and mineral that penetrated all of the Côte d’Or, but especially the vineyards and the cellars.
We rode on and cycled underneath the imposing stone gates of the Clos de Vougeot. The building was massive up close—huge swaths of golden stone anchored by blocky, incredibly solid-looking, angular towers on its four sides.
Further on, a stone village appeared in the distance. “Which village is that?” I asked.
“Vosne-Romanée,” Monsieur Beaupre said. “That’s where one of my favorite winemakers lives. Tiens! Let’s go for a winetasting!”
The village was stunning. Late-blooming geraniums punctuated the golden stonework of the houses, and stone crosses dotted the streets.
Monsieur Beaupre pulled his bike up in front of a rambling house. “Here we are,” he said. “We’ll go straight into la cuverie. I know Henri well.”
He opened two heavy doors in the barn-like building attached to the main house.
There were four huge wooden vats soaring about twenty-five feet off the ground. The air was heady and instantly made me feel drunk.
“Don’t breathe too deeply,” Monsieur Beaupre advised.
“What’s that smell?”
“Macerating grapes. They give off a lot of carbon dioxide. Sometimes enough to make a person pass out, or worse.”
“Henri?” Monsieur Beaupre called. “Henri? Are you in here?”
A man’s faint voice called back. “Here! I’m in here!”
We both peered around the cuverie but saw no sign of the elusive Henri.
“Where?” Monsieur Beaupre shouted.
“Dans la cuve,” the man responded after a slight pause. “Swimming.”
“Swimming?” I looked to Monsieur Beaupre for an explanation but he just grinned.
“Climb up the ladder!” the voice instructed.
Monsieur Beaupre climbed up a wooden ladder that was hooked on the side of the second vat.
“There you are!” he exclaimed when he got to the top. “I’ve brought our young Canadian who is staying with us. Can she come up to see you? Are you wearing a bathing suit this time at least?”
“Of course not!” Henri’s voice carried down. “But look at the color of these grapes. She won’t be able to see anything anyway.”
So, Henri was actually inside the vat? The air was making me feel light-headed.
Monsieur Beaupre climbed down and told me to go up. “You’ll see a surprise inside the cuve!” he said, smiling like the cat who had eaten the canary.
I climbed slowly, as my arms and legs didn’t seem to be obeying my brain’s commands well. At the top I saw a bare-chested man, whose skin up to his neck was stained a lurid purple. He was moving his arms around in half circles, treading water…or rather grape juice.
“Allô!” he said, cheerfully. “So you are the Canadienne I have been hearing about!”
“Yes.” I thought I could dispense with the traditional bises in this instance, as either I would have to get into the vat to kiss him or he would have to clamber out to reach me. Was he really naked?
“Can you tell me exactly what you’re doing?” I asked.
“I’m mixing the grapes,” he said. “Punching it down. Some winemakers do it with wooden paddles, but this is the way my father did it, and the way that my grandfather did it. I don’t think those paddles do as good a job as human legs and arms.
“So you’re swimming in there?”
“Yes.”
The smell was even stronger right above the cuve. “Aren’t you worried you might—you know—pass out, and drown?”
His purple shoulders shrugged. “It happens. Almost every year a winemaker dies from that in France. As for me, I seem to be immune to it. I love the smell. Besides, if I’m going to die, what better way for a winemaker to go than in a cuve of his own delicious grapes? Especially in what is turning out to be such a fine vintage!”
“That’s a good point.”
“Go back down,” he instructed. “I’ll come. Avert your eyes if you don’t want to see me naked, not to mention extremely purple.”
I followed his instructions, so hastily that I slipped on the second-to-bottom rung and caught myself just before falling to the concrete floor.
“He’s coming,” I said to Robert, turning my back to the vat.
“Go on to the caveau!” Henri’s voice was louder now. He must be climbing out. “You know where it is!”
“Let’s go.” Monsieur Beaupre cocked his head for me to follow him and led me through a few passageways until we got to a proper vaulted, stone wine cellar that was filled as far as the eye could see with barrels.
“Wow,” I said.
“Henri is perhaps a bit eccentric,” Monsieur Beaupre said, “but his wine is truly second to none.”
“Was that true what he said about winemakers dying every year in their cuveries and their vats?”
“Oh yes.” Robert settled on one of five stools that were set around an upended barrel, which made a perfect table. Standing on top were several bottles of unlabeled wine made distinguishable one from the other in the dim light only by chalk letters and numbers written directly on the green-yellow glass.
“I often wor
ry about Henri drowning in one of his vats while he is mixing his grapes. He should at least have someone watching him, so that if he passes out from the fumes he could get immediate help. He will not listen though. He is stubborn that way.”
I thought of something that had been niggling my mind ever since we had located Henri. “Is it…you know…hygienic for a person to swim in wine people are eventually going to drink?”
Henri, even through his purple-ness, had displayed an impressive mat of curly chest hair. Were stray bits of body hair from…well…everywhere on Henri’s body mixed in with his wine? I eyed the bottles in front of me with trepidation.
Monsieur Beaupre burst out laughing. He was still laughing when Henri, now dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt that had the words “Saint Tropez” emblazoned across its front in neon pink. His neck and hands were still purple.
“Henri,” Monsieur Beaupre began, “Laura is concerned about the cleanliness of swimming in the vats.”
“Not concerned exactly.” I lied. “More…curious.”
Henri picked up three glasses from the table and turned them so that they were right side up. He made a dismissive sign with his hand. “Pfffssssssssssst. All the alcohol ensures that everything is nice and sterile. Besides, we filter the juice before we put it in the barrels.”
I hoped it was a very fine-meshed filter. As he poured us each a first glass of wine, I somehow wasn’t looking forward to tasting it as much as I usually did.
My reticence disappeared by the third glass. His wine was truly extraordinary. I thought I tasted a strong flavor of cassis, but this was balanced by cherry notes and a grounding earthiness. So what if a little pubic hair sneaked through? It wasn’t the end of the world.
By the time Monsieur Beaupre and I struck out on our bicycles after the winetasting, Henri was stripping down to hop into another vat.
On the way home, neither of us was riding too steadily. We laughed a lot, and Monsieur Beaupre waxed poetic about the myriad of bottles of wine he had ordered, which Henri had promised to deliver to the house within a few days.
Madame Beaupre took stock of us when we arrived in the doorway, and suggested that we both sit down at the kitchen table and enjoy a nice glass of coffee.
Monsieur Beaupre clutched the doorjamb for support. “That is perhaps a good idea.”
I could tell Madame Beaupre was torn between wanting to get annoyed at her husband and trying not to laugh.
“I take it the winetasting went well?” she said, taking two little glasses from the cupboard. She filled them with coffee, then set them in front of us.
“It was fascinating!” I gushed. “Henri was swimming in one of his vats when we got there. I heard stories about people stomping on grapes in the olden days, but I had no idea that people actually still did that. In Canada when we want to buy a bottle of wine, we have to go to a special store run by the government that sells only alcohol. It’s amazing to actually go and buy wine at the winemaker’s house and see how it is made. What a cultural experience!”
Monsieur Beaupre raised his glass of coffee at his wife and hiccupped. “Cultural,” he parroted.
Madame Beaupre did look slightly mollified by this, so I figured I would change the topic of conversation.
“Why do you always drink your coffee out of a glass?” I asked.
She poured herself a glass and sat down at the table with us.
“That was the way my mother always drank it,” she said. “She always said that coffee tasted better from a glass than from a ceramic cup.”
I took a sip of mine. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but it did seem to taste different—clearer—more pure.
I was always going to drink my coffee in glasses if given the opportunity, I decided, as well as buy my wine directly from the maker.
CHAPTER 15
Two weeks later, I was able to finally use my checked student card to go to le Square with Sandrine, who had arranged to meet Stéphanie there for lunch.
I pulled it out and—because I was in a conciliatory mood, and also because I knew she hated smiling as a rule—smiled as le Dragon snatched it for inspection. She scowled at me, having none of my olive branch. She was just biding her time, I suspected, waiting for the perfect moment to exact her revenge.
So be it. I took a deep breath of the foggy fall air as Sandrine and I stepped out to the parking lot. Freedom. I never realized how delicious it was until it was taken away from me.
Sandrine took a minute to cup the cigarette in her hand and light it, then jerked her head for me to follow her. We walked along, hands deep in the pockets of our jean jackets to keep them warm. I needed to think about buying a warmer coat for the next few months.
“I’m looking forward to meeting Stéphanie,” I said.
“Ah, la Stéph.” Sandrine laughed. “You’ll like her. Everybody does.”
I found myself unaccountably nervous. Would she like me? Besides Sandrine, I hadn’t found French girls were lining up to become friends with me. They all seemed incredibly self-sufficient, as though they had everything and everyone they needed and did not require somebody new, especially a foreigner, in their already full lives. I’d done everything I could to appear open and friendly, but so far Sandrine was the only one who’d actually gone out of her way to spend time with me.
We walked for a few minutes alongside the medieval ramparts of Beaune—which were, just like the tour guides promised, remarkably well-preserved—until a bright red café came into view. “Café le Square” was spelled out in large plastic letters above the door.
When we got closer, I realized I could barely make out anything through the windows thanks to condensation and smoke.
“Looks like a popular place,” I said to Sandrine.
“Oh, it is,” she said. “Not so much with students from Saint-Coeur; but everyone from Clos-Maire and, of course, the Viti come here.”
“Viti?” I asked as we jaywalked across the street, narrowly missing being hit by two different cars that honked at us. Sandrine rolled her eyes at them, but otherwise appeared unperturbed.
“Viti is short for l’École Viticole. The winemaking school. It’s just right down the street from Clos Maire. It’s for all the kids who are going to become winemakers or work in the wine industry. My older brother went there.”
The idea of having a local school just for winemakers struck me as curious. “Don’t they get a degree first? You know, to just learn more general things for a few years? Literature, history…that sort of thing…”
“Are you kidding?” Sandrine said. “The vineyards around here are like gold mines. Nobody wants the next generation of winemakers to be learning about the Fall of Rome when they can be working. My brother didn’t even want to go to the Viti at all but my parents made him. He was brought up to be a winemaker and inherit the family vineyards—he always knew that’s what he would do.”
I stopped on the sidewalk as Sandrine lit another cigarette and ground out her old one with her heel. I knew she also had an older sister at secretarial school.
“What if you or your sister wanted to become a winemaker and take over the family domaine?” I asked.
Sandrine snorted. “That was never even an option. Trust me. My brother was the only boy, so it was always going to go to him. My sister and I have to figure out something else on our own.”
“That’s not fair,” I said, the feminist inside me bristling.
She shrugged with that air of French fatalism I was beginning to recognize. “Who said life is fair?”
I frowned at that. It wasn’t the first time someone had thrown that at me, but I still smarted at the idea. Maybe life wasn’t fair, but it should be. “Just because your brother was born with a penis doesn’t mean he is the best person to take over the vineyards.”
Sandrine was still laughing at this when she opened the door and pushed me inside the café. I shucked my jacket. The place was so full of young adults, most of them smoking cigarettes, that the air actua
lly seemed to be steaming. Sandrine led me to a booth near the back. Seated there was a striking girl around our age. Beside her was an equally handsome boy, with shoulder-length hair, green eyes and a definite bohemian air about him.
“Salut, la Stéph,” Sandrine bent down and gave Stéph les bises and then did the same with the boy.
“Voici Laura, the Canadian,” she waved at me, and I said “salut” with as much confidence as I could muster and bent down to give them les bises as well. The boy smelt good, like vanilla.
“Laura’s just been telling me her opinions about my brother taking over the vineyard,” Sandrine said, as we slid into the booth. “She believes that just because Pascal was born with a penis doesn’t mean he should automatically be the one to take over the family business.”
Stéphanie laughed. “It does in Burgundy.” She took a sip of her espresso. “You’re right though, Laura, it shouldn’t be that way. Burgundy is so old-fashioned.”
I didn’t have a brother, just two sisters, but even so, we never considered taking over my father’s optical business. Thank goodness, because while I saw myself doing many things for a career, managing optical stores wasn’t one of them—but at least I had the choice. If I had been born in Burgundy, and the family business had been wine, would I feel differently? I might.
Stéphanie looked strangely familiar. Maybe it was just that she was so striking. Her hair was shiny black and twisted back in a messy chignon. She wore a bright red scarf around her neck, which set off her olive complexion and wide hazel eyes that were so full of life they almost gave off sparks.
“The winemakers are all so retrograde,” the boy added, casting a longing look at Stéphanie. Hmmmmm…unrequited love there—or all the signs of it anyway.
“Are your parents winemakers too?” I asked Stéph.
She snorted. “No. Definitely not. They’re actually two of the few people in the village that are not involved in the business. My father is an x-ray technician and my mother stays at home with my little brother. My grandfather had vines, bien sûr—everybody did back then. My parents used to take care of them and harvest them when my older brother and I were little, but they sold them when I was about nine or so. They sold them to Sandrine’s uncle, actually.”
My Grape Year: (The Grape Series #1) Page 12
