Vintage

by Rosemary Friedman

  ‘It’s a war between classes…’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘An attempt to eradicate an entire caste…’

  ‘Genocide?’

  ‘It’s as near to genocide as makes no difference.’

  ‘The consequence of ethnic chauvinism is not necessarily genocide. The French army…’

  ‘With all due respect, Sir, the French army have behaved atrociously…’

  ‘They have gone in to protect the Hutu.’

  ‘Who have butchered seven hundred and fifty Tutsis in the last three months with the help of French arms! It’s a good thing Rwanda has no ocean border or we’d have the Americans in there as well.’

  ‘It’s the biggest humanitarian disaster since the United Nations came into being…’ Laura Spray had been reading her Herald Tribune.

  Jamie looked up sharply. ‘What about the millions of Chinese under Chairman Mao?’

  ‘More than one million refugees have fled to Zaire.’ Laura Spray chose to ignore the interruption. ‘Surely, Jamie, you don’t propose we just leave them to starve?’

  ‘Unfortunately, Mrs Spray, foreign aid is not always the best answer. Particularly in Africa. Look at the Sudan, look at Ethiopia…’

  ‘Perhaps Dr Jones has another solution, Laura.’

  ‘“Mr”,’ Clare said. ‘And anyway his name’s Jamie.’

  ‘The only realistic solution is to send the refugees home. It’s up to the RPF government to restore peace between the Hutu and the Tutsi. It cannot be done by the UN, by the South Africans, by Save the Children, or by the Red Cross. First aid is charity. Second aid is dependency. Third aid is war…’

  The conversation was like a table-tennis match during which Jamie gave as good as he got, refusing to let the Baron wrong-foot him. It continued until the plates were cleared away and the cheese was brought in, accompanied by glistening salad leaves in an oversized Limoges bowl, which brought back memories of mealtimes which, like the present one, Clare fervently wished to be over.

  The pudding, a strawberry sponge which miraculously concealed Sidonie’s vanilla ice-cream, was waved away with a disapproving shudder by Laura Spray, who pointedly helped herself to two grapes.

  In the green salon, with its neo-Renaissance furniture, its family portraits and woven carpets, their design of branches now threadbare, into which would fit the whole of Nicola’s flat, Laura Spray presided over the coffee pot.

  Jamie, who, like the Baron, never sat when he could stand, wandered round the room examining the pictures. He peered at a sombre painting of a brown-and-white retriever holding a pheasant in its mouth.

  ‘Haven’t I seen that somewhere before?’

  ‘Possibly,’ the Baron said. ‘The copy is in the Louvre.’

  Putting her lips to her tiny porcelain cup, Clare almost choked.

  ‘Decaffeinated. Special Brew,’ Laura Spray said. ‘I bring it from Florida…’

  Clare was saved from further comment by the chiming of the monkey clock, a present from Baron Thibault to her grandmother.

  Swallowing his Special Brew, Charles-Louis replaced his cup on the silver tray. Beatrice Biancarelli would be waiting.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ He looked at Laura.

  ‘Of course, Charles. I’m going to take a nap.’

  ‘I need to talk to you, Papa.’ Clare put down her undrunk coffee.

  ‘Later’ Charles-Louis looked evasive.

  ‘It won’t take long.’

  Leaving Jamie, his head on one side, to look at the books in the ebony bookcases, which were lined with yellowing ivory, Clare followed Charles-Louis into the adjacent room, where he liked to work. He stamped his foot imperiously on the floor whenever he needed his English secretary, Petronella Townsend, whose office was situated directly below. Sitting down at the long table, on which was a white ring-file bearing a Château de Cluzac wine label, and putting the width of it between himself and Clare, he waited for his daughter to speak.

  ‘What exactly is going on, Papa?’

  ‘What is it you would like to know?’

  ‘Firstly, what is that woman doing here?’

  ‘I see your manners have not improved. Laura and I are getting married.’

  ‘Excuse me. I thought you were married to my mother.’

  ‘Arrangements are being made.’

  ‘Those dreadful curtains! She will make a pig’s ear of Cluzac…’

  The Baron let the insult pass.

  ‘We shall not be living at Cluzac. I intend to make my home in Florida.’

  ‘So you are selling Château de Cluzac?’

  Casting a surreptitious glance at his watch, the Baron nodded impatiently.

  ‘Don’t you think, Papa, that I should have been consulted?’

  ‘Consulted! Mon Dieu!’

  ‘I do own twenty-four per cent of the estate.’

  ‘You would have been informed in due course.’

  ‘Have you “informed” Tante Bernadette?’

  ‘She is delighted. A new roof for the chapel, more money for her riff-raff, her bills will be paid…’

  ‘Who is buying the château?’

  ‘A South African.’

  ‘Does he not have a name?’

  ‘Van Gelder. Philip Van Gelder’ The Baron was irritable. He was anxious to get away. ‘Does it make any difference what his name is?’

  ‘It’s a matter of courtesy.’

  ‘You’ll get your share of the money. A not inconsiderable amount. I trust you are not going to let that carpenter get his hands on it.’

  ‘Jamie is a surgeon, Papa. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. He also has an MD…’

  ‘How long do you intend staying?’

  ‘Jamie has to be back next week.’

  ‘The notary is drawing up the acte de vente. It will be ready in a few days. We shall need your signature. It’s the Fête de la Fleur on Saturday. At Château Laurent. The arrivistes. You and Jones will be my guests…’ As he stood up, the Baron’s eyes appraised Clare, from the vest-top, which was slipping from her thin shoulders, to her sneakers.

  ‘Va chez Biancarelli. Get yourself some decent clothes. Tell her to send me the bill.’

  When her father had gone, Clare pulled the ring-binder, marked confidential, towards her and opened it. Château de Cluzac. Information Memorandum. ‘The sole purpose of this memorandum is to assist recipients in deciding whether they wish to proceed with an investigation with a view to making an offer for Château de Cluzac…’

  She flicked over the pages.

  Château de Cluzac is situated in the district of St Julien Beychevelle in France, approximately 32 km (20 miles) north of the city of Bordeaux. The property consists of Château de Cluzac (the castle itself) and the vineyards. The castle, which has four turrets, one in each corner, is impressive. It was erected in 1661 and major renovations were carried out in 1871. The interior has a wonderful atmosphere and, although in need of decoration…

  The understatement of the year. Pulling up a chair, Clare sat down at the table.

  … The size and splendour of the castle means that it could be used for many different purposes such as education (corporate training, seminars etc), wine tasting, or it could even be divided into several attractive, spacious flats. In addition to the castle there are a number of other buildings…

  Curious to see how her father had been managing the estate, Clare turned to the summary of the wine.

  Château de Cluzac produces and sells wine under her own name which can use the classification Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC). Château de Cluzac has produced wine since 1650 and is one of the largest properties in the Médoc. Annual production is targeted at 420 thousand bottles which are sold throughout Europe and in a few overseas markets…

  Now thoroughly absorbed, she studied the income statements and the breakdown of the costs, which revealed that the Château de Cluzac wine seemed to have been sold at an extremely modest price for several years. As far
as she could see, no profits had been recorded. It was hardly suprising that all she had received from her father by way of dividends were a few yearly cases of wine. In the circumstances, although the château – according to Big Mick Bly – seemed to have attracted a great deal of attention, she assumed that her father was extremely lucky to have found, in Philip Van Gelder, a suitable buyer.

  Replacing the document exactly where she had found it, she went to rescue Jamie from Laura Spray, who was giving him a detailed account of her laparoscopic surgery. She wanted to show him round the estate and introduce him to Albert Rochas, the chef de culture, who looked after the vineyards.

  The Rochas family, like many others of the Baron’s staff, had served the de Cluzacs for several decades. Albert himself had been born on the estate. Starting work as an apprentice, he had later had become a fully fledged vigneron, and finally the all-important chef de culture, with overall responsibility for the seventy hectares of Château de Cluzac vines. Now in his early sixties, he looked forward to retiring peacefully on the land.

  The chef de culture’s seasonal work, on which the crop depended, began on 1st November and ended on 31st October. First came the pruning of the vines. This was a delicate operation, which consisted in cutting off the twigs, or sarments, which would later be collected by the women for their fires or to give to friends in a traditional social gesture. Keeping those branches that would bear the next year’s grapes, Albert prepared the wood that would be the framework for the following year.

  The pruning called for a sharp eye. It occupied most of the winter months, and was followed by the trimming of the vines and the replacing of the pickets. It accounted for only one of the sixty-odd times the entire vineyard was gone through in the course of a single year. Albert Rochas, and his team of twenty vignerons, also had to take cuttings to be used in the vine nursery, fight an ongoing battle against couch grass and attend to the hedging and ditching and shifting of earth at the end of the vine rows. They had to find precious time for ploughing, spraying against fungal diseases (at least seven times a season), weeding – particularly important during the summer months when the weeds extracted precious water and nutritious elements from the soil – and the myriad other vineyard jobs which varied from year to year.

  The quality of the wine produced at Château de Cluzac, as at any other château, depended on four vital elements: the climate, the soil, the vine and human skill. If the first two were right, the difference between a vin médiocre and a grand vin ultimately evolved upon selecting the correct cépage, or grape variety, based upon detailed soil analysis and the climate in each part of the vineyard. In a temperate climate, such as Bordeaux, the vines had to counteract the vagaries of frost, hail and summer rain, as well as minor deviations brought about by the sea and moon. The grape variety had to match the style of wine eventually required, and remain within the choices legally permitted. In most châteaux this vital selection was made by the owners. At Château de Cluzac, in the face of the Baron’s lack of commitment to his vineyards, it was made by the chef de culture, to whom fell the equally important task of deciding at which precise moment to start picking the grapes.

  To be a winemaker in the Gironde, which in winters of severe frost had seen the mercury fall to a catastrophic minus twenty degrees centigrade, needed nerves of steel. Albert Rochas, renowned throughout the Médoc for his cool head and his sound judgement, was no slouch in that direction.

  Taking off his cap at Clare’s approach, Albert, whose rugged good looks were worthy of a movie star, was inspecting the vines for the enemy in the shape of insects, mites and moths.

  Greeting Clare in the rough accent of south-west France, he appraised her companion, every detail of whose appearance he would relay, over his evening soupe, to his wife Matilde.

  Albert had known Clare since her birth. It was he who had built her her first swing and allowed her, under his supervision, to help with the vendange, although her father had strictly forbidden her to fraternise with the grape-pickers. Clare was at her ease with the handsome chef de culture, regarding him almost as an affectionate uncle. She got the impression that Albert was not his normal, cheerful self.

  Speaking to him in French, Clare introduced Jamie and enquired how things were going in the vineyards, which were not only Albert’s pride and joy but his raison d’être.

  ‘Ca va.’

  ‘Et les vendanges?’ She asked about the recent harvests.

  ‘Exceptionelles!’

  ‘Et cette année?’

  Albert shrugged. He did not wish to tempt a providence on which he was dependent.

  ‘Si nous n’avons pas de pluie. Pas de coulure…’

  ‘When it rains during the flowering season, the petals drop, the grapes don’t always set, and you get the patter of tiny grapes,’ Clare explained to Jamie.

  ‘…pas de millerandage.’

  ‘Poor flowering conditions means faulty fertilisation of the grapes. Comment va Matilde?’ she asked Albert, releasing a catalogue of daily inconveniences which stemmed from the inroads of Matilde’s arthritis. ‘Et comment vont vos enfants?’ she said when the saga was finished.

  ‘Ils vont bien.’

  ‘Avez-vous des petits enfants?’

  Albert proudly admitted to seven grandchildren. It was the first time he had smiled.

  Pointing to a space, the width of several vines, many more of which she had noticed, Clare said, ‘What are all these gaps?’

  Albert returned to his examination of the flowering vines on which the grapes would eventually appear. Clearly she had said the wrong thing.

  ‘The vines were old…’

  ‘Why don’t you replace them?’

  ‘Your father does not wish them replaced.’

  ‘Have you asked him?’

  Albert nodded.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘No mon-nay! No mon-nay! Monsieur does not allow me to buy the right treatment for the grapes. Excusez moi, Mademoiselle, Monsieur. Je dois continuer mon travail.’

  Looking back at Albert as, leaving him to his work, she continued on her walk with Jamie, Clare had the uneasy feeling that all was not well at Cluzac, as if a cloud were were hanging over it. She wondered if it was Laura Spray.

  Taking Clare’s arm and matching his step to hers, Jamie looked at the tidy soil, at the vines – as carefully tended as if they were in a garden – which stretched in their symmetric rows into the green distance.

  ‘All this to make a few bottles of grape juice!’

  Fourteen

  The honour of hosting the annual Fête de la Fleur, which was held in June, and the September Ban de Vendanges, which enabled the wine-growers and people from the trade to get together and for which everyone took tables to entertain their guests, was always keenly fought over. The château owners were not only anxious to celebrate their good fortune in living in Bordeaux – the largest quality wine-producing area in the world, which generated 12 billion francs in turnover, supported 13,000 producers and 550 wine merchants and brokers – but vied with each other in using the occasion to cultivate the market. Although the form taken by the fêtes varied from château to château, the festivities rarely ended before dawn.

  Last year the honour of holding the Fête de la Fleur had fallen to Médaillac, which had mounted an oriental fantasy in which champagne flowed, tropical palms sprouted from the floor of the cellars, orchids were flown in from Asia – as were the musicians and entertainers – and guests from all over the world had danced the night away in what was, by day, a prosaic bottle store. It was an extremely hard act to follow.

  For Marie-Paule Balard, the Fête de la Fleur marked the high spot in her calendar. This year most of all. It was to be the last, or so she thought, that the Balards, Claude, Marie-Paule herself, their son Harry, and their daughter Christiane, would make their appearance as a family of negociants rather than château owners.

  Year after year, firmly corseted, painstakingly groomed, her figure constrained by
her evening gown as if by a mould into which it had been poured (and overflowed), hung about with the family diamonds (her family), which she had warily carried home from their hibernation in the bank, her plump feet tight in their satin shoes, her dimpled hands manicured, her hair firmly laquered, she would sit at the round table. Holding tightly to the anchor of her evening bag, and smiling for all she was worth, she would make animated conversation with those on either side of her, while inside she seethed at the sight of the svelte women in their little black numbers – which scarcely covered their poitrines and often did not reach to their knees – who occupied the places d’honneur.

  Like many others in Bordeaux, Marie-Paule Balard disliked her husband, a bombastic man, frequently overcome with rage and always on the lookout for a scapegoat upon whom to vent it. Since it was his wife, more often than anyone else, who was around when the paroxysms of anger overtook him, it was on Marie-Paule’s long-suffering head that the negociant’s wrath generally fell.

  Selling luxury drinks had always been as much a matter of social contacts as of the inherent quality of the product. It was she who was blamed when visiting importers and foreign visitors were not entertained assiduously enough, or if the hospitality she bestowed upon them was not up to standard and they were allowed to slip through the net. It was her fault – despite the fact that she was always ready long before Claude – if they were late for dinner or the opera, if it rained unexpectedly, if they took a wrong turning in the car, or a button detached itself from his shirt. After twenty-five years of marriage, if he lost an order to a competitor, the bourse fell, the roof leaked, or a holiday turned out to be a disaster, Marie-Paule knew that the fault must be hers. She accepted her role as whipping boy. She was used to taking the rap.

  Like many men whose outward behaviour was overbearing and filled with sound and fury, Claude Balard was still a small boy unable to manage without his mother. While he took his resentment at this out on Marie-Paule, he was at the same time dependent upon his wife. The fact that he had been handsomely paid by Marie-Paule’s father to take his homely daughter off his hands was neither here nor there. He compensated for his ambivalent feelings towards her by his assignations with Beatrice Biancarelli, on whose favours he was equally dependent. Dismissing the reality that he was deceiving his wife with his mistress and his mistress with his wife, the chartron deluded himself that he was faithful to them both.