Aristocratic Thieves

by Richard Dorrance

  Chapter 16 – Procuring the Wine

  Roger and Stephan met early the next morning to plan their visit to the wineries. Their goal was to get a few of these producers of world class wine to sell them relatively small quantities at lower than market value. Why would a producer do this? Because of Roger’s relationship with Jacques, and Jacques’ relationship with the producers. And for two more reasons: Jacque was a major player in the world of French aristology, and, most importantly, because he had deployed a secret weapon. What was that? It was The Deneuve.

  When Roger first contacted Jacques with his request for introductions to select French wine producers, and told Jacques his goal was to buy great wine, Jacques of course said yes. But Jacque thought, not a great chance of success. The wines of these producers are in strong demand, world-wide, so they don’t have to discount very often. Jacques figured a few of the wine-makers would sell Roger some wine, out of a favor to Jacques, but not all of those on the list. That assessment changed dramatically when Jacques mentioned to Deneuve that Roger was coming for a visit, and when she requested to meet Roger and accompany him on his wine country tour. Whatever the French equivalent of Eureka is, that’s what Jacques thought. With Deneuve in tow, Roger’s chances of success skyrocketed.

  So that was the strategy Jacques instilled into his assistant Stephan, and that became the pattern for the next few days. Stephan had setup appointments at six estates in Burgundy and six estates in Bordeaux. The group would visit each estate, and make their request to purchase certain wines over the next three years. If any of the wine-makers agreed, it would be under a gentlemen’s agreement, not a formal business contract. This was the advice from Jacques; this was how to do business behind the scenes. What is more, the Frenchmen would finance the deal by allowing Roger to pay for the wines after delivery. This was a daring strategy, and unusual, but not unheard of in the rarified world of French wine.

  Roger had understood this strategy for some time now, but it was not until this discussion in the hotel in Leseur that he realized just how lucky he was, and how this might work out in its specifics. What an experience he and Gwen and Jinny were going to have over the next few days. He knew Gwen was going to like this, and making his wife feel good made him feel wonderful.

  Deneuve’s presence at breakfast caused a commotion in the hotel, which the hotel staff fixed by banishing everyone from the breakfast room except Roger, Gwen, Jinny, Stephan, and Deneuve, and Roger quickly came to understand this was going to be the way of things for the duration. Over coffee Catherine talked about the boy. She said she loved the boy because she loved Jacques. And she loved Jacques because he was her first husband’s closest friend. When her first husband died only three years after they were married, Jacques helped her deal with the loss, and this friendship had lasted for forty years. When Jacques produced the boy late in life (and his only son), Catherine was enthralled. She became devoted to the boy in her role as godmother, stimulated no doubt by her own advancing years and associated sense of mortality. This little tour of the wine country, with the man who saved the boy’s life, was a joy.

  The Mercedes battleship arrived, and departed with them installed in its living room. They were off to Burgundy and its most famous estate: Domaine La Romani-Conti. Monsieur Verlaine himself greeted them upon arrival. He thought nothing of the giant Mercedes at his front door, that was commonplace, but he was not expecting Mademoiselle Catherine Deneuve to emerge, which took his breath away. His entire psychology was reoriented from the mundane greeting of some friends of a friend to welcoming the spirit of cultural France. Deneuve is The Deneuve. She is all France is supposed to be.

  Let us talk for a minute about French women and Italian women and American women. On the French side we have Bridget Bardot and Marie France-Pisier and Deneuve. On the Italian side we have Sophia Loren and Orniella Vanoni. On the American side we have Grace Kelly and Greta Garbo (adopted American). Bardot symbolizes French sensuality. Pisier symbolizes the innocence of the French countryside. And Deneuve symbolizes classic Greek beauty and grace. Loren idealizes the wholesomeness of the beautiful Italian wife and mother, while the singing voice of Vanoni exhibits Italian verve, sensuality, and emotionalism. Garbo is Garbo; is the aristocratic. She is the woman all men want to kiss. Just kiss, no more. She is the vixen within the marble statue. Grace Kelly is the American counterpart to Deneuve, and the most beautiful of all women.

  Monsieur Verlaine, as owner of one of the most famous and important wine estates in the world, is a very sophisticated fellow, and knows something about cultural icons. And here, at his doorstep, is The Deneuve. They have met before, of course, as Catherine loves wine, and she has drunk many bottles made at Domaine La Romani-Conti, loving every one.

  Inside the estate house the switchboard lights up. Before she even enters the house, her presence is known by the staff and the family. Within minutes, wine-makers throughout the district know she’s here, on a tour. The managers and owners and family members who are out in the vineyards digging in the dirt, fly to the houses and showers and clothes closets. Maybe, she will visit with them.

  Now a word about Gwen. In the looks department she is no slouch. She’s a head-turner, in her prime, all desirable woman. If she were not seated next to The Deneuve, Monsieur Verlaine would be acting towards her with the very greatest degree of solicitude. He would break out the very best wine for tasting, in her honor. But, the other woman is here, and it is her that garners all attention.

  The phone call from Jacques several weeks earlier had alerted Verlaine to the visit, in general terms. Stephan now explains more specifically the purpose of their visit, and Verlaine listens politely. He has heard this request before, many times, and always he had said, with profuse apologies, no, it was not possible. His production is so small, and the demand (especially from wealthy Japanese) for his wines is so very high, and his production costs are astronomical. Probably, even with the request from his friend Jacques Raconteur, he would have said no to Roger and Stephan. But. But. There was a force in the room which would not be denied. The Deneuve was in the room. She did not speak of the request from Roger and Stephan, or ask outright. What she did was to sit quietly, sip the Grand Escheveux that Verlaine had poured for them, and enjoy the beauty and ambience of one of the great and most beautiful wine tasting rooms anywhere in the world.

  Now, after the request by Stephan, and with Verlaine pondering, her demeanor changed. She looked directly at Verlaine and projected the female power of beauty and elegance onto him with massive, shocking force, palpable to Gwen and Jinny and Roger and Stephan, and probably discernible to all the other occupants of the house, the estate, and possibly the nearby town itself.

  Verlaine could not move. His brain stopped functioning. His gaze was transfixed onto Catherine’s face, onto her demanding eyes. His biology recognized her mouth and the cut of her cheekbones and the lines of her jaw, and the effect of her hair coursed through his bones. None of the others moved a muscle. It was like waiting for the verdict in a packed courtroom, the jury foreman standing with the piece of paper in his hand upon which are written the words, “We find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree.” The presence of The Deneuve was awe-inspiring. Gwen learned.

  The moment ended and Catherine smiled, as she knew she had accomplished what she wanted to accomplish. She had done this sort of thing before. The spell was broken and their awareness of the tasting room in the great estate of Domaine La Romani-Conti returned. Verlaine smiled, and Stephan smiled, and Roger smiled, and Gwen looked astounded. Jinny started breathing again, just in the nick of time. Verlaine rose, touched a buzzer on the wall, and waited for a staff member to respond. He asked the staff member to take Mademoiselle Deneuve and Mademoiselle June and Monsieur Blistov to the dining room and serve them canapés. When they were gone he seated the two men and asked Stephan how much wine Roger wanted, and what price did
he want to pay?

  The deal took exactly four minutes to make, after which the three men joined the others for the remainder of the tasting and the snacks. Outside of the house, with the big car doors open and the others watching, Deneuve placed her hands on Verlaine’s shoulders, smiled at him, kissed him on both cheeks, turned, and entered the mobile living room.

  This exact scenario didn’t happen at all of the other Burgundy and Bordeaux estates, but some version of it did.

  Gwen always had loved the wines of Bouchard, and Roger had asked Jacques if this estate could be one of the producers they visited. Bouchard had hosted the annual Burgundy wine and food celebration the year before, so Jacques and the Bouchard clan were well acquainted. Every year in the late fall, after the madness of the harvest and initial wine making process was past, one Burgundy estate hosted the greatest of all aristological events. At this event a plethora of wines old and new were served with foods prepared by France’s greatest chefs. The Bouchard event took place deep in the labyrinthine cellars that had existed since the early 17th century. The lucky invitees descended to the depths where they were greeted by the host family members, and handed a glass of champagne. The other Burgundy estates previously had sent their contributions: old bottles of burgundy, very old bottles of Burgundy, supremely great bottles, just great bottles, bottles of young wine, red burgundies and white burgundies. As the guests passed onwards into the caverns lit by hundreds of candles, the bottles and the culinary dishes made their appearances. The white wines dominated the first rooms, then the reds took over. There were small tables barely supporting the offerings, and there were larger tables fairly groaning under the weight of dozens of bottles set amidst ceramic dishes containing seafood, fresh vegetables, charcuteries and pâtés. The first tables contained the young wines. The older wines held sway at the far reaches and in the inner depths of the caves.

  The Bouchards were stationed strategically throughout the caverns, directing the sommeliers, the waiters, and the guests. They talked about the wines and the food, about the recent harvest, about the politics of wine, and about family. Each Bouchard knew exactly which wines from which of their neighbors were being served in their area, they praised them, and offered suggestions for matching specific wines to specific foods. Of course the chefs and sommeliers had done this matching previously, with specific dishes being created to match each contributed wine. Sometimes a food dish comes first and a wine is matched to it. At this aristological event, the greatest anywhere, the wines come first, and the foods are created to match them.

  Deneuve had not attended the Bouchard event the previous year, but she had attended many of the events at other estates in other years. It took The Deneuve to break people’s attention away from the wines and the foods. When the President of France attended, he was treated like all others. When the Tour de France winner attended, he was treated like all others. When Coco Chanel attended, she was treated like all others. But when The Deneuve attends, things are different. Men holding glasses of fifty-year-old pinot noir that had come out of a bottle which on the open market would cost $5,000, set the glasses on shelves and forgot about them.

  The fact that Deneuve now was at the Bouchard estate and tasting with friends was very special, and Madam Bouchard was the host. Her four children gathered too, along with three Brittany Spaniels, each named after one of the vineyards. In preparation for the stop at the Bouchard estate, Stephan had told Roger that Madam Bouchard fancied the New England watercolorists John Marin and Winslow Homer. Now, a Winslow Homer painting was very valuable and very expensive at auction. John Marin’s paintings also were high dollar items, but much less so than a Homer. Upon learning of Madam Bouchard’s fondness for Marin, Roger had asked Gwen to ask her brother the curator at the Met in New York City if there might be something associated with Marin that Roger could obtain. Her brother networked, and in a matter of hours turned up a collector with a letter written by Marin to his wife that included in the margins a tiny sketch of a dog and a tiny sketch of a child. The brother bought the letter for a thousand dollars, and packaged it overnight to the hotel in Leseur.

  In the drawing room of the Bouchard home, Gwen removed the small package from her briefcase and gave it to Deneuve, who unwrapped it and handed it to the host. Either fortuitously, or as an effect of the wine that she, along with everyone else, had drunk, Madam Bouchard interpreted the sketch of the dog to be a Britanny Spaniel, and the sketch of the child to resemble her youngest daughter. The letter bore the signature, “John.” Bouchard veritably squealed, left the room, and returned with a gorgeously framed 1913 semi-representational painting by Marin titled, Annette and Cleo on the Water. She set the painting on a chair facing the group, and explained that Annette was Marin’s daughter and Cleo was the girl’s dog. Next to the painting she placed the letter, unframed, but mounted on cardboard and protected by plastic. With this juxtaposition, Madam Bouchard beamed at Deneuve and Gwen and Roger. She really didn’t beam very much at Jinny, who didn’t mind because he was having the time of his life. He didn’t know who John Marin was, but he had looked at enough early twentieth century paintings on the walls of the Hermitage to know greatness when he saw it. Great art, great wine, great women, great houses. Jinny was doing just fine. France was everything he had hoped it would be.

  Madam Bouchard did pretty much the same thing Monsieur Verlaine had done earlier. She asked Roger and Stephan to go with her to her office, where the deal to supply the desired wines took much longer to negotiate than at La Romani-Conti. Here it took fourteen minutes. With this done, they returned to the others and to the tasting. Gwen drank more of the Bouchard wine than maybe she should have, it being so unbelievably delicious she couldn’t restrain herself. She entered the Mercedes slightly sloshed, followed by an unaffected Deneuve and unaffected Blistov.

  The Mercedes battleship got moving, and something happened in the back of the car. The seats facing the rear of the car were big enough for four adults, and the seats facing the front of the car also were big enough for four. Roger and Stephan and Blistov faced backwards, and Deneuve and Gwen were together and facing frontwards. The men were content, acting normally, but the women were something more than content and were not acting normally. Gwen had devolved into giggling. Catherine was composed, but something unusual was going on with her, too. A fire was smoldering, a cool blue fire speaking of controlled emotions. It was a constitutional disposition that was all female and all culture and all happy feelings. The two women sat with hips touching, shoulders touching, and eyes directed at each other. Roger checked to see if the chauffer surreptitiously had raised an invisible partition between the men and the women that separated their worlds, but he couldn’t detect one. Stephan and Jinny felt the dividedness from the women, too. They looked at each other, looked at the women, looked out the windows. The women were in a world all of their own, with Gwen speaking French between giggles, and Deneuve speaking English between her cooler expositions. In no way could the three men comprehend any of the discourse, which made them really, really uneasy; so uneasy they couldn’t even form a conversation among themselves. They stared at the two beautiful women, and then stared out at the countryside. Roger didn’t even mind that the other two guys were staring at his wife about one third of the time.

  This situation reached the penultimate climax when Gwen and Catherine took hold of each other’s hands. The four hands clasped and writhed and squeezed in tempo with the words of their conversation (still unintelligible to the men).

  The situation reached its ultimate climax when the women’s words ceased abruptly, their eyes locked even more tightly than before, and they exchanged a kiss.…brief, but meaningful.

  Stephan, being French, smiled at the women. Blistov, being a Russian from high geographic latitudes, lost control of his jaw muscles which resulted in his mouth dropping open and staying that way for a full minute. Roger retained his composure outw
ardly, but inwardly he had to admit he wished it was him kissing Deneuve rather than his wife kissing Deneuve. With the end of the kiss, the two women returned to the here and now of the automobile coursing through the French countryside, and to the presence of the three men. They didn’t speak to the men, but they stopped talking to each other, and took to gazing out the windows. This state of affairs lasted until they reached their hotel for the night.

  The group visited the other Burgundy estates the next day, and Deneuve worked her magic at all of them, effortlessly. Roger and Stephan left each one with some sort of gentleman’s agreement to supply modest quantities of great wine at great prices.