Vintage (23 page)

Taking a taxi from the station, Clare let herself into the low-ceilinged, book-lined sitting-room of Rose Cottage. The familiar sight of Jamie’s discarded running shoes and his Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, open at ‘Supracondylar Fracture’, propped up against the stone marmalade jar on the gate-leg table, made her realise just how much she had missed him.

She hadn’t told Jamie she was coming. She hadn’t even known herself. Upstairs in the tiny bathroom with its sloping floor, the scarlet kimono with its dragon motif, which Jamie had brought back for her from a conference in Singapore, was still on the hook behind the door. Flinging open the window she looked out, not on to vines, but on to Jamie’s sweet-smelling English garden in which criss-crossed sticks formed a guard of honour for his profusion of runner beans, and the nicotineana she had planted for its night scent was coming into flower.

It had taken Jamie three years to modernise the fifteenth-century cottage, which he had first rented when he started working at the John Radliffe, and later bought. Good with his hands and brilliant with machinery, he had rewired and replumbed it. The cottage now boasted a bathroom, with a functioning hot water system, as well as central heating where it mattered. Lacking the necessary funds to extend it, for which he had already obtained planning permission, he was now ready to re-tile the roof.

Going downstairs again, Clare made coffee for herself and curled up on the Victorian sofa, which faced the inglenook fireplace, neatly stacked with logs sawn by
Jamie. Opening the Tatler she had picked up at the station, she flipped idly through the pages, paying special attention to the anxious brides, flanked by interchangeable grooms and attended by matching bridesmaids, pinned on to the glossy page like so many satin-clad butterflies. Glad to relegate the problems of the Château de Cluzac to a back burner, she thought what a relief it was to be home.

As far as her vandalised sign was concerned, she felt as if she herself had been assaulted. She was convinced that it was the work of the Baron’s frustrated negociant, although she was unable to prove it. The violent attack had turned out to be only a foretaste of the resentment, made abundantly clear by the staff, which her presence at the château provoked. Claude Balard was by no means the only one out to get her.

The unexpected appearance of Halliday Baines at the scene of her humiliation had not improved her temper…

‘Who the fuck could have done this?’ She had contemplated the crumpled remains of the pancarte.

Halliday Baines, in the driving seat of his jeep, put his hands over his ears in mock horror. Taking in the situation, he said, ‘Selling at the door, are we?’

Clare kicked at the rubble.

‘That was the general idea.’

‘Someone in these parts doesn’t approve of little girls meddling in things they know nothing about…’

‘Don’t be so bloody patronising.’

‘I hear Château de Cluzac is doing a vendange verte.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘News gets around. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.’

‘What for?’

Halliday shrugged.

‘All things being equal you should be OK,’ he said. ‘Not that I know too much about your place, except the cellars are deadbeat. I’ll be over to Ribagnac on Wednesday. Want me to look in?’

‘If you like.’

‘It’s down to you.’

Clare swallowed her pride. Halliday’s reputation as an airborne oenologist had gone before him. She needed all the help she could get.

Taking her silence for consent, Halliday switched on the ignition. ‘Cheers then! I’ll come for lunch.’

Looking back over his shoulder as he began to move away, the bumptious Australian gave Clare a cheery wave before leaving her among the rubble.

‘I’d let Doctor Hébèque take a look at that leg if I were you,’ he shouted above the noise of the engine. ‘Reckon you could do with a tetanus jab. And it might be an idea to inform the gendarmerie!’

Doctor Hébèque, medical adviser to many of the château owners and keeper of their secrets, not only gave her an injection against tetanus, but put half a dozen stitches in the semicircular gash in her leg.

‘It was a fine pancarte,’ Doctor Hébèque commiserated. ‘I remarked it when I called at Ribagnac to give the Baronne her B12. Bordeaux is a small town, with small-town attitudes. It is not London or Paris.’

By the time Halliday Baines called at Château de Cluzac, Clare had had another inquisitive visitor. Lured by the news that the estate had thrown open its gates and there was no longer the Baron’s frosty reception (for those who did manage to get past them) to contend with, the curious, anxious to see for themselves what was actually going on, were – on one excuse or another – if not exactly flooding, then trickling in.

Clare received them in her office. She had seconded Petronella, her father’s erstwhile secretary, to help her with the visites and to be her assistant. Given her father’s record, she presumed that he had at one time had an affair with the willowy Sloane Ranger, who was on the run from a disastrous relationship and a career in picture restoration.

Clare was on the telephone in her Bureau d’Acceuil, her leg bandaged beneath her black trousers, impressing upon the director of the firm responsible for replacing her sign that he must process her order before, rather than after, the tourist season began, when a copy of Wine Watch, slung on to her blotter, made her look up into the eyes of Big Mick Bly.

‘Well well!’ The tall wine guru dwarfed the tall Petronella who was drawing up a chair for him. Seeming to fill the office with his presence, Big Mick appraised Clare’s transformed appearance. ‘Don’t you look the part. If your claret’s half as smart as your front desk, young Clare, you’re on to a winner!’

Another patronising bastard, but not one she could afford to antagonise. She finished her call and replaced the receiver.

The ratings awarded in Wine Watch, which employed a 50-100 quality scale and were backed by Big Mick’s reputation, were taken extremely seriously both by wine-lovers and those connected with the trade.

Three months of his year were spent travelling, with Toni, tasting up to a hundred wines a day. The remaining nine months were devoted to more tasting, and to writing about wine. His findings reflected an independent
assessment
in which neither the price of the wine nor the name of the grower was allowed to affect his decision.

Big Mick preferred to taste from an entire bottle, in properly sized and cleaned professional tasting glasses.
The temperature of the wine had to be correct, and he reserved the right to determine the amount of time allocated to each sample.

The numerical ratings he gave were a guide to what he thought of each wine vis-à-vis its peer group. More than 85 meant very good to excellent (few ever made over 90), 70-79 average (an everyday table wine), while anything below 60 was both the kiss of death and an indication of wines to be avoided.

Big Mick’s detractors protested that a hierarchy was unsuited to a drink that had been romantically extolled for centuries, and that he made no allowance for individual preferences. His defence was that with wine, as with any other consumer product, there were specific standards of quality, recognised only by full-time professionals, as well as certain acknowledged benchmark wines against which all others could be measured. With this proviso, he allowed that there was no better arbiter than one’s own palate, and no better education in wine than tasting it oneself.

While Big Mick’s wine ratings carried a biblical authority, his tasting notes were worthy of its prose. A Bourgogne Blanc (‘a beauty to be drunk over the next year’) offered an ‘in-your-face, alcoholic, round, expansive style’, a Riesling Spätlese, a bouquet that was the ‘essence of wet stones and minerals’, while the excessive acidity of an Estate Riesling (‘a poor example of generic wines aimed at commercial restaurants’) rendered it ‘thin, tart and nearly undrinkable’.

Wine Watch had given the 1992 Château de Cluzac a 75. This rating was accompanied by a
downward-pointing
dagger which indicated that the quality of the Baron’s wine was declining. It was followed by the comment that it had become excessively astringent and was lacking in fruit and depth.

‘I had lunch with Van Gelder,’ Big Mick said. ‘I visit his place in Franschhoek. He makes quite a respectable Cabernet. I gather that Mademoiselle de Cluzac is not exactly flavour of the month…’

‘I seem to have got up quite a few noses round these parts.’

Big Mick chuckled. ‘If you can’t stand the heat you should keep out of the kitchen.’

Clare, fifty per cent Fitzgerald and fifty per cent de Cluzac, shook her head. ‘Not my style.’

Escorting Big Mick round the cellars, she outlined her plans for the computerised analyses and inox, which Alain Lamotte had already set up as a matter of the greatest urgency.

As the only wine writer who had ever been allowed into Château de Cluzac (and that only because he had been accompanied by Claude Balard) Big Mick was a familiar face to Jean Boyer who grew visibly nervous at his approach.

Big Mick cast an experienced eye over the barrels.

‘What you really have to do here before the vendange, if you want to do the job properly, is to buy sixty per cent new casks. I’ve been telling your father for years.’

‘What do you suggest I use for money?’

‘I’m afraid that’s your problem, young Clare…’

‘Please don’t call me that.’

Big Mick ignored the reproof. He was only interested in wine. ‘New barrels will “complete” the taste.
Improve your flavour level. Let you fine-tune your tannins. All I can do is advise.’

Accepting a glass of wine drawn by the cellarmaster, who awaited his verdict with anguish, Big Mick stuck his nose into the glass.

‘Don’t look so worried, Jean. Bad wine never did me any harm.’ His big voice reverberated round the cellar. ‘You know why…?’

The cellarmaster didn’t understand a word Big Mick was saying.

‘It never gets past my nose!’

Having examined the claret by the light of Jean’s candle, taking his time over tasting it, and finally spitting it out, Big Mick dabbed at his mouth with a
red-spotted
handkerchief, which he replaced in the breast pocket of his linen jacket, before taking out his notebook.

Back in the bureau, Petronella, instructed by Clare, served him a glass of Château de Cluzac ’70 to which, in its heyday, Wine Watch had awarded a 96.

The wine writer faced Clare across the desk.

‘Why don’t we cut the bullshit. It’s my job to seek out the world’s greatest wines and the world’s greatest wine values. In the process of ferreting out those wines, I have never once shied away from criticising a producer whose wine I have found lacking. Just as praising overachievers encourages them to maintain their high standards, so constructive and competent criticism forces underachievers to improve the quality of their wine. I guess you know what I’m going to say to you Clare…’

He explained to her, as Alain Lamotte had done, that the old wooden vats created sanitation problems, made it difficult to control the proper fermentation temperature, both in cold and hot years, and were partly responsible (the name of Claude Balard was not
mentioned) for the slump in quality of the château wine. If she used her ‘feminine’ intuition – he ignored Clare’s glare – and kept to a lighter, more elegant, style when bottling her existing wine, there was every chance that, while waiting for her new, modern cellars, she would recoup some of the château’s losses.

‘I shall be keeping an eye on you.’

‘So will everyone else in the Médoc.’

‘Jealousy! The last thing they want is to see Château de Cluzac’s reputation restored. Remember, Wine Watch is constantly on the lookout for any improvement, and Big Mick always gets in before the crowd.’

Big Mick looked at his watch and heaved his bulk off the chair.

Médaillac next stop. Toni doesn’t like me to be late for my meetings. See you around.’ He looked around the chrome and glass of the office with its black-and-white photographs of the surrounding countryside, copies of which she was hoping to sell to visitors. ‘You’ve done a great job, kid…’ He caught Clare’s eye. ‘I’m sorry!’

Halliday Baines, as small and compact as Big Mick Bly was large and bulky, arrived, true to his word, in time for lunch.

The ‘flying winemaker’ had been around since the late 1980s when someone had had the bright idea of bringing New World techniques to the under-exploited areas of France, many of which had been making wine since medieval times. The first representatives of this Australian airborne division were dismissed as mavericks, with technology where their taste buds should have been, by those who had forgotten what cheap wine used to taste like. The idea caught on, however, and the role of the oenologue was becoming increasingly important.

Those who considered winemaking an art, regarded the unquestionable ‘well-made’ wines of the New World as wines without soul, wines without identity, wines without heart, wines that could be made anywhere. They looked down upon the new breed of winemakers, deriding what they considered to be the homogeneous nature of their wine, and the fact that they dared to question the received wisdom that quality and quantity were incompatible.

Current thinking, however, demanded that the control of the natural phenomenon (by which sugar was converted into alcohol), as well as a better understanding of the glucids, protids, lipids, vitamins, enzymes, minerals and trace elements, was essential to the final product.

Halliday Baines, who had a PhD in viticultural research, recognised that, owing to the challenge of New World wines, claret now had to be competitively marketed. He had little time for Big Mick Bly, a school dropout, who, armed only with a pen, a notebook and a few bottles of wine, had established himself as a guru.

‘I hear Big Mac’s been here,’ he said over lunch, making Clare choke on her sorrel soup.

‘At least he endorsed my summer pruning. He said it complied fully with the Appellation Contrôlée
regulations
…’