Vintage (13 page)

She threw open the shutters to expose a hazy vista overlooking the Côte-d'Or. There was a bottle of a simple white AOC Bourgogne on the table by the window with two glasses. “Shall I open this?” she asked with a smile.

“Of course,” he said, imagining that this may be one of those romantic moments about which he sometimes wrote. But when she only overturned one glass he realized that she had no plans to join him, and he felt silly for having hoped otherwise.

She left and the room reacquired some of its medieval gloom without her presence. He sat sipping his wine and arranging his things on the desk: a stack of black hardcover notebooks next to a row of newly sharpened pencils, a photocopied bundle of research materials on the occupation from the Harold Washington Library in Chicago and a few volumes that included
Parker Thomas's Guide to Burgundy,
which he had to admit was a useful index of the vineyards and producers of the region.

So, here he was, in Burgundy, the magical kingdom of the vine. If the world of viticulture and enology had a sun around which all other places revolved, this would be it. He was inspired to write in a way he hadn't been in ages.

But after jotting down only a page of random observations from his brief time in Paris he drank most of the complimentary bottle of wine and fell into a deep sleep. He felt a warm ray of evening sun slipping through the window to bake his cheek and he awoke suddenly, panicked at the waning day. This was, after
all, a research trip. He was here to interview the elusive proprietress of the Trevallier label and he knew next to nothing about her other than the fact that she rarely, if ever, spoke to journalists.

As he headed out, evening sun lit the empty streets near the city walls. Beaune drew its share of tourists, but it still was a working town, with
négociants,
coopers, laboratories, winery equipment suppliers and the like, a fact Bruno loved about the city. As he turned on the Rue des Tonneliers, he saw two men rolling freshly coopered oak barrels out of a workshop and to the curb, where they hoisted them into the back of a truck. He smelled the vanilla bite of the new wood as he passed.
Tonneliers
means “barrelmakers.” He knew he could have visited the town in the 1400s and witnessed the same activity.

He paused to ask one of the men if they knew anything about Mme. Trevallier. One shrugged and the other, without looking, made the universal French gesture for craziness, putting his index finger to his ear and twisting back and forth like a drill. He waited a moment for elaboration, but they were clearly busy, so he bade them
bonsoir
and went on his way.

He next inquired at a
fromager
down the street. She was wrapping up the cheeses in her display case for the evening, and Bruno was distracted by the pungent, fruity aroma of the half wheel of Morbier in her hand. She must have heard his stomach rumble, because she shared a generous slice. He held it up to the light to admire the rich gold with its ash stripe down the middle. It melted sweet against his tongue.

The woman was less helpful on the matter of Mme. Trevallier. She'd never met her, though she'd heard that she was an absentee landlord living the good life in Paris. “Have you seen the price of her wines? That woman's never worked a day in her life.”

A group of young men in mud-spattered rubber boots two
blocks farther along were about as helpful as the
fromager
. Bruno asked them if they were vignerons and they laughed and said that they installed septic systems. But one of them had worked on the Trevallier estate.

“The place is really run-down. And that woman is crazy . . . an old crone with wild gray hair and cheap costume jewelry. They say she's a genius when it comes to wine, but also a tightwad. I'd stay away, if I were you. There are plenty of estates that have more class and charm, and at a better price.”

Bruno was dismayed that investigative work was getting him nowhere and producing such a poor assessment of this elusive, magical wine. But as the streetlamps popped on he realized it was time for a meal and his spirits brightened. He chose a small restaurant and sat at an outdoor table on a street corner with a view of the Place Carnot, where a vintage merry-go-round turned slowly, the music faintly audible over the sound of conversation. He ordered a plate of
gougères
and took some time before choosing a Volnay Premier Cru from a producer he'd never heard of. It was delightful, light, clear and floral, but with a hint of the cellar and farmyard, a tad too brown in the glass under the streetlight. At La Marseillaise he might have been underwhelmed . . . another random bottle of very good Burgundy. But here it took on mystical qualities. The walls of these houses that surrounded him had stared across the hills for how many hundreds of vintages? This rustic Pinot Noir was the perfect compliment.

The
gougères,
small puffs of
choux
pastry with local cheeses mixed in the dough, were especially light, and they disintegrated against the roof of his mouth. He finished with a salad of mixed greens served with the classic egg poached in red wine sauce,
oeufs en meurette
.

His belly full, he wrote down what he'd learned about Mme. Trevallier, and then swayed from the table, gifting the remaining half of his bottle to an attractive young couple. He bowed to the woman, doffing his cap and winking.

He then went into the back and asked to speak to the chef. The fellow was gruff, eying the Cubs cap with suspicion, but the quality of Bruno's French usually won people over quickly.

“Can you tell me anything about Madame Trevallier?”

“Sylvie? What do you want to know? Just drink her wine and you'll understand that she's got impeccable taste and she doesn't suffer bullshit.”

The chef waved the writer away, and Bruno felt he might want to tread very carefully when it came to his approach to this Trevallier woman. But careful wasn't his style, so he decided on a full-frontal assault instead. In the morning he'd muster as much of his clumsy charm as possible and see where that got him.

He wandered the city center and absorbed the burble of restaurant conversation, the popping of corks and clink of glasses, the sound of tires on the cobbles. The air was thick and warm, and he felt a few drops of rain from somewhere in the darkness above. He knew that Burgundian weather was fickle, and a flash storm could appear out of nowhere, dropping rain in buckets. It was part of the risk of growing Pinot and Chardonnay in a continental climate.

As he circled his way back toward his hotel on the emptier streets near the old city walls, he picked up the sound of footsteps behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted a figure in a dark coat and hat slipping into the shadows between the streetlamps.

He turned onto the next street, not recognizing the street corner. It was darker here, and he again heard the
click, click, click
on the cobbles behind him. His pulse quickened. Instinctively he felt for the lump on his forehead, the dry, scabby skin at his hairline from the thumping he'd received in the wine storage unit.

Was he in danger? He looked up at the shuttered windows. They were all dark save one, where the blue light of a television flickered between the slats in the shutter. He wondered if he should shout. There was one streetlamp ahead, and it buzzed and suddenly flickered out, bathing the entire stretch in darkness. On impulse he slipped into a tight gap between two houses, his belly wedged against the stone side of the building. He remembered now the quick glimpse of a figure in a dark coat and hat at the train station earlier in the day. Why hadn't he been more alert on this trip? He recalled the Russian thug and Aleksei's warning about mysterious parties interested in this vintage. Why wouldn't they also be here?

The footsteps grew louder, and indignation swelled within him. The wine was giving him courage. Here he was in one of the loveliest towns on earth and he was allowing a specter to torment him.

Just as the figure drew abreast of him, he leapt out of the narrow alley. At that moment the temperamental streetlight clicked back on and a shriek rose in the narrow canyon of apartments.

No thug stood before him now, but instead a matronly woman in a trench coat and rain hat. She was carrying an umbrella and she whacked Bruno's knee. He stumbled and put up his hands in protest, apologizing profusely in English. The woman didn't back down. Evidently thugs and muggers weren't tolerated in Beaune.

She struck Bruno again on the legs and shoulder with her umbrella. Lights came on overhead and he heard the creak of a shutter being thrown open. The woman marched away a few
steps but returned to deliver one final whack on Bruno's ear for good measure.

“
Merde! Je ne tolère pas les criminels,
” the woman was shrieking.

Bruno heard laughter from above.

“
Ramper dans votre trou, vermine!
” the woman shouted, jabbing the umbrella at Bruno and then striding away without looking back. Bruno bent to massage his sore knee and watched the woman in admiration as she strode away. Above him a shutter creaked and slammed shut, and he was beginning to wonder if he was cut out for adventure of any sort. He thought that he might need a glass of sherry to steel his nerves before bed. He decided it was time to stop fooling around. Tomorrow he would march on Les Cloches.

Anyone who tries to tell you that love, passion or lust are solely the provinces of youth has never stumbled across an aged bottle in the depths of the cellar. While it may be covered in dust and the label faded, one need only pull the cork to learn that the more mature wine has advantages of depth, complexity and wisdom. Wine reminds us that, like matters of the heart, inclusion of the dimension of time has an additive rather than diminishing effect.

—
B
RUNO
T
ANNENBAUM,
T
WENTY
R
ECIPES FOR
L
OVE

T
he truck jolted over a rut in the road, rattling the empty grape lugs and almost tossing Bruno from the flatbed. The old, gray-whiskered dog riding next to him panted in amusement. He was obviously more used to the broken roads of these ancient Burgundian wine towns than the writer, who tightened his grip on the edge of the bed.

Bruno stared across the tidy rows of vines edged with the golden light of morning, each leaf wearing the tint of possibility. It was
morning in Burgundy, and he was here, at the beginning of the grand adventure that would be his next book. He was nervous, excited, afraid. Ahead of him lay the story of a lifetime. Tonight was the bacchanal. And beyond that, anything could happen. The magic he'd sensed as a much younger man on his first journey here hung now in the haze above these tidy vineyards.

The wines in the Côte-d'Or were managed with more precision than anywhere else in the world. It was a by-product, perhaps, of the fact that a single row of these vines could provide the income for an entire winemaking family. Everything about the landscape, from the gradual eastward slope of the hillsides, to the villages clustered in shallow draws and the crumbling stone walls demarking the vineyard blocks, reminded him that he was in his beloved Bourgogne. They passed the sign marking the beginning of the Route des Grands Crus and then another denoting the first village, Pommard.

The truck's cab had no back window, so Bruno poked his head inside. “What do you know of Madame Trevallier?” he asked the driver.

“Reclusive. Ruthless,” the man said after a moment of thought. He was a laconic farmer. He added, “Icy, humorless and brilliant.” Bruno nodded. He was forewarned. How was he ever going to get any information out of this woman?

Bruno banged on the side of the truck, and it slowed by a church so he could jump off. He leapt to the ground by the memorial to “the children of Pommard” who gave their lives for France in the Great War. He slapped the truck again, waving thanks to the driver in the mirror. The names on the cold stone read like a wine list of the great producers. How many great wines were never made by these young men? How many promising young vignerons were trod into the mud between trenches?

He followed the pitted road west out of town, climbing a gentle slope. He passed the rusted hulk of a truck and then a crumbling building, suddenly struck by the notion that this ramshackle village produced luxury products few could afford. If anyplace was a polar opposite of the Napa Valley, it was Pommard. Wine and its economics and production formed an unfathomable puzzle. The more he learned, the less he understood. He was a child humbled before the mystery of the fermented grape. One could memorize scores, buy futures or even strive to become a “Master of Wine,” but in Bruno's mind such pursuits missed a fundamental truth about the stuff:
It isn't some refined substance to be analyzed or studied and ranked on a scale of seventy to one hundred. It's a story. A form of communication, meant for facilitating a conversation across a table and through the ages. A time stamp of geology and weather, of wars and domestic strife. Of human folly and hubris and passion and sublime appreciation for the great mystery that sends pale green shoots out toward the warm spring sun, conjures its fruit by the ton and then dies back to a dried woody skeleton every fall, every vine, every drop a tiny homage to the Big Bang, the celestial orbit and the miracle of cellular division.

Bruno was feeling more writerly than he had in months, maybe years, and he whistled as he climbed the switchbacks up the slope. A dragonfly paced him for part of the walk, hovering just past his shoulder like a guardian angel.

The estate he sought was a lone enclave of pitted stone buildings that stood beyond the village and in stark contrast to the more prosperous wine houses in Beaune, with their iron crests and elaborate tasting rooms. He'd heard much about Mme. Trevallier now, and it was not without a little trepidation that he sought her out. He had gained only a vague picture of her in
his head from his conversations, but what he knew was that she was eccentric, capable and aloof. And she refused to talk to the press.