Treachery in Bordeaux (The Winemaker Detective Series) Read online

  “My dear Virgile, from now on, consider yourself my assistant. We’ll discuss the conditions later. I hope that this wine cleared your mind, because I believe you will need all of your faculties. We have a particularly delicate mission awaiting us.”

  “And when will I be starting?”

  Cooker took a last sip of Haut-Brion and set his glass down slowly. He slipped a hand into his jacket pocket, looked Virgile in the eye and handed him a set of keys.

  “Right now.”

  2

  AFTER VIRGILE HAD NEGOTIATED a few bends, Benjamin Cooker felt reassured. His new assistant handled the old Mercedes 280 SL convertible with tact. He hadn’t needed much time to adjust to it. Virgile had no doubt that handing him the wheel was less a sign of trust than a test. He felt his employer eyeing his slightest moves with a distant vigilance barely masked by the drowsiness that was beginning to slow him down. As they drove through Bordeaux, Benjamin did not regret having let Virgile drive. He was beginning to feel the night of insomnia, and he let the comforting purr of the six cylinders soothe him. The accelerations were smooth, the braking soft, the turns balanced. The boy must have some hidden fault!

  As they approached the limits of Médoc, traffic slowed little by little until it stopped entirely on the boulevards. Construction bogged the city down, disfiguring it everywhere with orange-yellow signs that looked like they belonged in a cheap carnival. Cranes stood with empty hooks, and aggressive bulldozers lumbered like large lazy insects. The tramway—silent, shiny and bright—would soon rise from this tangled mess that had mired the city for several months. Some irritated Bordeaux residents honked without any illusions of being able to move along, while others just put up with it silently.

  “We’re trapped,” Cooker grumbled. “Take the first street to the right, and let’s head to Pessac.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Virgile.

  “Go on. I know a shortcut.”

  The driver put on his blinker and turned onto a lane lined with gray shops whose scaly facades could have used a serious facelift. The city was being transformed, but it would take a lot of work to restore the gleam of years past, before Bordeaux would find its glory again. It would have to clean the stonework blackened by pollution, uncover its long-neglected gilded facades, and then Bordeaux would again open up to the Port of the Moon, shedding its rags and coming into its own.

  Cooker dictated directions. Take the second street to the right, then the first left, followed by another left. Straight ahead to the sign. Watch out for the speed bump. To the right. Now, a little farther along, after the blue signs, keep right. Bordeaux’s suburbs filed past in a confusion of cubical houses dropped there during the happy-go-lucky 1950s, ugly sheet-metal warehouses and deserted workshops, faux rustic houses with small well-kept yards and mocking gnomes, storefronts and 19th-century working-class homes with stylized figures, sculpted friezes and zinc festoons.

  “We’re not far from the wine school,” Virgile said, surprised.

  “Indeed, it’s nearby. At the next light, take the small road that heads downhill. We’re almost there.”

  Cooker asked his assistant to stop the convertible in the parking lot at the entrance of a large estate that was drowned in greenery and surrounded by a stone wall; shards of broken bottles lined the top to dissuade dishonest visitors. Virgile, who had not asked any questions during the trip, could not contain his curiosity any longer.

  “Is this already Pessac?” he asked. “I’m a little lost.”

  “Yes and no. We’re at the Château Les Moniales Haut-Brion. The estate is located where the three towns of Pessac, Mérignac and Bordeaux meet. It is the only vineyard still found within greater Bordeaux.”

  “Is that so? I thought that there weren’t any more on the registry.”

  “You are quite mistaken! This is one of the originalities of the Moniales Haut-Brion.”

  “So, it’s the last vineyard planted in Bordeaux itself?”

  “Or the first, depending on how you see things, Virgile,” said Benjamin, who thought it right to add, “Above all, it is owned by one of my best friends.”

  Before going through the heavy wooden gate that opened to the grounds, Cooker glanced around, and it seemed that the landscape had changed again since his last visit some eight months earlier. The estate was locked in by suburban housing developments dating from the happy time before the first oil crisis tarnished illusions. A little farther north, blocks of white subsidized housing rose in stripes against the blue sky, insulting the eye.

  Now, right in front of the main Moniales entrance, there were new two-story buildings that already looked like they would age poorly. The architects who designed this tidy, soulless complex clearly lacked taste and culture but had shown a very advanced knack for economy. It was easy to detect the second-rate developer’s stinginess in the hastily built structures. No consideration had been given to the families that would take out 20-year mortgages on homes in this suburb, where the tiniest concrete block was accounted for, the piles of sand measured to the last grain, the woodwork negotiated at the lowest cost and the gate put up without any grace.

  Benjamin entered the estate and immediately headed toward the cellars, which were at the other end of the grounds. He felt at home. Virgile followed three steps behind, not daring to walk beside him, still wondering what they were doing here.

  A man of stature was walking in their direction. Cooker waved at him and turned to his assistant. “Denis Massepain, the estate owner.”

  Massepain’s steps were heavy. But his bearing was that of a natural gentleman farmer devoid of all affectation. He wore a white herringbone shirt, putty-colored pleated dress corduroys, a tweed jacket and English shoes. It looked like he and Cooker had the same tailor. Both had that elegant bearing that comes from being born into well-to-do families. Nearing the age of 50, neither had concerns about fleeting trends. Denis was an old friend, one you do not need to see often to feel as close to as you did the day you met him. From time to time, they crossed paths, getting together with their families for an evening in Grangebelle, meeting for a long lunch, just the two of them, at Le Noailles in town or seeing each other briefly during a tasting among experts. Luckily, Elisabeth got along well with Thérèse Massepain, the daughter of wine merchants from the Chartrons neighborhood. She too had highborn elegance and reserve.

  They were a charming couple. Their children were educated, and their company was always pleasant. Benjamin was pleased that Denis had married so well. It was as if Thérèse’s smile and the pearl necklace she always wore brightened him up. He had studied to be an embryologist and had worked for a long time for a large pharmaceutical company in Castres before he took over operations at Moniales Haut-Brion, which belonged to his in-laws. Denis had finally put away his test tubes and potions to dedicate himself to presses and oak barrels. He worked hard, was blessed with a pragmatic approach and was extremely rigorous in his winemaking. It took him only a few years to make this wine one of the most prestigious in the appellation.

  “Benjamin, it’s a disaster!”

  “Hello, Denis.”

  “A total disaster!”

  Cooker had always known his friend to have an abrupt nature, but to not even greet him?

  “Smell that!”

  Cooker carefully sniffed at the vial that Denis held out. He paused.

  “I’m going to be very honest with you,” the winemaker said right out, wrinkling his nose. “This is the worst kind of smell. It’s a real mess, and you never know how the wine will turn out.”

  “Are you thinking the same thing I am?”

  “I’m afraid so,” grumbled Benjamin, moving his nose away from the flask.

  “Brettanomyces?” the estate owner stammered with a worried look that seemed to refuse the answer that he already knew was obvious.

  “I’m not going to hide anything from you. And it seems to be very advanced already.”

  “I don’t understand. It happened all at once. I wen
t to Germany for a week, and when I came back, I found four barrels like this.”

  “Denis, you are not the first to be the victim of this kind of thing. But it is rather rare to find a Brett infection in a winery of your standing.”

  “That’s why I called you so early this morning.”

  Suddenly, Denis Massepain noticed Virgile. He glared at him with suspicion, knitting his eyebrows.

  “Virgile Lanssien, my new assistant,” Cooker said to reassure him, and then he went into the cellars.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Massepain murmured.

  “The pleasure is all mine, sir,” the young man said, forcing his voice a little.

  They followed the winemaker, who had already started ferreting among the barrels. The cellars, which had recently been renovated and enlarged, were kept remarkably clean. There were small 1,000- to 2,000-gallon tanks used to ferment grapes from each parcel separately. The wine was then aged for about 18 months in oak barrels before being bottled. The small Moniales estate had long lingered in the shadows of the prestigious Château Haut-Brion and its neighbor, Mission Haut-Brion, yet it could now easily rival the best vineyards in the Pessac-Léognan appellation.

  Denis Massepain was aware of the challenges and duties the Haut-Brion name imposed on him, so he had called on the advice of experts, notably the invaluable guidance of André Cazebon, an eminent researcher and dean of the Bordeaux Wine School. Cooker had great esteem for this specialist in monitoring phenolic maturity. He had perfected a technique that made it possible to precisely determine grape maturity so that the fruit could be harvested at the optimal time. With this, you could adapt the winemaking process for each tank and get unique results from each parcel.

  “Did you tell your wizard?” asked Benjamin.

  “I wouldn’t have bothered you if he had been around. I think he is in Lyon for a conference.”

  “We’ll need his opinion. I’d like to talk it over with him.”

  “I haven’t been able to reach him.”

  “We’ll take samples from all the barrels, and we also need …”

  “It’s done already,” Denis interrupted. “I prepared a sample from each barrel.”

  “In that case, I’ll take everything to my lab and ask them to fast track the tests.”

  “I would like this to stay between us,” the estate owner said with a sigh.

  “Who do you think we are? It seems to me that Cooker & Co. has a reputation for being more than discreet!”

  “I’m sorry, Benjamin. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Virgile and I will be the only ones who know. We won’t use any labels or names, so nothing will leak out. Don’t worry.”

  Cooker nodded at Virgile, who took the crate full of numbered flasks from the small stainless steel table. The assistant lifted it effortlessly and followed his employer, who continued to talk with the master of the Moniales as they walked up the central drive on the grounds.

  “Virgile will come back tomorrow to take further samples from the barrels that are still healthy. In the meantime, you have to isolate the four contaminated barrels,” advised Cooker. “That is a basic measure, and it needs to be done quickly. Better safe than sorry! You don’t have to walk us to the gate. I know the way.”

  The two friends shook hands without saying anything further. His arms around the wooden crate, Virgile took leave of the estate owner with a nod and a smile that tried to be encouraging.

  “This estate is really magnificent,” the young man said, looking around at the large trees dotting the grounds that had been designed by Michel Bonfin, the landscaper who did the Chartreuse Cemetery in Bordeaux.

  Virgile did not hide his admiration. He stopped for a moment to contemplate the Moniales Haut-Brion manor house, built on a hill in front of the cellars. It was surrounded by rows of grapevines and dominated the landscape without arrogance. The château was not huge, but the balance of its slate roof, the curve of its front steps and the proportions of its facade, with wings that had white Doric columns on both sides, gave the building elegance. A creek called the Peugue flowed at the foot of the knoll, ending among the loose moss-covered cobblestones of a fountain. A small baroque chapel, built in the 17th century, with a pink-marble encrusted pediment, stood in the shade of a chestnut tree. Flocks of birds chirped in the pale April light, and leaves rustled in the breeze.

  “It is hard to imagine such a place in the middle of the city.”

  “It’s a small piece of paradise, my dear Virgile, with a whiff of sulfur in it.”

  “I get that impression too, sir,” the assistant said, arranging the samples carefully in the trunk of the car.

  Cooker drove back. They had to move quickly. Very quickly!

  3

  BENJAMIN RUBBED HIS EYES. Once again, the night had been short. He gulped down half a teapot of Grand Yunnan, took a very hot shower, splashed on a healthy dose of Bel Ami aftershave and dressed quickly, not really choosing his clothes. He had spent the entire night rereading his tasting notes, and he had a sharp pain in his lower back.

  Elisabeth was still sleeping when he let Bacchus into the convertible. The setter sat in the passenger seat, his nose to the wind, a proud look in his eyes and his ears perked to the understated accents and streamlined drama of a Gluck opera. Cooker whistled the first measures of Iphigenia in Taurus; he was out of tune, but his heart was in it. This was his favorite opening of all, not because he thought it greater than the major works by Mozart or Verdi, but because it was concise. Cooker had a predilection for openings, prologues and introductions, whether they were symphonies, oratorios or lyrical works. He had recorded many tapes and enjoyed them the same way he enjoyed a bottle of wine: for the pleasure of tasting, without feeling obliged to finish it.

  The road was short between Saint-Julien-Beychevelle, where Grangebelle was nestled, and the pier in the small port town of Lamarque. Benjamin drove the nine miles slowly to savor the crisp morning air and make the most of the always-comic show his quivering dog put on, his impertinent snout up to take in the view. The car was quickly loaded on the Médocain, a modern functional ferry stripped of all poetry. Benjamin was nostalgic for the old Commander Lemonnier, who skillfully piloted a straight-from-the-past boat called Les Deux Rives, an ancient pot-bellied tub whose curves became graceful when, in the hands of a real sailor, it caressed the sea foam. Lemonnier, a former Cape Horner and a formidable master mariner, started piloting this fresh-water crossing between inland Médoc and the Blaye citadel when he was well beyond 70. He was capable of steering his boat through fog and dark nights without using any navigational instruments. All he needed was a compass, a chronometer and a tide schedule to avoid the mud banks and skirt the treacherous islands of Île Verte and Fort Pâté, with its headlands. It took him barely 20 minutes to reach the other bank, and it was a pleasure to watch him in the wheelhouse, examining his little black Moleskine notebook, where he had noted maneuvering speeds and course durations, giving orders with a strong voice and landing at the pier without even lifting his eyes from his chronometer’s silver box.

  The other side was a foreign land, a place that you could reach with a cannon ball, if not with the lob of a slingshot. Like the kids from the Médoc, young Benjamin had dreamed of bloody attacks, galleys in distress, pirate raids, toothless buccaneers and wild mutinies when he had spent summers here. And after a stormy night, when the current carried knotty peat, empty containers and puffed-up plastic bags, he could still imagine combats and skinned corpses, their bellies filled with saltwater.

  As soon as Cooker landed on the right bank of the Gironde, he had the same feeling of adventure that had carried him away when his grandfather Eugène had taken him to visit Blaye. He parked the convertible in a downtown lot and immediately headed toward the citadel. Bacchus barked and had already gone through the king’s gate when Benjamin started over the bridge leading to the ramparts.

  Their walk continued for two full hours. Dog and master explored the fortress at great l
ength: the Minimes Convent, the barracks, the prison and the powder magazine, the Dauphine counterscarp, the Liverneuf gate, the central pavilion and the fortified flanks. Benjamin perched on the Cônes stronghold, pausing for a long time to watch the estuary’s slow-moving muddy water. He stared at a swirling eddy in the distance, then set his gaze on a sailboat before eyeing some lone branches washing against the foot of the cliff. Afterward, he climbed the Eguilette tower and took out his spiral notebook. He unscrewed the top of his fountain pen and jotted down some notes in his precise, swirled writing:

  “Vauban, a man from Dijon [develop this idea] … the two visits from the King [check the dates] … Fort-Médoc kids … fishing for freshwater river shrimp … plaice fillets, court-bouillon [recipe with fennel] … Roland de Roncevaux [be concise] … do not forget Ferri, layout of Fort Pâté … arms factory, troop housing … the water is yellow, brown even, flowerbeds of the houses on the right … shops without giving any details, clock above the bridge, stone watchtower.” He crossed out “stone” and replaced it with “suspended.”

  It was nearly noon when he turned back toward the middle of town. Bacchus was thirsty and was beginning to show signs of fatigue. Benjamin walked over to a cast-iron fountain and knelt beside the running water, cupping his hands to catch it for his dog to drink. They had enough time before the next ferry to visit an antique shop downtown. As soon as they passed through the beaded curtain, a lean man greeted them. He had the profile of a wading bird, as though he were an ancient hieratic sculpture carved in dry boxwood and lost among the shop’s odds and ends.

  “Mr. Cooker, I was just going to call you.”

  “You say that every time, my good man. One of these days I’m going to end up believing you,” teased the winemaker.

  “No, I mean it. I just received some marvels that have your name all over them.”

  “Show me your latest finds, but let me warn you, I did not come to Blaye to hunt for antiques. I do not even have checkbook on me.”