David Dickinson - Death of a wine merchant

Whites was the hotel where the pre-phylloxera dinners were held. Presumably the clients were keen to indulge their passion for these wines at a place where no publicity was likely to leak out. Maybe even their own wives didn’t know where they had gone on these evenings, or of the size of the bills. Powerscourt asked for the general manager and was shown into a small room behind the reception desk. The walls were lined with prints of the great houses of England, Blenheim, Longleat and Wilton House on one wall, Holkham Hall and Castle Howard on the other.

Two or three minutes later a very neat little man, five feet six inches tall and clean shaven in his frock coat, who looked as if he was polished twice a day, announced himself as George Brandon, general manager of Whites Hotel.

‘And how might I be of service to you today, Lord Powerscourt?’

Powerscourt wondered, not for the first time, if the Lord in his name meant that he received speedier service than a mere Mister. He reflected ruefully that he would never find out. ‘Thank you for seeing me so quickly, Mr Brandon. I am most grateful. I am seeking information and guidance on pre-phylloxera wines. I understand that you hold dinners here from time to time when such wines are served.’

George Brandon smiled. ‘You have come to the right place, Lord Powerscourt. Would you like me to arrange to have you added to our list of clients? I don’t think that would be a problem.’

‘Would that it were so easy, Mr Brandon! Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to join your connoisseurs and their ancient vintages around the table. Let me be frank with you. We are talking of a dinner, a celebration, for a relative who is approaching his eightieth birthday. Indeed it may be touch and go whether he reaches that happy day or not. I fear that some of the younger and more flippant members of the family have been placing wagers on whether the old boy will see his birthday or not. He lives in a crumbling Tudor mansion in the depths of Somerset. His doctors will not let him out as far as Bath, let alone the West End of London.’

‘I see,’ said George Brandon. He rubbed his chin for a moment or two. ‘Let me see what we might be able to do, Lord Powerscourt. On very special occasions we put in motion a very special travel service for special clients. A luxurious, upholstered cab to take them to the station. A special train, equipped with its own doctors and nurses, to bring them up to London. A special motor car, also furnished with medical staff, to bring the clients to the hotel. The pre-phylloxera dinner on a scale and of a complexity to suit the client. A night under supervision in one of our Edward the Seventh suites. The journey in reverse the following day. We activated the service only last month, Lord Powerscourt, for an American millionaire who was taken ill in Yorkshire. It was very satisfactory.’

‘What was wrong with the American gentleman?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘I fear he was somewhat over-concerned about his health. He had a pain in his chest and thought his heart was going to stop.’

‘And was it?’

‘The doctors said his heart was in fine condition. They said he had probably pulled a muscle, coughing from an overgenerous intake of cigarettes.’

‘I see. Let me return to Somerset, Mr Brandon. Even with your superb travelling hospital, as it were, I do not think the family would be happy bringing the old gentleman to London. Let me apologize to you. What I meant to ask you right at the beginning was for the name of your wine merchants. I have been diverted by the quality of your service and the range of what you can supply.’

Powerscourt smiled at the little hotel manager. George Brandon rubbed his hands together again.

‘I should be happy to oblige. All I would ask, Lord Powerscourt, is that you would consider our services for any special occasions in the future. We should be only too happy to oblige. Now then, the name of the pre-phylloxera wine merchant is Piccadilly Wine, of Sackville Street, behind Regent Street. You should ask for Septimus Parry – he’s the gentleman we deal with.’

Powerscourt wondered if Brandon carried the names and addresses of all his principal suppliers – florists, butchers, greengrocers, bakers, tea merchants – round in his head. ‘Might I ask if these gentlemen supply all your wines, or just the special ones?’

George Brandon smiled. ‘They just supply the pre-phylloxera wines. They came to us in the first instance a couple of years ago. They said they had found large stocks of these pre-plague vintages. They more or less threw themselves on our mercy as to what to do with them. Piccadilly knew there were people who would pay a great deal of money to drink these wines but they didn’t know how to find them. Fortunately we were able to help on that score.’

And Piccadilly Wine, in the person of one Septimus Parry, had finessed themselves into a position where they would be able to charge the very top prices, with a band of drinkers assembled by Whites Hotel. God only knew how much they charged for a bottle of the stuff.

‘Mr Brandon, I am most grateful to you. I will detain you no longer. I shall set out for Piccadilly Wine at once.’

Twenty minutes later Lord Francis Powerscourt was shown into the office of Piccadilly Wine. There were two large desks, an enormous map of France on the wall and two young men, Vicary Dodds, attending to his account books with great care and total concentration in his suit of sober grey, and Septimus Parry, leafing idly through some wine catalogues from France in a suit that looked as if its owner should have been taking bets in the enclosure at Newmarket.

‘Good afternoon to you, sir,’ said Septimus. ‘How may we be of service?’

‘A very good afternoon to you too,’ Powerscourt replied. ‘I am interested in buying some of your pre-phylloxera wines.’

Was it just a normal reaction, Powerscourt wondered, or did Septimus Parry put up his guard at the mention of the word pre-phylloxera? Even Vicary Dodds, keeper of the eternal verities of the account books, put down his pencil and inspected his visitor. Certainly Septimus’s manner from now on was more reserved than it had been when he came in.

‘Who told you we sold these wines?’ said Septimus.

‘I’ve just been informed about them by George Brandon at Whites Hotel.’

‘I see,’ said Septimus. He only realized later that a more devious wine merchant would not have been satisfied with Powerscourt’s answer. George Brandon might have confirmed to Powerscourt that these dinners with these wines existed, but it was unlikely that he would have volunteered the information. Powerscourt must have heard about them from somebody else. But who?

‘We do have access to some of these wines, Lord Powerscourt, but might I ask about the occasion for which they are needed and the quantities required?’

‘Of course you may, Mr Parry. There is an elderly gentleman in our family approaching his eightieth birthday. He lives in the depths of Somerset. He is not very strong or very well. His doctors are not sure if he will reach this birthday. In his youth,’ Powerscourt knew he was embroidering the life and times of the old gentleman every time he spoke, ‘our elderly friend was a great connoisseur of French wines, burgundy and Bordeaux in particular. Most people prefer one or the other, Bordeaux or burgundy. The old boy liked them both. He would travel there in his holidays and taste them on the spot. You know as well as I do, gentlemen, of the terrible ravages of phylloxera that ran for thirty years or so from the 1860s. Over time all the great vineyards had to be replanted. Our elderly gentleman,’ Powerscourt thought he had better give him a name fairly soon, ‘saw one important part of his life taken away from him, his love of these great French wines. The replacements and their produce he did not care for. He said they might as well come from Morocco as far as he was concerned. Then, somewhere, he can’t remember where, his memory is going so fast, he read of the existence of pre-phylloxera wines in France, and a limited quantity in England. Gentlemen, I am sure you can see why I am here. The chance to bring back to an old man some of the joys of his youth. The chance to let the old gentleman taste once more the wines that he loved so well. The chance to brighten his last days and let him approach the final one floating in a lake of Chateau Lafite or Chateau Latour.’