Peter May: The Critic

Enzo watched Bonneval’s face light up as he turned towards his son, dark eyes brimful of affection. ‘Come in, Charles, come in. Meet Monsieur Macleod. He’s a Scotsman. Come to find out who murdered Gil Petty.’

Charles glanced distractedly towards Enzo. He nodded and offered a cursory handshake. ‘Enchante, monsieur.’ But his mind was on other things. He turned back to his father. ‘Michel Vidal claims you said he could have the harvester tonight.’

Bonneval roared with laughter. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think Vidal knows the rain’s on its way and he’s trying to pull a fast one.’

Bonneval grinned Enzo. ‘The boy’s not daft.’

Charles seemed embarrassed. His fresh, pink complexion darkened. Large-lobed ears poking out from a tangle of black curls glowed hot and red. He glanced self-consciously at Enzo.

But his father was oblivious to his discomfort. ‘Just completed a degree course in viniculture at Bordeaux University. He’s the future of the chateau, Monsieur Macleod. The future of the wine. But more than that, he loves driving that harvester. Am I right, son?’

‘I’ll tell Guillaume to send Vidal packing.’

‘Sit in at the table, Charles.’ His mother pulled out a chair. ‘There’s enough for four.’

‘I can’t, maman, I’ve got to get the machine ready.’

‘See?’ Bonneval cocked an eyebrow at Enzo.

‘It was nice to meet you, Monsieur Macleod.’ Charles glanced at his watch. ‘Excuse me.’ And he beat a hasty retreat.

‘He’s going to be a much better winemaker than his father.’ Bonneval’s pride in his son was nearly palpable. Knows more about the science of it all than I ever did.’

Madame de Bonneval sighed. ‘Just one more in a long line of Bonnevals who’s going to sacrifice his life to the Chateau Saint-Michel.’

‘It’s his birthright,’ Bonneval said. ‘His inheritance.’ He paused for momentary reflection. ‘His duty.’

From where he was sitting at the big table in the kitchen, Enzo could see through a door into a sitting room dominated by a huge marble cheminee. ‘Is this the only part of the chateau you live in?’

‘Good God, yes,’ Bonneval said. ‘We could never heat the whole place. And in winter it’s damned cold, I can tell you. My ancestors had notions of grandeur, but they must have been hardy souls, too.’

‘How long has Chateau Saint-Michel been in your family?’ Enzo sipped more wine.

‘There have been Bonnevals on this land since the thirteenth century, Monsieur Macleod. More than seven hundred years. The chateau isn’t quite that old, but the original building dates back to the fifteenth century. It was my ancestor, Hubert de Bonneval, who was responsible for most of its enlargement in the late seventeen hundreds.’ He took another mouthful of wine, warming to his subject. ‘He had grand plans for the place. Bought a brick factory, just to make bricks for the expansion. But it also made him a lot of money, which helped pay for it, too.’ He paused, his face clouding at some unhappy memory. ‘Sadly, he never finished it, and in fact the east wing of the house was almost destroyed by fire. It was his son who took up the project again in the early nineteenth century, and he’s pretty much accountable for what you see today.’

‘It’s an enormous responsibility,’ Madame de Bonneval said. ‘I know that Laurent feels the weight of history on his shoulders. It’s important that the wine of Chateau Saint-Michel is successful just so that we can afford the upkeep of the building.’

Enzo took another sip from his glass. ‘With wine this good, I don’t see how you can fail.’

But Bonneval just shrugged. “At eight euros a bottle, monsieur, we’re never going to get rich on it.’

Enzo shook his head. ‘It’s crazy. There are Bordeaux wines costing fifty and sixty euros a bottle that aren’t a patch on this.’

‘Yes, but ask any wine drinker in America if he’s heard of Bordeaux, and he’ll laugh at the stupidity of your question. Ask him if he’s ever heard of Gaillac, and you’ll get a vacant look and a shake of the head.’ The winemaker sipped thoughtfully on the product of his own vineyard. ‘Gaillac is one of the great undiscovered wines of France, Monsieur Macleod. We’ve been making wine here for more than two thousand years, even before the Romans arrived. But very few people outside of the area have heard of it. We were victims of our own geography.’ He waved a hand towards the window. ‘Out there is the river Tarn. It was the only way people could get their wines out to the world. It was our bad luck that the Tarn runs into the Garonne, which takes it to Bordeaux. There, we were obliged to unload our wines before shipping them on to other destinations.

‘Unfortunately, the Bordelaise didn’t relish the competition. So they levied taxes on us, built weirs and damns across the river, and charged us to use the locks to bypass them. Effectively, they choked off our trading route to the rest of the world. Which today is why Americans have heard of Bordeaux and not of Gaillac.’ He sighed. ‘But we made good wines, Monsieur Macleod. The vin du coq was shipped in barrels branded with the symbol of the rooster, and drunk in royal households around Europe. It was a great favourite of Francois Premier. But with the Bordelaise barring our way out, and then the phyloxera wiping out the vines, winemaking in Gaillac was all but finished by the end of the nineteenth century. It’s only during the last thirty years that young, innovative winemakers have restored our wines to their former glory. The trouble is, nobody knows about them. Which is why Petty’s death was such a blow. He was about to introduce Gaillac wines to the rest of the world. Instead, they still languish in underpriced obscurity.’

The lights of the chai blazed out from open doors into the dark of the night. The sky was ink black, peppered with stars, the merest blush of colour still staining the western horizon. ‘Where did you park?’ Bonneval asked.

‘I didn’t. I walked.’

Bonneval looked at him with surprise. ‘Walked? It’s a good three kilometres back to Chateau des Fleurs.’

‘I need the exercise, Monsieur de Bonneval. Besides, I’ve drunk a fair bit of your excellent wine tonight, and it might not have been a good idea to drive.’

‘It’s a long way in the dark, though.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You know, there’s a shortcut through the vineyard. If you give me a few minutes, I’ll walk part of the way with you. We have a night pick tonight. By hand. And the machine will be out as well.’

As he followed the winemaker into his chai, Enzo rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I read in Raffin’s notes that Petty’s body was discovered during a night pick. Why on earth do you harvest grapes in the dark?’

‘Usually just the white ones, Monsieur Macleod. They generate more heat during fermentation, so it’s better to pick them when they’re cool. Also, at night, the sap rises in the vine and the grapes are fatter, juicier.’ He grinned. ‘More alchemy. Tonight, though, we’ll be bringing in the red as well. With the big harvester. The weather is forecast to break in a few days, so I want to strip the vines before it rains.’

They passed the tasting room, and a tall wooden table littered with bottles and notes. There were used oak barrels, stained red from the wine, stacked up against the wall behind it.

‘If you want to wait for me here,’ Bonneval said, ‘I just need to have a few words with my foreman.’ And he headed off into the roar of pumps and pressoir in the adjoining sheds. If the harvester was going to be out in the dark, clearly that meant that grapes would be coming into the sheds all night. Enzo glanced at some of the paperwork on the desk. A jotter was filled with notes made in a small, tight hand. They looked like mathematical equations. But Enzo could make no sense of them. There was an official leaflet on new hygiene practices in winemaking, an analytical report on grapes sent to the Laboratoire Oenologique Departmentale in Gaillac, a feuille de vinification from the Centre Technique du Vin, with graphs charting levels of sugar and alcohol. There was a great deal more to winemaking, Enzo reflected, than simply crushing grapes.