“So?” Nathalie had pushed her sunglasses up into her hair, her fine dark eyes wide and amused. “You won’t be retiring on the proceeds of the treasures in your attic?”
“Afraid not. But thanks for bringing me. You must have had better things to do today.” The unspoken question hung in the air for a moment.
“Max,” she said, “I think you’re fishing.”
Max grinned. “Well, what do you usually do on weekends? Apart from motor racing?”
“Ah.” Nathalie smiled, but refused to be drawn out. She retreated into her menu. “The lamb is always good here, and so is the salmon. They serve it with a sorrel sauce. And you should start with the pissaladière.”
Max abandoned his menu and leaned back in his chair. “Fine. Anything you say.”
Nathalie gave a dismissive wave of her fingers, as though she were batting away an insect. “Do you always do what women tell you?” She looked up, half-smiling.
“Depends on the woman.”
They ordered, and ate, and one carafe of wine led to another as they talked on into the afternoon, exchanging the kind of edited life histories that strangers reveal to one another on their way to friendship. Max noticed that Nathalie listened-attentively, and laughing in all the right places-much more than she spoke. But lunch had been a success, he felt; so much so that it wasn’t until they were walking back to the car that he remembered to ask if she’d had any luck in her search for a wine doctor.
“I think so,” she said. “Didn’t I tell you? He’s supposed to be one of the top men, but he’s very busy.” She shrugged. “All the good ones are. If they’re not in Bordeaux, they’re in California or Chile. Anyway, his office promised me that he’d call next week.”
They reached the car. Max stopped, putting his hand on his heart and what he hoped was a winning expression on his face. “Nathalie,” he said, “can I suggest the perfect way to end a lovely afternoon?”
She had turned her head away, and looked back at him with a sideways, wary glance. He had so far behaved like a civilized man, but one could never tell. The English were not always what they seemed. Her eyebrows went up.
“Let me drive.”
Nine
This was Mr. Chen’s third visit to Bordeaux, a city he found increasingly agreeable. As on his previous visits, he was particularly taken by the elegance and human scale of the eighteenth-century buildings, which made a refreshing change from the glass and steel towers of his native Hong Kong. He admired the architectural set pieces-the Place de la Bourse, the Esplanade des Quinconces, the Grand Théâtre, the fountains and statues-and he delighted in the tranquil surface of the broad, slow-flowing Garonne. And, telling himself that there should always be a place in a man’s life for recreation, Chen had begun to appreciate some of Bordeaux ’s less publicized attractions, the exotically dressed young ladies who patrolled the back streets of the old town. In fact, he was thinking of increasing his visits to two a year.
It was in his nature to make himself well informed, and in the course of doing his homework he had discovered, among many other things, that Bordeaux was the first place in France where tennis had been played; that the novelist François Mauriac had invented “the aristocracy of the cork” to describe the multinational mix of French, English, Irish, German, and Swiss wine grandees; and that their original cellars had been built next to the river, on the quai des Chartrons.
And it was here, where the rue Ramonet joined the quai des Chartrons, that Mr. Chen told the driver of his taxi to drop him off. A stroll, and a breath of cool river air, would clear his head before he tackled the business of the day. He had made his arrangements with the bank. He had dropped a few discreet hints to his clients. All that remained was to hope that this year’s price wouldn’t be too exorbitant.
He turned off the quai and into the cours Xavier Arnozan, a broad street of trees and graceful houses, and saw that the others were arriving. He quickened his pace to join them as they made their way through an unmarked front door.
In the sober gloom of the entrance hall, a small party of businessmen, all of them Asian, conservatively dressed in the dark suits and quiet ties of their trade, were exchanging bows and business cards and handshakes with their host, a tall Frenchman in well-cut tweeds that could only have come from a London tailor. Their common language was English, spoken in a variety of accents. Their common interest was wine.
“This is not an ordinary tasting,” the Frenchman was saying. “In fact, you will already have noticed something unusual.” He paused to brush back a wing of graying hair that had fallen over his forehead after one bow too many. “Normally, with the great wines of Bordeaux, tastings are held sur place, where the grapes are grown. In this case-this unique case, if I may say so-the vineyard is too small to offer comfortable facilities, or indeed any facilities at all. Except for the grapes, of course.” He looked at the attentive faces around him, and shook his head. “We cannot offer even a miniature chateau, and there are no plans to build one. The land is far too precious to waste on bricks and mortar. That is why the tasting is being held here in Bordeaux.”
The businessmen nodded, their dark heads bobbing as one.
“Now, gentlemen, if you’d like to follow me.” He led the way down a narrow corridor lined with portraits of stern-faced men, their features partly obscured by the luxuriant facial hair popular in the nineteenth century. The Frenchman waved a manicured hand at the paintings. “Honorable ancestors,” he said, with a smile that was echoed by the group.
They reached the tasting room, small and dim, dominated by a long mahogany table. Arranged along its polished length were shining rows of glasses, silver candlesticks with lighted candles, and a trio of open, unlabeled bottles, each identified by a hieroglyphic scrawled in white chalk. Ornate copper crachoirs had been placed at either end of the table in readiness for the ceremonial spitting that would take place later on, in the course of the tasting.
The Frenchman adjusted his already perfectly displayed shirt cuffs and clasped his hands in front of his chest, a slight frown on his face to indicate the importance of what he was about to say. “As you all know, this is a tasting by invitation only, restricted to the highest level of international buyers, the crème de la crème.” Around the room, heads were inclined in recognition of the compliment. “In other words, those who can appreciate the extraordinary qualities of this remarkable wine.”
As if programmed, the eyes of the buyers turned to look at the three bottles on the table while the Frenchman continued. “Our vineyard is tiny, and we can produce only six hundred cases of wine a year. Six hundred cases, my friends.” He took from his pocket a newspaper clipping. “Less wine than the Gallo brothers can produce in California in a morning. And now that they have acquired the Martini winery”-he held up the clipping-“it’s probably less wine than they can produce before breakfast. What we are offering here is a mere drop in the wine ocean. You can understand why we can’t afford to waste it on amateurs and thirsty journalists.”
The buyers smiled and nodded again, flattered to be included in such elite company. One of them raised a hand. “What is current Gallo production? Do you have a figure?”
The Frenchman consulted his clipping. “About six million cases a year.”
“Ah so.”
The Frenchman continued. “We have two problems. The first is that, as I have explained, we don’t possess a chateau, and so our wine cannot claim an illustrious name. We call it Le Coin Perdu, the godforsaken spot, because that is the old local name for the vineyard my family took over and rescued from neglect more than a generation ago. Their faith in the land, those years of work nursing the vines, have now been justified. The wine is exceptional. But that brings us to the second problem.”