House of Peine (22 page)

Spring came early to the Marne, softening the ground and adding a light coat of cheerful green to the landscape. The sap was rising in the canes, another generation of berries on their way.

And on the subject of generations, Olivier Peine’s secret cache meant his children and their children, to whom he had after all bequeathed his kingdom, would get to keep it. The discovery of his hidden champagne made headlines all over the country. Well, how could it not with a PR genius at the very epicentre? It turned out there were some 2000 cases of the precious vintage wines behind that white cross and after all the media hoo-ha, connoisseurs the world over snapped them up as quickly and expensively as they could, save a few dozen bottles the sisters kept back for themselves.

Peine champagne was thus propelled back to the top of the list of favoured champagnes at home and abroad. Remi Krug himself even came to the château at Saint-Vincent-sur-Marne and purchased a case of each of the three sisters’ cuvées. And he stayed for some of Bernadette’s
kugelhopf
. The bank manager
got what he wanted (money that is, not Mathilde) and the future of Saint-Vincent-sur-Marne’s best house was secured once and for all or at least until the next natural disaster — they were farmers, remember.

In April, George came for a visit. To her own amazement, Mathilde was truly pleased to see him and let him top her up and plug her cork in ways she had previously not allowed. He truly loved her, she saw that properly for the first time, but she was still new to the idea of true love and not yet rehabilitated enough to know if that was what she felt for him. She did know, however, that she would not be returning to the States, that her home was in Champagne now, and that she would like George to join her but would understand if he didn’t. George said he would think about it.

Edie loved having her father around but needed him less than she ever had in her life, which saddened and delighted him at the same time. She spoke almost entirely in French, had a horde of local friends and was more comfortable in the dilapidated Peine château than he had seen her anywhere else. Champagne was her home too, he could see that. He would not disrupt it but made plans for Edie to travel home in the summer and spend time with him in New York.

Before he left, on the anniversary of Olivier’s death, the whole family went to the vigneron’s grave, where Edie laid a bouquet of purple hyacinth and scarlet geraniums. She also suggested her mother and aunts fork out for a lovely statue like the one of the small-headed baby with the giant wings behind them. The sisters nodded in a sympathetic but non-committal way. Father Philippe, not at all nervous for a change, gave a much better speech than he had the first time.

“Olivier was a complicated man,” he said, of course, “and although he may have often struggled to express his emotions in a, shall we say, optimistic or constructive way, I am sure it
is of some comfort to his three daughters that such emotion was not nonetheless entirely beyond him. While regrettably he could not bequeath his love and pride in person, while he kept it tucked away and hidden from them, the miracle is that he felt that love and pride in the first place and made sure it was discovered in the end. One way or the other. As it says in the Bible, better late than never. Amen.”

Afterwards, the sisters invited Philippe, Gaston, Bernadette, and Christophe Paillard back to the house for a special celebration, cracking open a bottle of each of the hidden vintages to toast Olivier’s life and wish him rest in peace.

Christophe watched in quiet amazement as Clementine, Mathilde and Sophie clinked glasses. They were transformed, utterly transformed. Clementine, that once-miserable face now wreathed in smiles, was almost unrecognisable. She stood straighter, was slimmer he was certain, and her copper-coloured curls had lost their frightening frizz and fell in great loose coils down her back. Mathilde had gained weight, which added a softness to her previously harsh lines, and she seemed positively coy in the company of her husband and daughter. As for Sophie: she had come a long, long way from the fragile little chick he had entertained in his office the previous year. Yes, Sophie looked to him like a woman who had suddenly found herself in possession of everything she had ever dreamed of having.

He licked a bead of Cuvée Clementine off his lip as it suddenly occurred to him that Olivier had not been monstrous in uniting this unlikely trio. Quite the opposite. He had given them to each other knowing that what one lacked another had in plentiful supply. Looking at them now it was clear what a priceless gift that was.

“What are you smiling at?” Gaston demanded grumpily as he sidled up to him. “If it’s something special you want to drink you should get them to open the Supérieure. Miserable
with it, just like their father.”

The following week it became clear that Sophie, who had been feeling tearful and poorly for some time, did not have indigestion, nor, as Edie had suggested, an enormous fricking tumour, but was pregnant with Hector’s baby.

For once, the man in her life had left her with something and when the doctor confirmed her condition, she was
delirious
with happiness — as were her sisters and niece.

Her little belly stretched and grew and brought them good luck throughout the crucial month of May when the
saints de glace
frosts skipped right over Saint-Vincent-sur-Marne, never once stopping to visit their viciousness upon them.

Throughout flowering and fruit-set she helped Clementine in the vineyard as much as she could, letting Edie pick up her slack after school. The valley was lush with the season’s new growth and the excitement that buzzed in the air between the rows as they trimmed and tied the shoots was as much about the new life that bloomed inside her as it was the pending harvest.

One hot sunny day in late August, the sisters decided to take a bottle of special cuvée and a Black Forest cake down to the river for an afternoon picnic. They stretched out on a tartan blanket on the banks of the Marne, laughing first at Clementine’s pale skin, then at Sophie’s domed belly, then at the tiny suggestion of something other than skin and bone on Mathilde’s thighs. “Well, I wouldn’t call it fleshy, but it’s a start,” approved Clementine.

As they lay there gossiping, the warmth of the sun, the burble of the flowing river, the peace in the valley made them drowsy.

“So Clementine, what’s happening with Benoît?” Mathilde asked, eyes closed, soaking up the sun. “Are you or aren’t you?”

Ah yes, Benoît.

Odile had not been charged with arson. Xavier, although convinced she had started the fire, could not find enough evidence against her, not even the other high heel. The very day after she had been questioned, however, she left Benoît and went back to her father’s vineyard. For good.

The day after that, Benoît had come to see Clementine. Finally, a rendezvous. It was not the happiest of meetings, however, as he had been quite distraught and initially
unforgiving
on the subject of Amélie.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” he repeated desperately, over and over again. “Why?”

There was little she could say that would make him feel better and there was no good answer to such a big question. In the end, she simply told him the timing had been wrong and she hadn’t known how to tell him, for which she was sorry. It was an awkward discussion yet inside Clementine rejoiced that he cared.

“What shall we do next?” he asked her and although his face was crumpled with worry, the “we” made her heart swell when it jumped from his lips.

They met regularly after that and while the conversation was sometimes stilted, Clementine was certain the magnetism that had pulled at her all those years before, which had survived nearly two decades of separation, hummed between them still.

Eventually, trying to contain their hope, they tracked down Amélie’s adoptive parents and had spent an entire week of night-time get-togethers drafting a letter asking for
permission
to make contact, if their daughter desired it.

During that week the conversation had strayed on occasion from Amélie to other things, including their grapes, their wines, their hopes for the future. It was not going to be easy, Clementine could see that. Much water had passed beneath
both their bridges and they were neither of them young nor flexible but entrenched in their ways and shy of change. And she no longer took the blame entirely on her own shoulders, either. Benoît was not perfect, she came to see that. He had let himself be bullied into a loveless marriage and had done nothing to get himself out of it, after all.

Still. She liked his imperfections.

“We might,” Clementine grinned into the sun that
afternoon
as she lay with her sisters on the banks of the slow-moving Marne.

“One day you will paint the kitchen, ’Mentine?” teased Sophie.

“One day I will replant those woody geraniums,” answered Clementine.

Mathilde turned over on her side. “I think it will happen,” she said.

“So do I,” Clementine answered, rolling over to face her. Across the naked hump of Sophie’s growing belly they shared the sort of smile that only sisters can share.

“Boy or girl?” Mathilde asked then, glancing at Sophie’s middle.

“Girl, of course,” Clementine announced without
hesitation
. “All the best Champenois start off as girls. Oh sure, that old fart Dom Pérignon gets all the credit for discovering corks but his champagne was cloudy and ours would be too if it hadn’t been for the widow Clicquot: she invented remuage. Plus, before the widow Pommery dropped the dosage and made a brut, champagne was sickly sweet. Imagine that! The widow Olry-Roederer was the first to insist on growing her own grapes, not buying them in, and then there are the widows of Laurent-Perrier. That house has had more than its fair share of troubles over the years, just like the House of Peine, but those widows kept it going. By hook or by crook, they kept it going.”

“So the best Champenois start off as girls but finish as widows,” Mathilde said dryly.

“They’re survivors then, aren’t they?” Sophie pointed out. “I can’t think of anything better to hope for my daughter than that she’s a survivor.”

“I’ll drink to that,” nodded Mathilde.

“Me too,” agreed Clementine.

She sat up and taking a bottle from the ice box, ripped off the foil, untwisted the muzzle, gently coaxed out the cork, then poured three glasses of those lively golden bubbles.

“A votre santé,”
they saluted together, lifting their glasses to the heavens as they drank to each other’s health and to survival.

Sophie had just half a glass and Mathilde not much more: champagne really did give her a headache, although she had certainly grown to appreciate the taste. Clementine, on the other hand, savoured every last drop of two crystal flutes, which left her hot and stripped of inhibition. Throwing all caution to the wind, she stood up, unbuttoned her shirt, and announced that she was going for a swim in the river.

Her sisters needed little encouragement and within seconds they had dropped their clothes and were running naked towards the water. Clementine plunged in first, shrieking at the cold, followed by Sophie, helpless with laughter; and Mathilde, who looked less like a Manhattan businesswoman than anyone else on the planet.

They laughed, they splashed, they swam, they screamed. The Peine sisters bubbled. All three of them. Anyone could see that. And when they picked their way up the riverbank back to their mounds of discarded clothes, it was Mathilde who suddenly became helpless with laughter. She stood there, doubled over, screaming with hilarity.

“What?” her sisters asked. “What?”

“Our surname isn’t the only thing we have in common,” she finally spluttered, pointing at the tops of their thighs. “Look.”

Three matching curly ginger triangles glistened with droplets of Marne River water. Three laughs rang out above the valley: a sound the vines were to hear a lot more of.

But perhaps no sound was more beautiful than the surprised cry of Olivie Josephine Ann Marie-France Peine who entered the world on the eve of the vendange, her eyes wide open, the beginnings of a smile already curling her little rosebud mouth.

Her father was there to catch her, her mother to hold her, her aunts to cry and forget to take photos.

In the vineyard the grapes prepared themselves for the harvest. In the rebuilt winery the presses sat waiting for them. In the cave the bubbles gossiped excitedly in their bottles.

And at the bottom of the drive, the postman stood on the outside of the grand repainted gates rummaging around in his mail sack as he admired the powder-blue baby’s bonnet Edie had affixed to Cochon’s head, which did look strangely fetching. “Ah, here we go,” he finally said, pulling out a scented envelope bearing a handwritten address, the i’s dotted with tiny flowers, and passing it through to Edie. “For Clementine. From Bordeaux. You know someone there?”

“We certainly fricking hope to,” Edie grinned. “Another Peine. The ’88.”

Fin

When you’re writing a book about champagne, you do not skimp on the research. Trust me. As one friend said when I explained I was off to France for a second investigative trip: “Something tells me you’ll never be setting a book in the slums of New Delhi, Sarah-Kate.”

Well, how could I when the person I always rely on first and foremost for my research is Master of Wine Bob Campbell? What does he know about New Delhi? And what doesn’t he know about wine?

Thanks to Bob’s contacts, I was much fêted at Moët and Chandon and trod in the footsteps of Dom Pérignon himself at the famed Abbey in Hautvillers. Also, I had the pleasure of lunching with Arnaud de Mareuil at Trianon (the hotel built for Napoleon to stay in on his way to war). It was Monsieur de Mareuil who first pointed out that my three sisters needed to blend just like the three grapes of Champagne. Of course, I would have eventually worked that out for myself but he saved me having to. And also served champagne with dessert. Sigh.

My friends at Cloudy Bay (try the Te Koko sauvignon blanc if you’re not into bubbles) got me in the door at Veuve Clicquot where for the first time I experienced the chill and splendour of the amazing underground cellars and also learned about one of the world’s first businesswomen, the widow (
veuve
) Clicquot. My host, Isabelle Pierre, is also an art historian so I had the
added pleasure of a guided tour of the beautiful Reims
cathedral
. Later that evening I had an unscheduled tour of the back streets of the city as my dining companion, the enthusiastic and funny Emmanuel Frossard, insisted there was no way my hotel could not be up this lane, or the next one, or the one after that, or perhaps the one before. “I hope the spirit of Mme Clicquot and the bubbles of her champagne will help you in the year to come!” Emmanuel wrote to me after our wonderful meal together. “And thanks for teaching me where the Hôtel Templiers is.” Charm, charm, charm. Where do they get it?

More charm was poured on me not long afterwards by the exquisite Pascale Rousseau at Krug. Frankly, it’s just not fair that someone can be that beautiful and funny and smart and able to wear three different shades of caramel and two scarves. Pascale is the epitome of the sophisticated Frenchwoman and a source of great inspiration herself, but she also ensured I was wined and dined by Remi Krug himself, a highlight to say the least. Champagne changes with every mouthful, says Remi. “But then, so do you!” Despite the prestige of this “king” of champagnes, Remi believes that it is to be drunk, not revered. (Psst, and he thinks beer goes better with oysters.)

The
Champenois
Tarlant family I managed to find all by myself, although “find” is perhaps the wrong word. The Tarlants live in Oeuilly, about 90 miles from Charles de Gaulle Airport, but for reasons involving getting stuck on the right motorway going in the wrong direction, it took me five-and-a-half hours to get there. Somehow, Micheline Tarlant just knew when I arrived that I desperately needed a small bottle of champagne, some cheese and a slice of home-made pear tart to calm my frazzled nerves. Four generations of Tarlants still gather for
assemblage
and their boutique style of
champagne-making
and grape-growing is very much the inspiration for
The House of Peine
. (If you want to know what Tarlant tastes
like, you can buy it at Rumbles Wine Merchant in Wellington.)

Philippe Wibrotte at the
Comité Interprofessionel du Vin de Champagne
in Epernay was a brilliant source of information, as was Delphine in the CIVC’s extraordinary tasting room.

If anybody is interested in reading more about what happened in Champagne during the German occupation, I devoured the book
Wine and War
by Don and Petie Kladstrup (Hodder and Stoughton). It opens with young
Champenois
soldier Bernard de Nonancourt finding Hitler’s secret stash of stolen wine in Eagle’s Nest. When I had lunch with Philippe Wibrotte in Epernay, Monsieur de Nonancourt was sitting at the next table!

After the war he returned to Champagne and took over Laurent-Perrier, elevating it from the bottom of the barrel (ranked 98th of 100) to one of the top 10 houses, and cementing himself as one of the area’s priceless characters.

Champagne is full of many such treasures bubbling with passion and vigour and I thank each and every one for showing me such enormous kindness, often accompanied by a drop of vintage. (The Krug ’88 for elevenses sure beats a cup of Dilmah.)

At home, Rudi at Quartz Reef in Central Otago was the first
vigneron
to talk me through the champagne process and even let me have a crack at picking during the
vendange
. Better still, he didn’t mind when I’d had enough after only half an hour.

I thank Harriet Allan for her patience, Ann Clifford for another seamless editing job, Michael Moynahan for the lunches (past and future) and my agent and friend Stephanie Cabot for believing in me so wholeheartedly.

Also, my devoted husband, Mark Robins, has, as always, proved himself to be a tireless supporter and cook and cleaner
and just this morning put a pink tulip in a champagne glass on my desk to cheer up my office. Really, every home should have one.

Grosses bises

Sarah-Kate