Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine (13 page)

During those years, while Little Aubert grew and left for school in Paris, his father and André wanted to maintain the viticulture traditions and philosophy passed down from Monsieur Clin and Edmond. Monsieur Leroy had other ideas. New ideas.
He was interested in modernizing operations, especially when it came to the types of vines that would be used.

The decades of downturn in the international wine market that came with World War I, the challenges of the Great Depression and Prohibition, and then World War II had made it impossible for the Domaine to make a profit. That is why Edmond had kept his farm in Moulins, and why Henri also worked as a commercial banker. They were taking care of the vines, never demanding that the vines take care of them. Their dedication to the Domaine was about many things, but it was not about money.

But those austere times were over. In the 1950s, a more celebratory feeling emerged. Wine flowed. Wine consumption spiked. Even with market fluctuations, the demand would continue to surge for well over a decade. The French market in particular boomed. Around this time, a typical French resident was consuming some forty-three gallons of wine annually.

Among the challenges vignerons faced in keeping the population’s glasses filled was that the health of France’s vineyards remained in a precarious state. Even with grafting and new chemical treatments, the vineyards that had been repopulated after the phylloxera epidemic were still young, and vulnerable to more traditional viticulture diseases. The vignerons desire to produce enough wine to capitalize on the thirsty market while also maintaining a healthy and robust vineyard led to the great clonal-versus-massal debate.

Massal was the traditional way of selecting the vines that would replace old or sickly vines. During many harvests, a vigneron would study his vines, looking for those that were among the best—meaning producing the best quality of fruit and most resistant to diseases. After several harvests of study, from those vines that were most consistent and vigorous the vigneron
would take cuttings, graft them to a stock, and eventually plant them in the vineyard. It would be as if the new vines were of the same family as the parent vines, but there would be diversity in the numbers, and therefore diversity in the wines, as the grapes mixed in the
cuverie
would be similar but far from uniform.

In the 1950s, cloning was new and gained popularity. Cloning was zeroing in on a very few vines of thousands in a vineyard, maybe even only one or two. Cuttings from only those vines would be grafted and planted and grown over and over again. A vineyard was thus ultimately populated by perhaps only a few years’ worth of the two direct genetic clones of the one or two chosen mother vines.

Grafting became more and more the work of specialist nursery-laboratories like that of Pierre-Marie Guillaume’s family. Cloning was a strategy, in theory, that took some of the guesswork out of farming. If you had a vineyard planted exclusively with the clones of a finite number of mother vines that were proven to be healthy and produce reliably and a high-quality fruit, then you were more likely to have a good harvest. The weather was out of the vignerons’ hands, but cloning was something that could be controlled. However, with all the same grapes in the
cuverie,
the vigneron then was left with less complexity in the bottle.

Ultimately, clonal versus massal came down to choosing between a strategy with the primary goal of reliable production of quality wines for profit—in other words, a vineyard strategy rooted as much in the market as it was in the soil—versus a less predictable form of viticulture that left much more up to natural, or divine, selection—a philosophy rooted in the idea that diversity in the vineyard meant more complexity, mystery, and magic in the bottle. Cloning was informed by science and facts and
profit and loss; massal hinged on religion and faith, to nature and the vigneron.

Henri, along with André, insisted that massal selection was the best way, the purest way to produce wine, since it let the
terroir
of the vineyard flavor the wine. Therefore, they said, it was the truest Burgundian way to make wine. In contrast, Monsieur Leroy believed that a vine of clones, shaped by the
terroir
, was Burgundy, too, only with maximized chances for a robust yield and rich fruit. Monsieur Leroy thought that to bank the winery’s fate on massal selection was a little like gambling in the casinos of the French Riviera.

Henri, with André by his side, and Monsieur Leroy spent many hours in the vineyards arguing. Henri was of the mind that while Monsieur Leroy talked a great deal about the allure of the complexity and mystery of Burgundy’s wines, what he really wanted was uniformity and certainty. Here was Henri de Villaine, the banker, saying the vineyard is not the place to look for a speedy return on investment.

But Henri was not one who enjoyed arguing. As with wine, he believed if he let the situation breathe and gave it time, then circumstances would improve. Perhaps because of Monsieur Leroy’s seniority and forceful manner, and also out of fear of the diseases that André was finding on the wood in the vineyard, Henri acquiesced.

The Domaine began to populate the vineyard with a vine that had the name of 140-15. It was a decision that would cause vintages of trouble for the Domaine. The 140-15 produced very fat grapes, which is not especially ideal for Pinot Noir, and what’s more, as the Domaine would learn, the fruit would take a very long time to ripen. As if that weren’t enough, the berries were more susceptible to rot. By the time the 1965 vintage was
harvested it was almost entirely riddled with rot. Most of the vineyard had to be regrafted and repopulated.

What would cause the DRC even more strife, however, was the dynamic of power that had been established in that decision. Regardless of his miscalculation with the clonal selection, Monsieur Leroy had very much asserted himself as the lead
gérant
and thereby established a precedent for his heir apparent to do the same.

If this concerned Henri, there was no evidence he let it show. Compared to the stalag, it was nothing. Besides, during the early 1960s, Henri did not have the luxury of dwelling on the methods of viticulture or the Leroy family’s position in the Domaine. He was concerned about his eldest son Aubert, who Henri had been informed was in an infirmary at an army base near Narcy, in a coma.

What is this now?

A dark street?

Paris? Yes.

Where am I going?

The eighteen-year old Aubert entered an apartment building.

Ah, voilà! This is when I get arrested.

He was arguing with a doorman. Aubert was telling him he had a poem and he had to give it to a girl. She lived in the building with an old aunt.

The doorman told Aubert to go home. It was too late.

Aubert explained that it was not too late to deliver a poem; it was
never
too late to deliver a poem. What is time when you are in pursuit of love? Perhaps even a bit intoxicated by love.

It was indeed very late, too late, as the doorman insisted. But
Aubert insisted that the doorman did not understand. He had to get this girl in this building this poem right now. Tomorrow was too far away. The doorman warned Aubert that if he did not leave, he would call the police.

“As you wish,” Aubert said, and made clear he was going nowhere. Two policemen arrived and dragged Aubert off to the police station.

“Why didn’t you simply throw a rock up at her window?” one of the policeman asked Aubert as they escorted him from the building. Aubert agreed that would have been a good idea. But he explained he did not want to risk breaking the glass and making the aunt angry.

“Yet you thought ringing the door buzzer presented less of a risk of waking the aunt?” one of the policemen asked.

Aubert agreed that was another sobering point.

“Will you let us see the poem?” one of them asked.

Aubert was proud of his poem. Maybe if the police read it they would understand his urgency. And so he obliged.

Under a lamp on the Paris street the two cops stood together and silently read the poem. When they finished reading they agreed that it was a very well-written poem. Still, they would not be letting Aubert make this delivery tonight.

They were, however, sufficiently impressed that they informed Aubert they would not call his parents. They would have to keep him at the station for the night. They could not risk him following his heart back to the girl’s building at this late an hour. But, they said, he would be released without incident and all would be forgotten in the morning.

Back at the station, they spent the night playing the old French board game of Horses. The game is played on a small piece of wood filled with holes that form a circle, the track. Each player
rolls a die and moves their colored peg horse accordingly. Some of the holes can advance the horse many lengths forward. A bad roll can put the horse in a space that drops him several lengths behind.

“
Un jeu de chance
,” one of the cops said, laying out the game, “
même que l’amour.
”

A game of chance. Just like love.

And, not that the thought occurred to Aubert that night, but also just like farming grapevines.

Throughout the evening, as they played the game, the cops shared with Aubert some of the foolish things they had done for love. Sometimes these foolish things had turned out not to be so foolish, and turned out to be moves that had advanced their own horses in life forward. Sometimes, as it had gone for Aubert that night, it was not to be and a young foal must trot home.

In the morning, Aubert stepped from the station out onto the Paris sidewalk and blinked, back into his present, the infirmary.

He turned to his bedside and saw the shape of a man in a white jacket. The man identified himself as his doctor. The doctor explained to Aubert that he had been in a coma for several days. He had contracted spinal meningitis. That was the cause of his symptoms, which were so severe some of the staff in the infirmary didn’t think Aubert would survive.

Aubert would forever remember what the doctor had said to him when he awoke: “I sensed a fighter in you,” the doctor had told him. “I was not going to leave your side. I was not going to let you die. I had faith.”

The doctor informed Aubert that his case was so serious he had notified Aubert’s parents and they were coming to see him.

Over the next several weeks, Aubert began to recover. He regained his vision in full. His hearing and his memory would never again be what they had been, but Aubert remembered plenty. He remembered the important things.

Aubert viewed the awakening that came after his near death as a “rebirth.” A gift not to be squandered. He was determined to live his life to the fullest, with passion and, most of all, with purpose. And he had a new idea of what that meant.

Aubert was now of the mind that while life was indeed a game of chance, life’s course is like that pegboard track: regardless of what die you cast and the places you land, ultimately the starting line and the finish line are one and the same—destiny.

T
here he was on his way to being at the center of it all—seated on a chair in a nondescript room facing two cops, nothing but a table between them. It was just like Jean-Charles had seen in the movies. Only this was real.

It was the afternoon of January 26, 2010, the same day Pierre-Marie had declared that the two vines in Romanée-Conti were dead. When Jean-Charles had walked past Monsieur de Villaine’s office and witnessed him, head in his hands, quietly sobbing, Jean-Charles had been on his way to the Police Nationale station in Dijon to give a formal statement. There were a few things he needed to get off his chest.

Once he determined it was necessary to contact law enforcement, Monsieur de Villaine did not call the gendarmerie, the local guys responsible for policing the small towns and handling small crimes. The Grand Monsieur thought the gravity of the situation merited more serious attention.

Plus, the local cops were local, villagers. Everybody in the
villages knows one another and they talk. Monsieur de Villaine wanted to minimize the risk of leaks and gossip. If people got to talking, it could jeopardize the investigation. Even more unnerving for Monsieur de Villaine, village gossip could jeopardize the Domaine. Imagine what would happen if people started spreading the rumor—or was it the truth?—that the vines and the
terroir
of Romanée-Conti had been poisoned.

Mon dieu.

Instead, Monsieur de Villaine had called an old acquaintance, Hervé Niel, who he knew had ties to the Police Nationale, France’s version of the FBI. For a while, Niel had been among the political elite in Dijon, which is where they’d met, but since then Niel had graduated to Paris, where he was a senior official in the French Ministry of the Interior, which oversaw the Police Nationale.

Upon hearing what had transpired, Niel grasped how serious it was. After hanging up the phone, he immediately took the news to the director of the Police Nationale, Christian Lothion. All it took for Lothion to understand the high stakes and high-profile nature of this one was to hear “Romanée-Conti,” “poison,” and “extortion” together. He directed Dijon to put its best people on the case, and if the best people weren’t available, to make them available.

From that point, the police moved as if keeping time with brisk violin music.

The next day, within twenty-four hours of Monsieur de Villaine receiving the second letter, the commander of the Dijon branch of Police Nationale, Régis Millet, and another officer, Inspector Emmanuel Pageault, were at the Domaine collecting the packages and speaking with Monsieur de Villaine, Jean-Charles, and other members of the management team. Meanwhile, one of the Police Nationale’s ransom and hostage
specialists, François Xavier, traveled from Paris to Burgundy, where he would remain for the next several weeks.

Two detectives assigned to the case were Dijon-based Inspectors: Pageault, who accompanied Commander Millet on the first visit to the Domaine, and Laetitia Prignot. Both Pageault and Prignot were from the organized crime division and surveillance specialists. Their senior officers made clear to both of them that this case was
très, très importante
and was being watched closely by Director Lothion himself.

Inspector Pageault—“Manu”—was a twenty-two-year veteran. He’d spent his first ten years on the force in Paris, the next twelve in Dijon. He was the son of a cop. During his father’s forty-year career, his dad had risen from inspector to a commander like Millet.

Inspector Pageault adored his father. As a kid, Manu watched his father going off in plain clothes, a suit and tie, to fight crime and catch bad guys. Manu would jump at every chance to go with his dad to the district. While his father filled out paperwork, Manu would walk about the office, talking to the cops and hearing about the job. He liked the sense of adventure and camaraderie he observed. He liked the fact that these good guys bonded together catching bad guys. In 1989, when Manu did his rookie training, he did it at that very same Autun District where his father was the boss. Manu’s first arrest was on a sexual assault case, and when he made the bust, his dad, Commander Pageault, was by his side.

Autun District was in the community of Saône-et-Loire, Burgundian wine country. His old man knew wine. When Inspector Pageault told his retired-cop dad that he was working a case at the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, his father could hardly believe it. He was proud such a case had been entrusted to his son and outraged that such a crime had been committed.

His father went on about the evil of attacking something so vulnerable and beautiful; something that was, as his father had put it, an integral part of their French heritage and culture. Upon hearing the details, Manu’s dad opined that whoever was behind it seemed to have planned it all very carefully, and that it was an inside job.

Inspector Pageault’s plainclothes police wardrobe often included a black leather jacket. At forty-three years old, he was fit and handsome. Although he had a boyish face, a friendly smile, and a gentle way about him, when he flipped his cop switch he was all business and went with his gut. Right away Pageault figured the Romanée-Conti case was likely going to be the case of his career.

He hadn’t worked much with Laetitia Prignot. She had been on the force only three years. Whereas Manu was the kind of guy who tackled the job and went after bad guys as if he were playing rugby, thirty-year-old Laetitia was more cerebral. Prignot’s mother worked for Orange, the French telecommunications company; her father was a helicopter mechanic. Inspector Prignot inherited her dad’s attention to detail, his obsession with fitting pieces together precisely into a whole that could take flight. She was meticulous about gathering evidence and presenting it to prosecutors as a case file that would not crash. A quiet, introspective cop, thin with short brown hair, she approached each case like it was a chess match, seeing across the board to the courtroom, anticipating what evidence would be necessary and how it would be used.

Although she was relatively new to the force, Laetitia had quickly distinguished herself as being very good at the job. An expert in electronic surveillance, phone and wiretapping specifically, she had just finished a weeks-long, major assignment in
Corsica, where she’d been working an investigation of France’s largest organized crime syndicate, the Brise de Mer.

Though they hadn’t partnered much, Manu and Laetitia worked well together. Each viewed the skills of the other as complementing their own. They communicated a lot with their eyes before they said a word aloud or made a move. Commander Millet had proven that his own instincts were very good when he decided to pair them and make them the day-to-day primaries on the case.

Once assigned to the Romanée-Conti investigation, Pageault and Prignot studied the notes and maps. Insomuch as they could, they considered what was likely to come. The two of them swiftly set up their surveillance. They installed cameras in and around the Domaine. One was positioned at the bend in Derrière le Four and was trained on the front entrance; another camera was installed inside the Domaine, focused on the vineyard.

They put taps on all of the Domaine’s phones, including the mobiles of Jean-Charles, Henri Roch, and Monsieur de Villaine. They asked for a list of all of the Domaine’s employees, current and former. As far as the police were concerned, and as Manu’s father suspected, there was a high probability that at least someone connected with the bad guys was on the inside. Anyone and everyone was a suspect.

That said, one of the things that first struck the two detectives was how open and cooperative the otherwise private Domaine was, even Monsieur de Villaine, who they had anticipated, based on his standing and exalted reputation, might be reclusive and aloof. The Grand Monsieur was more than willing to literally hand them the keys to the entire Domaine.

The day they were installing the surveillance cameras, Monsieur de Villaine summoned Manu and Laetitia into the tasting room. Holding a dusty, unmarked bottle in his hands, he asked if they had
ever before had any of the Domaine’s wines. Considering a single bottle of the Domaine’s least expensive wine was at least half a week’s salary, the answer was no. The two cops looked at each rather puzzled and politely said they had not. Laetitia didn’t drink much wine at all, and when she did it was mostly only “drinkable” whites. She figured it was best if she now kept that information to herself.

Monsieur de Villaine asked a secretary to grab three glasses and he poured them all some of the red from the bottle. The Grand Monsieur watched them drink and raise their eyebrows and smile.
Bon! Très bon!
They agreed. Monsieur de Villaine smiled. Manu asked what it was. Monsieur de Villaine explained it was 1945 La Tâche. What he didn’t say, and what Manu recognized, was that the wine and vintage was one of the most coveted in the world. Manu said he hoped the monsieur didn’t open it just for them.

The Grand Monsieur confessed that he had not. He had opened it for a friend who had just visited. Manu asked if it was a special occasion. Sort of, the Grand Monsieur replied.

As the monsieur explained, a friend had visited to tell him that he had been diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer and that he was dying. Monsieur de Villaine had asked the man what year was his vintage, meaning what year was he born in. It was 1945, and so Monsieur de Villaine went to the cellar and returned with the ’45 La Tâche. He opened the bottle, and the two friends sat together, and they shared the wine and their memories.

On January 26, 2010, five days into the investigation, Jean-Charles was in the Dijon office seated across from Inspector Pageault and Commander Millet with some information to offer. Thus far, the elite team of investigators had no leads. Not so much as a fingerprint to go on. Whoever had prepared the maps
and notes and mailed the packages, the police had learned, must have done so wearing gloves.

During Millet and Pageault’s first visit to the Domaine, they had asked the obvious question, or rather questions: Has the domain ever before been subjected to threats or other specific acts of jealousy or revenge? Can you think of anyone who might have reason or motive to do such a thing?

At the time, all of them had said no.

“Are you sure?” Manu asked. “Nothing?”

“Nothing that I can think of,” Jean-Charles had said.

Since then, Jean-Charles had noticed some strange activity. Also, he had given his history at the Domaine serious thought. Upon reflection, he had thought of something—in fact, several things. How much any of these things were relevant, he now said to the investigators, he couldn’t know, but he wanted to offer these facts to Manu all the same.

He apologized for not saying what he was about to say sooner, when the police first asked, but he explained that thinking about who might have reason to attack the Romanée-Conti vineyard was like thinking in a whole new way, a way he never dreamed of, because he never conceived that anyone, no matter what, would ever think to do such a thing.

“Yes, yes, that’s understandable,” Pageault said. “Go on.”

Jean-Charles explained that he personally had been a victim of an attack. It had been an attack against his character and integrity. In 1994, shortly after he joined the Domaine, an anonymous call came into the Domaine, received by one of the secretaries. The caller claimed that Jean-Charles had been contacting other domaines and wine dealers, offering to sell the contact information of the DRC’s esteemed client list for a price.

At that time, Jean-Charles said, he had filed a complaint with
the police because the caller had cast doubt on his professional honesty. Also, Jean-Charles said, because the Domaine’s business is very confidential and the Domaine has a very select clientele, he did not want to take any chances.

Manu asked Jean-Charles if he had any idea of who might have done such a thing. Jean-Charles did have an idea. He told Inspector Pageault that he would prefer that this be left out of his report, but since the inspector asked, and considering the circumstances, Jean-Charles would share his hunch that he thought it might have been someone associated with Lalou.