The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2) (8 page)

What gall! The way that man had stood before her and grinned brazenly at her after what he’d done to the vines. There would be consequences. Isabelle was still shaking with anger when she reached the overseer’s house.

Claude Bertrand was sitting with his back against the wall of his house, eating his lunch. His dog watched every movement of its master’s hand, hoping that something might fall from the plate.

“Did you have a pleasant walk?” he asked when he saw her approach. “I’m sure you must be hungry, madame. Please, sit. It’s a simple repast, but I’d be happy to share it with you.” He pushed his cardigan, which was lying on the bench beside him, out of the way to make room for her.

“I wish it had been a pleasant walk, but I made an extremely
unpleasant
discovery in the vineyards,” said Isabelle ardently. With her hands planted on her hips, and in a most accusatory tone, as if the overseer could do anything about it, she added, “The grapevines are losing all their sap from countless wounds! It looked so horrible .”

“Is it already that time?” Claude said, more to himself, his voice calm as he sliced a piece off a thick sausage. “There’s no need to worry about the vines weeping. That’s just what happens at this time of year. When the earth warms to more than forty-five degrees, the plants wake up from their winter dormancy. They begin to draw up water from very deep in the earth, and at the places where the vines were pruned the previous fall, they bleed part of the sap out again. It goes on for about two weeks, and it’s perfectly harmless.
Les pleurs
, the vintners call it. The weeping of the vines.”

Isabelle swallowed.
Les pleurs
—didn’t that man out there mumble something like that?

“So that’s . . . normal? Not sabotage?”

“What made you think that?” With a smile, he held out his knife to her, a piece of sausage impaled on the end.

Isabelle turned down the offer nervously. Her knees felt weak as she lowered herself onto the bench beside the overseer. He poured red wine into a heavy glass and pressed it into her hand.

Dazed, Isabelle took a large gulp. The wine tasted slightly acidic and herbal, and she found it invigorating.

“Just a regular house wine, good enough for me.” Claude Bertrand shrugged. “As improbable as it might sound, there are actually winemakers in Champagne who make something besides champagne.”

“But don’t they earn far more money with champagne?” asked Isabelle, happy to change the subject. Her stomach was growling and, rather timidly, she took a slice of bread from the basket on the table. Bertrand immediately held out a small butter dish for her.

“They do. But making champagne is a complicated and very drawn-out process. Some of the makers cellar their bottles for a year—others for six years or longer—but that means their money is tied up for that long, too. And”—he paused, as if to be sure of her fullest attention—“the competition is tremendous! You have to keep in mind that there are more than three hundred champagne producers these days. We have a good dozen here in Hautvillers; the two biggest are Moët and Trubert. And all of them want to sell, sell, sell! And come hell or high water, they make sure everyone knows about their champagne. They hire the slickest agents, men with fast mouths and fancy suits; these men have the best contacts and they don’t come cheap. And the modern machines—it’s all extremely expensive. If you want to be successful in this business, then you have to be rich before you start.”

Expensive advertising, big-talking salesmen, and modern machines? Isabelle thought about her empty purse and her cycling husband, and her heart trembled.

“But Feininger champagne has a very good reputation in the industry, doesn’t it?” she asked, and held her breath.

The overseer shrugged again. “You should save those questions for Gustave Grosse. I take care of the land and buildings; the champagne isn’t my side of things.”

Isabelle sighed inwardly. Claude Bertrand clearly did not want to intrude on the cellar master’s territory. She cleared her throat.

“I ran into a very strange man just now, out in the vineyards. I’m wondering what he was doing out there.”

“What did he look like, this man?”

“In his late twenties, I’d say. Not especially tall, wiry. He was blond, with wavy hair down to his shoulders. His eyes were the color of pennies.”

The man had been shamelessly good-looking. When he was standing in front of her, she felt a shock run through her, partly of fright . . . but there had been something thrilling in it, too. It was something she had felt only once before, and that was when Leon had swaggered into the cycling club and announced, “My name is Leonard Feininger. You might have heard of me.”

“And he had a pair of pruners hanging from his belt,” she added.

“Well,
that
is nothing special, madame. Everyone carries a pair of those; they call them secateur, by the way. It’s practically a growth on a man’s hand around here, but you’ll see that for yourself soon enough,” Claude said, and he raised his eyebrows in light mockery. “But from the rest of your description, it could only have been Daniel Lambert. He prowls through the vineyards like a lonely fox patrolling his ancestral territory.” The old man laughed. “You should be happy, Madame Feininger. On your first day here, you’ve met the best cellar master in the entire Champagne region, maybe even the best of all time!”

Isabelle pulled her head down between her shoulders like a beaten dog.

“So he wasn’t . . . just a worker?” A butterfly had settled on the tulip-red sleeve of her dress. She pretended that she was admiring the creature closely.

“Far from it! Daniel is known throughout the region. He’s a very popular fellow indeed.”

A slightly strangled sound escaped Isabelle. No doubt the whole village would soon know about her impressive “debut.”

“He worked here once, too, actually. About six years ago. Jacques could have counted himself lucky when the youngster started here. Daniel inherited his father’s keen eye and sense of taste—Frederick Lambert was a gifted cellar master! Unfortunately, Jacques did not recognize young Daniel’s brilliance, and he kept putting his nose in where it wasn’t needed instead of just letting the lad get on with it. There was a lot of strife back then.” The regret in Claude’s voice was unmistakable. “These days, Daniel works for the Truberts.” The overseer waved his hand in the direction of the large estate across the valley, the same place that Isabelle had wrongly thought was to be her new home.

“He can’t be too brilliant,” she said primly. “Or he would have set me straight about
les pleurs
immediately.” She preferred not to remember that she hadn’t even given the man a chance to speak. And even less did she want to think about the first impression she must have given—scratching around in the dirt with her nose running. “And apart from that, he had no business wandering around our vineyards. I don’t go invading stranger’s gardens, after all,” she said indignantly.

Claude smiled mildly. “In this special garden, madame, he is not what I’d call a stranger. The Feininger estate originally belonged to his family. His father, Frederick, lost it in a game of cards when the boy was about eight and his sister ten. The winner was Jacques.”

“Leon’s uncle won the estate in a game of cards?” Isabelle, thunderstruck, leaned across the table. “I don’t believe it!”

“Oh, you can ask whoever you like—the story might be more than twenty years old now, but everyone around here remembers it. Frederick took his own life a little while later, probably when he realized what a great mistake he’d made. After that, young Daniel and his sister grew up with an aunt on this very street, just a few doors down. Madeleine was her name, but she’s dead now, too. If things had followed their normal course, Daniel Lambert would have been the rightful heir to all of this. All things considered, he’s probably to be forgiven for being attracted to the vineyards of his forefathers. He’s bound to this soil like no other.”

Isabelle set down her wine glass and sighed.

“You’re right to say that there are many things that I can’t yet know. But one thing is certainly clear to me: this place is suffering from neglect and sloppiness!” She tore a page out of her notebook and laid it on the table in front of Claude. Trying hard to sound objective, she said, “I put together a list of the most urgent repairs. I’m more than happy to lend a hand; the main thing is that these tasks need to be completed as quickly as possible.”

Claude looked from the list to Isabelle. “Madame, with all due respect for your efforts, it isn’t as simple as that.”

“
What
isn’t as simple?” Isabelle shot back, bracing against the uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu, having heard essentially the same words from Leon less than twenty-four hours earlier.

“Madame, it’s best if I say this right out: there is no money for repairs, or I would have done them long ago. Do you think I enjoy seeing everything in this run-down state? There is no money for wood or nails or new wire—we don’t even have enough for hay or other feed for the stock! The carrots I gave the horses earlier came from my own supplies. I haven’t been paid for three months and have been living on my savings, but they are dwindling.” The overseer lifted both hands in a gesture of resignation and let them fall in his lap.

“I’m truly sorry, madame, but I want to survive. And for that reason, for better or worse, I’m going to have to look for another situation.”

Chapter Eight

“Well? What do you think?” Gustave Grosse looked expectantly at Isabelle and Leon with his right eye. Where his left eye should have been, he wore a patch. “An accident,” he’d remarked casually when he saw Isabelle’s curious look.

When the
chef de cave
had suggested starting their tour of the cellar with a wine tasting, Isabelle had agreed that it would be a good idea. Now, however, she was no longer so sure, because while she and Leon were still on their first glass, their cellar master was already on his third. The man would soon be completely soused! And the more he drank, the more his good eye twitched, a characteristic that Isabelle found extremely jarring.

She was trying to concentrate on the champagne in her glass, but in contrast to her tasting at Raymond Dupont’s shop in Reims, she could distinguish nothing special: no citrus, no scent of vanilla or other aromas. Was it because she was so excited? This was their own champagne, after all.

“It tastes quite sweet,” Leon said vaguely.

Gustave Grosse nodded proudly. “This is champagne from the old school! I learned to make champagne like this in the south of the region, before the phylloxera came and destroyed all our vines. I don’t think much of the new fashion for making champagne drier than old toast. Wine has to be sweet; then you’ll happily drink another glass, wouldn’t you say, monsieur?”

Leon nodded.

“Is Feininger champagne actually very popular?” Isabelle asked. “I mean, there are so many different kinds, and the competition is very great. When we went to dinner in Reims, it wasn’t on the menu.”

“Reims!” Gustave waved his hand dismissively. “You can sell champagne anywhere in the world, not just in Reims. When people hear the word
champagne
, their eyes get that gleam in them, and it doesn’t matter what brand you’re talking about. Of course there are bigger names than Feininger, but if it’s a grand name you’re after, I can take care of that. I know an old man who used to be a butcher by the name of Yves Pommery. If you take him on, you can relabel your drop as Champagne Pommery! It’ll bring in a pretty penny then, believe me.” The man laughed heartily.

Isabelle could not believe she’d heard right. “That would be fraud!”

“I wouldn’t say that, madame. It’s all a matter of how you look at it. In America, the customers go mad for a special name.”

“But—”

“That’s something we can think about later,” Leon interrupted, trying to head off a confrontation. “Perhaps we should get started with the inspection?”

With a sweep of his arm, the
chef de cave
presented the large apparatus that Isabelle had discovered the first time she looked around the house. “Not too many of the vignerons have a wine press like this. Most of them have to have them done in a municipal press or one run by a cooperative. I used to work in an operation where the cellar was a good three miles from the village press; first, we had to haul all the grapes down there, then haul the juice back again. We’ve got things much better here on the Feininger estate.”

“Excellent!” said Leon. “Then I can put all my energy into sales.” He turned to Isabelle. “When I went riding earlier, I noted several beautiful guesthouses that looked rather expensive. In the next few days, I’ll pay them a visit with bottles of Feininger champagne. I really don’t know why Jacques went to all the trouble of shipping his champagne off to America when we’ve got more than enough restaurants and bistros around here.”

Gustave nodded his agreement vigorously.

“I’m telling you, our money worries will soon be behind us,” Leon whispered in Isabelle’s ear.

“I very much hope so, or we can start looking for a new overseer,” she whispered back. When she saw Leon’s confused look, she added, with significance, “There’s quite a bit I have to tell you. Later.” Then she pointed to the large double gate and said, “And the grapes are delivered by horse and cart through the big gate?”

“Right you are, madame. This pipe here? The juice and skins and seeds from the pressed grapes—what we call
must
—flows through this into a large round tank one floor down. Come with me. I’ll show you!” Gustave wedged the open champagne bottle beneath his left arm, opened a narrow door in the wall behind the press, and made his way downstairs. Isabelle and Leon followed him down to an intermediate floor, where the ceiling was so low that they could barely stand upright. It was dim and chilly, and Isabelle shivered. She needed to remember to throw on a warm shawl the next time she came down here.

“This tank is where we filter out the last of the contaminants. All the big stuff—binding wire, grape seeds, and leaves—stays behind in the press. You can only make good champagne when the juice is perfectly clean.”

So far, all quite comprehensible
, thought Isabelle, while they followed the low gleam of the cellar master’s lantern down another set of stairs. It was even chillier and very poorly lit. Isabelle found herself in a cave-like vault. She looked around. Enormous barrels stood on heavy wooden racks on the left and right, along brick-lined walls.

“The clean juice is pumped into these barrels. Hungarian oak. Monsieur Jacques always put great store in that.”

Isabelle felt as if she were in a very special world. The idea that she could be part of that world in the future filled her with joy and pride.

“And who are those men there?” In the back of the cellar, several young men were busy with something that Isabelle could not make out.

“Day laborers, but very experienced, all of them. Today, we’re cleaning out all the barrels that are not in use just now. It’s a job I couldn’t do alone,” said the cellar master. He placed his hand on one of the barrels behind him. “The juice goes through the first fermentation in the barrels. The yeast feeds on the natural sugar in the juice and turns it into alcohol. At the same time, you get a huge buildup of pressure, and to stop them from the exploding, the barrels are only two-thirds full. You get a similar pressure later in the bottles, and I know very well what can happen when one of those explodes.” He tapped at the patch where his other eye should have been.

Isabelle blinked sympathetically. “And what are these?” she asked, pointing to words written in chalk on small wooden blackboards, one of which was attached to the wall beside each barrel. Her eyes had still not fully adjusted to the darkness, and she had to strain to be able to read the inscriptions. Apart from the cellar master’s dim lamp, the only illumination came from the little bit of daylight that filtered in past a large wooden gate in one wall.

“This is where we note which vineyard the grapes came from, what kind of grapes are in the barrel right now, and when it was filled. Only one kind of grape juice goes in each barrel, of course. In this one, for instance, we’re fermenting Pinot Meunier from a southern exposure, and the grapes were pressed on September ninth.”

“So early?” Leon said in amazement. “In the Palatinate, we started the harvest in the middle of October.”

Gustave said, “We had a hot summer and picked earlier than usual. But we’ve had years when we’ve harvested as early as the end of August.” As he spoke, he pushed open the top half of the gate. “From now to November, when the fermenting takes place, the temperature in here has to be kept between sixty and seventy degrees constantly. And once the fermentation’s complete, we have to open up the doors and windows to let the cellars get cold. But before that, we’ve got to avoid drafts at all costs; a chill can kill off the yeast.”

Isabelle, impressed, nodded.

“This way!” With a sweep of his arm worthy of a castle lord, Gustave Grosse beckoned them to follow him.

Arriving at the bottom of a ramshackle spiral staircase, the
chef de cave
said: “
Voilà—les cellier!
”

Isabelle looked around in amazement. They were many feet below ground. Several passages led off to the left and right of the bottom of the staircase. It was very cold, and the air was filled with a peculiar mix of odors: limestone and wine, cork and vinegar. Along the seemingly endless passages, the champagne bottles were stacked as high as a man could reach.

“The caves were left behind when the monks of Hautvillers were excavating stone for the construction of their monastery. They took the materials they needed and created these empty passages. You find them all over the region. No wonder, with all the churches and monasteries around here,” said Gustave. His voice sounded hushed.

“There have to be . . . thousands and thousands of bottles down here! It’s a treasure trove!” Leon exclaimed, rushing from one side of the corridor to the other.

“There’s another cellar one level down,” said Gustave, waving the champagne bottle toward the spiral staircase. “But the only champagne down there is from before my time. It’s probably undrinkable by now.” He waved dismissively. “But who cares, with all the riches up here?”

Leon nodded vigorously in agreement. The next moment, he went to Isabelle and took her hand. Grinning broadly, he swung her around in a jaunty dance.

“We’re rich, darling! Didn’t I tell you?” he whispered in her ear.

Isabelle willingly let herself be infected by Leon’s joy. For the first time that day, she laughed aloud. Oh, if only she’d seen these cellars the day before! All her fears had been unfounded.

Two hours later, exhausted, Isabelle sank onto one of the kitchen chairs while Leon rekindled the fire in the stove, which had gone out in their absence. After the tour of the cellars, they had gone to visit a number of the vineyards. They had crossed hill and dale, uphill and down, as the sun slowly set. Gustave Grosse had referred to the white boundary stones repeatedly to make sure they were actually on Feininger property. At one point, he claimed to be on their land, but then Isabelle had discovered the name “Moët” on a soiled stone.

“Grosse doesn’t seem to know which vines belong to the Feininger estate. But I guess it’s no surprise, considering how spread out they are,” said Isabelle as the room gradually began to warm. For the first time in hours, her shivering subsided, and she stretched her arms to ease the tension the chill had caused in her neck. She took off her shoes and massaged her aching feet. She could not remember ever having walked so far in a single day! At the end of their tour of inspection, it had begun to rain, and they had returned not only tired, but also wet. With no maid that she could hand her wet clothes to, Isabelle had hung their clothes in the laundry. She had to get out dry clothes for herself, so she went ahead and unpacked her suitcase completely. This time, however, she had felt much better about it than she had in Grimmzeit!

“It’s a little impractical, don’t you think, that you have to go so far just to get from one vineyard to the next?” Isabelle yawned.

“They have the same kind of land divisions in the Palatinate. Inheritance, disputes, debts—you’d be amazed how fast a parcel can get broken up. Two neighbors start to quarrel, and one of them sells off a small strip of land along the border to his neighbor’s property—boom, suddenly you’ve got three fields instead of two. Then the new owner leaves his narrow strip of land to his two sons equally, and it just gets messier and messier,” Leon replied. He’d brought back a fresh loaf of bread from his ride, and he cut it into finger-thick slices. He put the breadbasket on the table, along with a bottle of champagne. “But this fragmentation of the properties has its good side, too. If one vineyard gets hit by a hailstorm, you can always hope that the others have been spared.” He poured the champagne generously into two cut-glass goblets.

Isabelle smiled. In the future, they could drink champagne like other people drank water—what a life!

“There’s something about Grosse that I don’t like,” she said between bites of the airy white bread. The crust was baked crisp and tasted simply delicious. “He’s an unpleasant type, and he’s got an answer for everything. And at the same time, I still feel like I’m a long way from understanding all that I need to. It can’t be that we’ve got vineyards lying fallow! From all I’ve heard today, there’s hardly any land more valuable than the land here in Champagne.” Isabelle took a swig of the champagne, which she still found far too sweet for her taste. “And then there were all the weeds from last year.” She shook her head. “If you ask me, Grosse is a shiftless old fox who’d much rather guzzle champagne than see to the care of the vineyards.”

Leon looked at his wife half in astonishment, half in annoyance. “You’re acting like you’re already an expert in this field! Don’t be so quick to judge. Give the man a chance to prove himself. If he’s his own best customer, he’d have to know something about champagne, wouldn’t he?” He laughed.

“You’re right. When it comes down to it, I can’t judge him,” Isabelle admitted. “Perhaps it’s really for the best to let things run along as they have been for a while.” Still, the uneasy feeling in her gut, precipitated by their encounter with the cellar master, remained.