A Good Year

were lucky to get him; he’s almost never in France.”

Max made suitably grateful noises as Nathalie continued. “I have to go to Marseille tomorrow, but that doesn’t matter. Maybe we could have lunch when I get back, and you can tell me all about it.” She turned to smile at Christie. “If you brought your little friend, I could practice my English on her.” She gave them a playful wave of her fingers. “Bye-bye.” And with that, she swayed up the street, heels clicking on the pavement.

Christie blew out a gust of air and shook her head. “Frenchwomen. They’re always hitting on somebody.”

“Flirting,” said Max. “It’s an old French habit, like dangerous driving.”

“But with me? I had to fight to get my hand back.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think?”

“Funny. It never occurred to me.” Max was thoughtful as he watched Nathalie turn off the square and head up toward her office.

That afternoon, Max took Christie on a tour of the land around the house. The explosion of the previous evening had made them more relaxed in one another’s company, the bickering forgotten as they made their way through the vines, planning a route for the oenologue’s visit. A vineyard was familiar territory for Christie-a wine brat, as she called herself-and she looked at the vines with an informed eye, noting the absence of weeds and mildew, comparing the pruning and tying with the way these things were done in California. It was much the same on the whole, although, as she said to Max, there was more of a manicured finish to the Napa vines, often with a rosebush at the end of each row.

“I’ve seen photographs of that in Burgundy and Bordeaux,” said Max, “but down here they don’t seem to go in for decoration. I suppose they feel you can’t drink rosebuds, so why bother?”

“Actually, it’s not for decoration. It’s more like the canary in the coal mine, a kind of danger signal,” said Christie. “If there’s any disease about, the rose will usually get it before the vines. So you have time to treat them before it’s too late. Neat idea, even if the French did think of it first.” She cocked her head and looked at Max. “On the other hand, there wouldn’t be any vines in France if it hadn’t been for America.”

“It was that beetle, wasn’t it?”

Christie nodded. “Phylloxera. Back in the 1860s, it killed almost every vine in France. Then they found that some American vine species were resistant to the bug, so they brought over millions of rootstocks and grafted the European vines onto them. There you go-the basic history of modern wine in thirty seconds.”

“That’s what you tell them back at the winery, is it? But I seem to remember that the beetle came over from America in the first place.”

Christie grinned. “We don’t go into that.”

They climbed over the wall and into a stony field at the edge of the property. Max kicked at the pebbles to see if there was anything underneath that resembled earth. “Not much to look at, is it? I’m amazed anything can grow here.”

But Christie didn’t answer. She had pushed her sunglasses back into her hair, and had squatted down between the rows of vines. Looking up at Max, she held out a tiny, wilted bunch of embryonic grapes, none of them much bigger than the head of a match. “Take a look at this.”

He took the bunch from her and weighed it in the palm of his hand.

“Notice anything?” asked Christie. She didn’t wait for him to answer. “It hasn’t fallen off. It’s been clipped off. See the diagonal cut on the stem? That’s a cut made by secateurs. And look-there are bunches all the way along this row.” She stood up and peered over the vines. “Same there, as well. I’ll bet it’s the same through this whole patch.”

Max couldn’t imagine Roussel spending hours cutting off grapes that he’d worked hard to cultivate. It didn’t make sense. “That’s strange,” he said. “I bet they don’t do that in California.”

“Sure they do,” said Christie, “but not everyone-only the really serious guys. They cut off maybe two out of every three young bunches so that the bunch that’s left gets all the nourishment. That makes it more concentrated, with a higher alcoholic content. The fancy name for it is the vendange verte. It’s slow and expensive, because machines can’t do it, but in theory you get a better wine. This must be a special part of the vineyard. What’s the grape?”

Max shrugged. “I’ll ask Roussel this evening. And we can ask the wine man tomorrow. Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for that dreadful stuff in the cellar.”

Christie was looking out across the vines, a speculative expression on her face. “You know, this is a great spot. The exposure’s right; facing east, the stony ground warms up slowly, which is better for the roots, and there’s a perfect slope for drainage. You should be able to grow some good wine here. Land like this would fetch a small fortune in Napa.”

“How small?”

“Well, to give you an idea: Coppola paid $350,000 an acre a couple of years back when he bought the Cohn winery.”

Max whistled.

“Yes,” said Christie. “It’s crazy. But that’s the wine business. Have you ever heard of a wine called Screaming Eagle? Not long ago at the Napa Wine Auction, one bottle went for half a million dollars. One bottle.”

“Mad,” said Max. “How could you ever drink a bottle of wine that cost half a million dollars?”

Christie laughed. “You don’t understand America. The guy who bought it will never drink it. It’s for show, like a painting. He probably has it on a pedestal in his living room, along with the price tag.”

“You’re right,” said Max. “I don’t understand America.”

They walked through the rest of the stony patch, and it was as Christie had thought, with those unobtrusive, neatly clipped bunches lying at the foot of the vines. Eventually, they would rot and disappear back into the earth. Next year, thought Max, the cycle would start again. He hoped he would still be there to see it.

Early evening found Max watching the sun slide down while he waited for Christie to finish getting ready for dinner chez Roussel. It had been an instructive day, and he was on the phone, reporting back to Charlie in London.

“… and so by the end of tomorrow, if this guy’s any good, we should know what we have to do to sort out the vines. Now, is that property thing still on? Are you still coming down?”

“Next week. I’ve just been looking at the program. You won’t believe this, but ‘Whither the luxury villa?’ is one of the subjects for a panel discussion. I ask you. Can you imagine anything more dreary? Anyway, I’m going to rent a car in Nice and get away as soon as I can. Do you good to have some company after being on your own in that bloody great chateau. What sort of kit will I need? White tie and tails? Shorts and sun hat?”

Max was about to answer when he saw Christie come out of the front door-a transformed Christie, with her hair swept up, wearing a slim black dress and a pair of scarlet high heels that hinted at a previously hidden side of her personality.

Without thinking, Max called across the courtyard, “You look terrific.”

“What?” Charlie’s voice on the other end of the line sounded puzzled.

“Not you, Charlie. Actually, it’s a bit of a long story.”

“It’s a babe, isn’t it? You’ve got a babe there. Bastard.”

The Roussel mansion came as a surprise. Max had been anticipating a dilapidated collection of farm buildings, but instead he found himself driving up to a Provencal hacienda. True, it was constructed of concrete, that special raw pink concrete which is forever raw and pink, impervious to the softening effects of time and weather. But it was vast, with long, low wings extending on either side of a central two-story block, steps leading up to an enormous tiled terrace, a meticulously landscaped front garden, and enough decorative wrought ironwork-trellises, gates, and curlicued railings-to open a showroom. For a peasant with an ancient tractor,