Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine by Maximillian Potter Page A
Authors: Maximillian Potter
Tags: TRUE CRIME / General, Travel / Europe / France, Social Science / Agriculture & Food, Antiques & Collectibles / Wine
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her staffers. Helmsley had a reputation for being extremely demanding and not especially generous, rarely if ever giving her staff a holiday bonus; Lalou had a similar reputation.
When the de Villaine side of the partnership handed Monsieur de Villaine the keys to the Domaine and made him their director in 1974, that same year the Leroys appointed Lalou their
gérant
. However, because of things she denied but were proven in court, near the end of 1991 her keys had been yanked away. By order of the court and decree of shareholder vote, by her own sister, Pauline, Lalou was stripped of her management role at the Domaine.
Although she and her family still owned half of the Domaine, Lalou was effectively excommunicated from the DRC. The lingering perception was that she was quite unhappy about howshe had been treated. Over the years she had talked openly about how disappointed, meaning offended, she was that she had not been invited to taste the new vintages. Business moves she had made in the late 1980s only lent credence to the speculation that she was obsessed with eclipsing the DRC and establishing her domaine as the dominant winery in Burgundy.
In 1988, she had purchased the domaine just on the opposite side of Vosne from the DRC, Domaine Charles Nöellat. She bought up parcels in the best
climats
around Vosne—Le Richebourg, Romanée-St-Vivant—and she set about producing wines that directly competed with the DRC.
Often in Burgundy, many producers own parcels of vines within the same vineyard. In those situations where Lalou now had vines in the same vineyards as the DRC, according to some of the world’s most respected wine critics, certain vintages of Leroy wines were judged to be better than the wines of the DRC. From reading the wine critics, you got the sense that all it would take was a series of underwhelming DRC vintages for Lalou to achieve her wish, and the Domaine Leroy would be universally viewed as the top domaine in Burgundy.
Monsieur de Villaine was aware. He was aware, too, that Lalou was of the mind that her daughter, Perrine, would make an excellent codirector of the DRC. None of this troubled him. Just as pouring wine into a glass and leaving it be, giving it time to breathe, often allows the wine to develop its identity and fulfill its potential, in the Grand Monsieur’s time apart from Lalou, left alone to breathe in his own space, he had grown into his role and found peace. He had reached the point long ago where passing the Domaine Leroy no longer made him nauseated. When he and Lalou were at the same wine-related events, as they sometimes were, they greeted one another with smiles and civility.
Running any family business is challenging. Running a family business owned by two families is all the more so. Running the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and at times appeasing two families had been more than he was sure he could withstand. While the Grand Monsieur now was in good spirits, Lalou had nearly broken him.
In the Renault wagon Aubert made a thirty-minute drive on the highway to a point south of Beaune, the ancient wine capital of Burgundy. He negotiated another half hour’s worth of winding back roads through woods and cow pastures, until he came upon the village of Bouzeron.
Bouzeron was even smaller than Vosne-Romanée and without any of Vosne’s aura of princely aristocracy. At Bouzeron’s main intersection, really the hamlet’s only intersection, was the town’s ancient and defunct public urinal. Just before that, Monsieur de Villaine turned left toward a stone archway and a black wrought-iron fence. In what looked like handwriting penned in steel wire was written “Domaine A&P de Villaine.”
Bouzeron’s simplicity was one of the things that had drawn Monsieur Aubert de Villaine to the village five decades earlier. Its simplicity and its distance from Vosne and the Domaine. Monsieur de Villaine believed it was important for him to have a life removed from the Domaine. The
When the de Villaine side of the partnership handed Monsieur de Villaine the keys to the Domaine and made him their director in 1974, that same year the Leroys appointed Lalou their
gérant
. However, because of things she denied but were proven in court, near the end of 1991 her keys had been yanked away. By order of the court and decree of shareholder vote, by her own sister, Pauline, Lalou was stripped of her management role at the Domaine.
Although she and her family still owned half of the Domaine, Lalou was effectively excommunicated from the DRC. The lingering perception was that she was quite unhappy about howshe had been treated. Over the years she had talked openly about how disappointed, meaning offended, she was that she had not been invited to taste the new vintages. Business moves she had made in the late 1980s only lent credence to the speculation that she was obsessed with eclipsing the DRC and establishing her domaine as the dominant winery in Burgundy.
In 1988, she had purchased the domaine just on the opposite side of Vosne from the DRC, Domaine Charles Nöellat. She bought up parcels in the best
climats
around Vosne—Le Richebourg, Romanée-St-Vivant—and she set about producing wines that directly competed with the DRC.
Often in Burgundy, many producers own parcels of vines within the same vineyard. In those situations where Lalou now had vines in the same vineyards as the DRC, according to some of the world’s most respected wine critics, certain vintages of Leroy wines were judged to be better than the wines of the DRC. From reading the wine critics, you got the sense that all it would take was a series of underwhelming DRC vintages for Lalou to achieve her wish, and the Domaine Leroy would be universally viewed as the top domaine in Burgundy.
Monsieur de Villaine was aware. He was aware, too, that Lalou was of the mind that her daughter, Perrine, would make an excellent codirector of the DRC. None of this troubled him. Just as pouring wine into a glass and leaving it be, giving it time to breathe, often allows the wine to develop its identity and fulfill its potential, in the Grand Monsieur’s time apart from Lalou, left alone to breathe in his own space, he had grown into his role and found peace. He had reached the point long ago where passing the Domaine Leroy no longer made him nauseated. When he and Lalou were at the same wine-related events, as they sometimes were, they greeted one another with smiles and civility.
Running any family business is challenging. Running a family business owned by two families is all the more so. Running the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and at times appeasing two families had been more than he was sure he could withstand. While the Grand Monsieur now was in good spirits, Lalou had nearly broken him.
In the Renault wagon Aubert made a thirty-minute drive on the highway to a point south of Beaune, the ancient wine capital of Burgundy. He negotiated another half hour’s worth of winding back roads through woods and cow pastures, until he came upon the village of Bouzeron.
Bouzeron was even smaller than Vosne-Romanée and without any of Vosne’s aura of princely aristocracy. At Bouzeron’s main intersection, really the hamlet’s only intersection, was the town’s ancient and defunct public urinal. Just before that, Monsieur de Villaine turned left toward a stone archway and a black wrought-iron fence. In what looked like handwriting penned in steel wire was written “Domaine A&P de Villaine.”
Bouzeron’s simplicity was one of the things that had drawn Monsieur Aubert de Villaine to the village five decades earlier. Its simplicity and its distance from Vosne and the Domaine. Monsieur de Villaine believed it was important for him to have a life removed from the Domaine. The
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