“So what new surprise will Domaine du Monde have for us this season?”
“We’re aging a fine blended red,” Du Monde said, eager to brag after the compliment. “One of our best. Gerda’s full talent is truly on display with this barrel. It will be our entry at le Concours des Vins, I am almost certain.”
“Ah, of course. No doubt another grand champion wine. You do the valley proud.”
Du Monde tilted his head in obvious feigned modesty and squeezed his wife’s hand. “We’ve done well together.” Then, likely realizing he was not in a position to offer a similar compliment, commented where he could. “Er, I noticed as we drove up that you’d dug out half an acre of chardonnay on the north end of the property. Those were new, weren’t they?”
“Rot.” He gave a small shrug. “Seems to affect one patch or another each year.”
“Madame Gardin doesn’t have a cure for it?” Gerda inquired, apparently perplexed.
“A cure?”
“For the roots. Any working vine witch ought to have the counterspell. It’s all part of the game, isn’t it?”
He blinked back at her. “Game, madame?”
“Oh, come now. Everyone does it. A little jinx here and there to keep the competition on their toes. I myself had to rid three acres of aphids in January, if you can believe it. Perhaps you’ve found a new vine witch to work the property. Someone who can take care of it?”
Jean-Paul had no immediate response. His good manners fought against his intellect’s desire to put the irrational woman straight on the matter. But he was getting better at holding his tongue. He understood he was the outsider. A man from the city, with city ways and city thoughts he must keep to himself to get along in the country. “I’m afraid we run a simple winery here.”
Du Monde put a hand on his wife’s arm. “Come now, ma petite. You know Madame is retired now. Monsieur Martel is dedicated to working the vineyard on his own terms. He’s a man of science. He even believes he can measure the precise moment when the sugar in the grape is at its peak.”
“But of course he can.”
“Yes, but he tests it by reading the color on a piece of paper.”
Gerda scrunched her nose at her husband. “Is it a form of scrying? I’ve never heard of it before.”
“It’s not magic, it’s a . . . what do you call it?”
“It’s called a pH test, a way to measure the acidity in the grape to determine the best time to harvest.”
“Ach, quatsch,” she said, her native language bleeding through. “What does science have to do with wine? The only way to know if a grape has reached its proper ripeness is to taste it, feel the juice run in the mouth, grind the bitter skin between the teeth, check the color of the seeds. After that it’s a matter of intuition. There’s only so much vine work Mother Nature can bear without the assistance of a witch. We’re the midwives of good wine, from conception to delivery.”
Jean-Paul was just forming a retort in his mouth when Madame returned carrying a bottle of wine from the cellar. He held back his remark and then shrank a little inside, worried she might offer his most recent vintage out of some misguided sense of vineyard hospitality. He knew it was an inferior wine unfit for the palate of the great vigneron of Domaine du Monde. Madame uncorked the bottle, a sly smile forming in the corners of her mouth. He understood the old woman’s stubborn pride in thinking Château Renard was still one of the great vineyards in the valley, but he appreciated the enormous gap that stretched between his best effort so far and that of the man sitting across from him. And yet, as Madame well knew, etiquette demanded he offer Renard wine to his guests, so he must swallow his sour grapes with humility.
And then he recognized the faded label on the bottle.
She poured the garnet drink into crystal glasses, and he sat up a little straighter. The wine danced and sparkled in the glass as it passed from host to guest in front of the lamplight. Gerda accepted the wine graciously, a slight wrinkle forming between her brows. It deepened when her nose passed over the top of the offering. She gave the wine a swirl, and Jean-Paul knew if there was ever magic in the world it was in that glass of perfectly