26

A LONDON LOVE LETTER

London, United Kingdom
August, 2003

I have theories about a lot of things, having lived a varied and mostly fruitful life, and one of my theories concerns precious objects. It goes like this: the more you treat a precious object as fragile and delicate and in danger of being broken, the more likely it is to break. Call it Murphy’s Law (when anything that can go wrong will go wrong) or just the universe’s sense of humour.

So when Jane and I prepared to fly out to Europe on our trip, I took the almost certainly real century-old bottle of Château d’Yquem Sauternes, encased it in sturdy bubble wrap and cardboard to protect it, swaddled it in some shirts, and then packed it safely and tightly in with all my other luggage. It wasn’t even alone. I also had some other bottles in there, including one for a London friend, Linden Wilkie, and some olive oil for Jean-François in Bordeaux. I’d told him about my early investment in Boundary Bend Olives (the owner of the Cobram Estate brand), and he was keen to have a bottle.

We flew out on a Tuesday, landing in London on a cold but sunny August morning. Of course, as soon as we arrived at our hotel, the first thing I did was check my precious cargo and was relieved to see that the bottle was fine. I placed it carefully back in my suitcase, with socks and a hotel towel around it.

I didn’t have any meetings planned for three or four days and so we decided to shake off jet lag by walking the London streets. I’d been to the English capital many times but had mostly tended to see it as a work destination, like going to Melbourne or, lately, Bordeaux, while Jane hadn’t been to London for years, so together we found a new magic in it and decided to savour the experience and enjoy the city with fresh eyes.

I had fun tracking down music icons that I’d never got around to visiting. As a former part-owner of one of Sydney’s live rock’n’roll venues in the eighties, back in the heyday of INXS, Midnight Oil, Cold Chisel and other classic bands, I enjoyed making something of a pilgrimage to some of London’s landmark nightlife venues.

Without telling Jane our destination, one morning I led her to the nearest underground station and we headed out to St John’s Wood, emerging from the depths onto Finchley Road.

Knowing I had played some decent cricket in my youth, and my love of Test cricket, she thought she was onto me early. ‘Are we going to Lord’s?’ she asked, looking at a sign for the home of cricket, apparently just nearby.

‘We’re not,’ I replied, taking her hand and instead heading west downhill along Grove End Road for maybe half a kilometre, taking in London upper-middle-class suburbia, until we stopped at the point where Grove End Road meets Garden Road.

I looked at Jane, an eyebrow raised, and she looked around us.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I have no idea why we’re here. What is this?’

I took us a few steps north and indicated a street sign that read ‘Abbey Road, NW8’, although the sign was almost buried under the signatures of previous visitors.

‘See that pedestrian crossing . . .’ I said.

‘Oh, you’re kidding! The Abbey Road!’ she said, recognition lighting up her face. ‘So, if The Beatles had taken a few steps in this direction for the photo, one of the greatest albums ever could have been called Grove End Road.’

‘That must be Abbey Road Studios just there,’ I said, turning to a building just off to the left from maybe the most famous pedestrian crossing in the world.

We had several days like that, just having fun exploring London’s random sites.

We wandered through the British Museum to see handwritten drafts of Beatles lyrics, and drifted past famous pubs or theatres, like the Tramshed on Woolwich New Road, east of the city and south of the Thames, where bands like Dire Straits and Radiohead played before they hit it big. We saw some theatre in the West End and visited Tate Britain and other galleries. We really were in tourist mode and I didn’t want it to end.

Of course, we also ate and drank very well. For our pure pleasure and in the name of ‘professional research’ for Jane, we sampled an array of the city’s interesting restaurants, often asking friends of hers or mine along for the meal.

We had a lovely lunch with Neil Beckett and Sarah Basra of The World of Fine Wine magazine, which had only recently been launched and became, in my mind, the greatest wine magazine there ever was. At the time, it was finding its feet but I told them over lunch that I might have a cracking article for them, if things went well over the rest of my trip. I stayed a little mysterious, building the tension and the story, even though they demanded I brief them on the potential feature.

‘It involves wine,’ I finally said, as though caving.

‘John, you don’t seem to understand how a magazine’s editorial process works,’ Neil said, giving me a friendly glare. ‘You do get that we are a most reputable wine magazine, yes, trying to be the best in the world, and we could break your story if it is as good as you say.’

‘I do appreciate that,’ I said, ‘except that it’s fun to watch you fume because I won’t tell you.’

‘You haven’t changed,’ laughed Neil. ‘Always taking the proverbial.’

I said, ‘Okay, how about if I admit I have a bottle of Yquem stashed away that I’m about to take to the château itself, and when they pull the cork, I’m expecting them to be able to read the year on the cork and confirm that it’s at least 120 years old.’

‘Nice,’ said Neil, nodding. ‘Wow, that is rare, and in your retail world I’d imagine that would be worth a lot of money.’

‘How much do you think?’ Jane asked.

Neil thought. ‘Prices aren’t really what the magazine is about but if I had to guess, in pounds? I suppose it could be £3000, could be £10,000, which goes to show I’m not really on the pulse. I do know it would depend on a few things, like the condition, fill level and provenance.’

‘The shoulder level is very high,’ I said.

‘Look, old bottles are fun,’ said Sarah, ‘but haven’t we seen Yquems that old before, John?’

‘Well, Sarah, all I’ll say without giving away the game is that there are more where this came from – many more – and the provenance is where the story will lie.’

That stopped them. ‘Many antique Yquems?’ from Neil.

‘And Lafite, and Mouton, and the other great crus,’ I said.

Sarah: ‘All one hundred years old or more?’

‘Well, not all of them, but most. Some are newbies, only dating back to the 1930s and 40s,’ I said.

‘So, can you tell us the provenance?’ Neil asked.

‘Now, Neil, where would be the fun in that?’ I teased. ‘Look, on a serious note, if my Yquem turns out to be fake, then I don’t have a thing, including a story for you or the costs of my trip. But if it’s real, the article writes itself.’

Sarah laughed. ‘You Aussies! Always living the big adventure. Fine, go hang out at Yquem. See if we care.’

‘But if it turns out to be real, we get the story, yeah?’ said Neil.

We shook hands. ‘Of course. No other wine magazines have shouted us lunch while we’ve been here.’

‘Wait, I never said I was paying,’ Neil said.

We laughed and split the bill.

On the last day of our stay in London, I had a few meetings for the Bordeaux Shippers business, and also rang Jean-François.

‘Ça va?’ I said down the phone.

‘Oui, ça va bien, John. Et toi?’ he said.

I could picture him in his beautiful Bordeaux office, full of antiques and soft lamps, on the second floor of an old, squat three-storey yellow stone building in the old town, on Quais des Chartrons on the city side of the Garonne river. Jane was going to love it there.

‘You have the bottle with you?’ Jean-François asked me down the phone.

‘Yes, safely tucked away. We’re heading to Paris tomorrow and will be in Bordeaux in a few days,’ I said.

‘Magnifique,’ he said. ‘I have contacted my friend, Pierre, and he is prepared to grant you an audience, if you can give us twenty four hours or so notice. He is at the château for the next fortnight, with no plans for travel, so it should be fine.’

‘Jean-François, I am going to owe you a very good bottle of wine for doing me this favour,’ I said.

‘Well, then it’s nice that you’ll have it with you on the day!’ he said.

‘Not quite that good,’ I laughed. ‘Anyway, technically, this one belongs to my friend Kevin.’

‘A friend lent you a bottle of century-old Yquem to carry across the world?’

‘More or less,’ I said. ‘We trust each other.’

‘It would seem so,’ Jean-François said. ‘I look forward to seeing this amazing bottle, and to seeing you, John.’

‘I’ll call again when we are heading to Bordeaux next week, to confirm,’ I said. ‘Merci again.’

‘De rien, mon ami,’ he rang off.

I had a few more minutes before Jane was due back from a shopping trip, so I dialled another long string of numbers and listened to the short buzzing sounds at the other end of the line, before the sound of connection.

‘Gamarjoba?’ said a male voice.

‘George, it’s John Baker,’ I said.

‘John! How good to hear from you,’ George said. ‘How go your day?’

‘My day is fine. I’m in London, on a wine-buying trip.’

‘You speak to auction houses?’ he said.

‘Well, I still haven’t got the forms from you to authorise me to do so, so no, I don’t think I can on this visit.’

‘I told you it’s okay,’ he said. ‘Why not just go?’

‘They don’t work like that, George. I can’t turn up with a multi-million-dollar proposal, saying, “I know a guy who said it’s cool.”’

‘Too much red tape in your world, John,’ George said. ‘You westerners need to be a bit more Georgian. Just make shit happen.’

‘That’s probably true,’ I said. ‘George, I’m planning on visiting Château d’Yquem next week, to have one of the bottles authenticated. Once we can prove it’s genuine by their authentication, we can make progress, I believe.’

‘It’s real,’ George said. ‘One hundred per cent. No problem. Then we can get to sale price. My partners are getting impatient, John. They say you need to bring us the two million soon or they start talking to other interested parties.’

There was a lot to unpack in what George had just said. I breathed down the phone, digesting it.

‘What other interested parties, George?’

‘Oh, you know. There are others. You not the only person from world who has interest in Stalin and Tsar Nicholai and all these bottles, John.’

‘You’re talking to others, about doing a deal? You never mentioned that before, George.’

‘I not, personally. But others here who are not me, yes? I can’t guarantee you only negotiation.’

‘Have these other parties visited the cellar? Done an audit?’

‘Let’s not worry about them,’ he said. ‘Let’s just do our deal so we all good and we can make the money we always wanted.’

‘Speaking of which, you just said two million. Where did that come from? We’ve always been talking an overall purchase price of one million dollars, US, which is now 500,000 initially with you retaining ownership of half the cellar,’ I said.

‘No, two million is price,’ George said. ‘Neville promised two million, minimum. That in deal with him.’

‘Well, Neville is no longer involved and every piece of correspondence, every conversation, every draft deal you and I have ever shared had one million as the price.’

‘John, I have partners who—’

‘George, you need to sort out your end of this,’ I said, my voice rising. ‘You keep talking about these partners. Are you talking about Tamaz and company? The ones we met? Or do you have new partners? It’s up to you to control your end. Our price was always one million dollars and I’m deeply disturbed you would try to double it over the phone. No silly buggers, George, or I walk away and you don’t see any money at all.’

‘I handle my end,’ George said. ‘You get bottle okayed. We talk soon about export of cellar.’

‘I still don’t have any proof that you have stored those new bottles to protect the costs of this current trip and other expenses, George.’

‘It happening,’ he said.

‘And I still don’t have a Georgian rugby jumper.’

George laughed down the phone. ‘John, come up with money and finish deal and I buy you a whole rugby team.’

That night, Jane and I had dinner with Linden Wilkie and his wife, Aiko. Linden, who had become a great friend, had moved to London years before.

‘Linden runs The Fine Wine Experience,’ I explained to Jane as we waited for our entrées. ‘It’s a fantastic business. Linden really approaches the great French wines from the point of view that it is all about enjoying the bottle of wine and the experience of sharing it. He likes drinking great wines with a bit of laughter happening around the table at the same time.’

‘I can see why you two get along,’ she replied, smiling.

Linden nodded. ‘It’s true. I’ve never been one for caring about the investment of wine, or the labels. I love the aromas, and the living, breathing nature of wines, and how a group of people – even a foursome like us – can share a bottle, and debate it and taste different nuances and just have our senses so alive in the moment.’

‘Speaking of which,’ I said, and reached down behind my chair. I turned back to the table and handed Linden a bottle of 1990 Wendouree Shiraz, from Australia’s Clare Valley. A beautiful wine.

‘Oh, you found one!’ Linden said, beaming with happiness. ‘Did you have to search much?’

I laughed and wondered if I should confess and finally shrugged. ‘You know, when we spoke and I asked you if I could bring something over for you, and you mentioned that you were curious about Wendouree, I suddenly had a thought, went down to my own cellar and realised this bottle had been brought over by someone for lunch or dinner or whatnot, wasn’t drunk on the night and ended up among my bottles. So now it’s yours.’

‘That’s brilliant. Thanks, John,’ Linden said. ‘I have something for you too.’

He reached behind his chair and produced a bottle of Mas de Daumas Gassac, supposedly a particularly good and unusual wine from the Languedoc region in the south of France. Up until now, it hadn’t been regarded as a region known for great wines, but I had heard Daumas Gassac was different.

‘Oh wow, these aren’t easy to get,’ I said.

‘No, it did take some work,’ Linden admitted. ‘It’s a particularly good vintage, by the way.’

He spent a few minutes running through the Languedoc wine characteristics and why some vintages had been better than others over the past decade. Jane listened to it all, sipping her wine, and when he’d finished, said, ‘Linden, you seem young to be so well-versed in all this, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘I did start pretty early,’ Linden said. ‘I was working as a sommelier when I was in my first year of uni, back in New Zealand, as well as hosting wine nights for fun, and I never really looked back.’

‘He came to London to be in the thick of it,’ I said. ‘And it seems to have worked.’

‘It has,’ Linden said. ‘Although it’s a pretty crowded market over here. I’m toying with the idea of a change of scene, but not yet.’

‘What are you thinking?’ I asked.

‘Asia,’ he said. ‘Although it means I’m going to have to step up my ability to be businesslike, rather than primarily an enthusiast with a business. There’s a huge interest in collectable wines starting to build over there. I spent a year as an exchange student in Hong Kong, you know, when I was a kid, and I keep thinking about the money there, and the culture, and how well a genuine world-class shop and events company could fly in that part of the world.’

‘Well, let’s hope they keep getting interested in the antique wine market, because I might be holding an auction sooner rather than later, fingers crossed,’ I said.

We drank to that, and to being reacquainted, and to Linden and Aiko meeting Jane, and to me meeting Jane, and to London, and to Dire Straits, and to anything else we could think of over the course of a long dinner with at least one too many bottles of wine. Especially given we had to be up early the next day to fly to Paris.