After a heat wave in July, the weather throughout Médoc was rainy and windy. Finally, at the end of summer, the storms gave way to brilliant skies. In Listrac, the harvest took place under a vermillion sun. Full of sugar, the grapes were healthy and abundant. The Blanchard family’s vats were quickly full.
The family’s legal issues, however, clouded Florence’s days. She managed to keep her chin up through the whole process, even when Didier moved on to someone else, and she won the case. Florence didn’t lose her château or her stake in the business. And Jules eventually decided to sell her his interest.
Inspector Barbaroux, by order of the examining magistrate of Bordeaux, brought Alexandrine de La Palussière’s stepfather in for questioning on suspicion of assault. Because Alexandrine would have had to press charges years earlier, the man couldn’t be charged with rape. Still, he faced the prospect of a long prison sentence, and Alexandrine was feeling vindicated. After questioning, her stepfather drove out to his property in Latresne, cleaned one of his hunting rifles, and shot himself in the head.
Chloé reappeared, and Alexandrine parted ways with Virgile. It was better, after all, to keep their relationship on a professional level. Virgile wasn’t too heartbroken, as he was still smitten with Margaux Cooker and probably always would be. But she was in New York, and he was sure Mr. Cooker would never allow it. Virgile consoled himself with a young Chilean hired for the Mouton-Rothschild harvest.
That year’s Cooker Guide surpassed all expectations. Some five hundred thousand copies were sold, and it was published in seventeen languages. This was hardly the only bright spot in Claude Nithard’s life. One of his writing protégés won the Renaudot Prize, and his daughter, Anaïs, granted him the status of grandfather with the birth of a boy. She had considered naming him Victor, but the new grandfather persuaded her to choose another name.
For his part, the Bordeaux winemaker added the French ambassador to Hungary to the list of friends he cultivated over vintage bottles of wine and cigars. During a stay in Paris, the ambassador invited Benjamin to La Table d’Eugène, an intimate Michelin-starred restaurant in Montmartre, where the menu was seasonal and dishes could take hours to prepare. Sipping a 2006 Perrier Jouët Belle Epoque, Benjamin learned that Consuela Chavez had recovered the faculty of speech and was working in Paris again. Her bad habits were getting the better of her, and the ambassador predicted a long downhill slide for the once-ravishing woman. Zoltán was awaiting trial in a correctional facility near Budapest. Meanwhile, the vintner impersonators had been apprehended a few days after Viktor and Attila.
On the Rue Eugène Sue, tiny flakes were clinging to the bare trees and the sloped roofs of the eighteenth arrondissement. Benjamin looked up and saw that the snow was coming down faster now. He remembered the bitterly cold days he had spent here not so long ago. Still, Montmartre could be so lovely when it was dressed in white.