Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine (20 page)

Spurrier held the noncontest on May 24, 1976, at the InterContinental hotel in Paris. There would be two rounds: one with reds, all of the Cabernet Sauvignon varietal; and one with whites: Chardonnay. There would be ten competing wines in each. The vintages would all be comparable. For the whites the range was 1971–73, and for the Cabernets it was 1969–73. While the range, to the untrained eye, might have appeared a bit wide, French wines are aged longer—two to three years—before they are released as a vintage, whereas California wines are cellared for only a year before they are put on the market. Admittedly, as far as fine wines go, what was being served was all very young.

Naturally, after much thought and outreach, Spurrier and
his staff assembled the most critically acclaimed wines of the time. As the best burgundies are Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the white round was the only contest available to Burgundian domaines, and four were selected: Bâtard-Montrachet from the producer Râmonet-Prudhon, ’73; Puligny-Montrachet, Les Pucelles, Domaine Leflaive, ’72; Beaune Clos des Mouches, Joseph Drouhin, ’73; and a Meursault Charmes, Roulot ’73.

Himself included, Spurrier had arranged for a panel of eleven judges, nine of them French and with impressive credentials. Among them were Christian Vanneque, the sommelier of Tour d’Argent, the legendary Parisian restaurant with an equally legendary cellar and wine list; Pierre Bréjoux of the Institut National des Appellations d’Origine; Odette Kahn, editor of the
La Revue du Vin de France
; and Aubert de Villaine, the only Burgundian vigneron in the mix.

Spurrier regarded his friend Aubert as a logical choice since he had spent a fair amount of time in Northern California getting an education in the region’s wine country from the likes of Dr. Winkler. Of course, as everyone in the French wine world knew, he also was the incipient codirector of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the greatest winery in all of France.

The contest began shortly after 3 p.m. and Spurrier explained what the judges assumed would be the case, that the tasting would be blind, meaning Spurrier’s staff had gone through the typical protocol for blind tastings. They had removed the wines from their original bottles and would be serving them in neutral, uniform bottles—that task had been done an hour and a half earlier. Wines would be graded on a point system—0 to 20—based on the four criteria of eye, nose, mouth, and harmony.

Round one was the Chardonnays. Coming in at first place in Spurrier’s noncompetition, with a score of 132 points, was
an American, the Château Montelena, ’73, with the Meursault Charmes in second with 126.5 points. The Clos des Mouches was fifth with 101 points; the Bâtard-Montrachet scored a 94 and came in seventh; the Puligny-Montrachet, with an 88, was eighth.

When Spurrier read aloud the results, although the French judges were reserved, the collective and universal reaction was shock. Spurrier was sure that round two would go differently. With California wines winning the first round, the French judges would believe they needed to pay more attention.

Round two was the Cabernet. Among the four Bordeaux in the tasting were a Château Mouton Rothschild, 1970, and a Château Haut-Brion of the same vintage. The round also went to a wine from California, a 1973 from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, with 127.5 points.

Spurrier had tried to entice as many reporters as he could to cover the event but only one showed: George Taber of
Time
had decided to stroll over at the last minute. Taber wrote a story on the event, titled “Judgement of Paris,” which ran on
here
of the June 7, 1976, issue.
Time
was the most dominant newsmagazine in the United States, with a readership of more than twenty million. News outlets around the world picked up the story, including the
New York Times
.

Spurrier and his staff were annoyed that the press seemed intent on depicting the affair as a competition between French and American wines rather than a “discovery.” The American coverage was all variations of the headline that ran in the
New Orleans Times-Picayune
: “California Wines Beat French Wines!” All over the United States, clerks in fine wine shops witnessed shoppers picking over French wines on their way to buying out their supplies of the California winners.

Word spread throughout France much faster. There were
immediate calls for Pierre Bréjoux to resign from his role as inspector general of the INAO. When he got back to the Tour d’Argent, the sommelier Vanneque was reprimanded. When Aubert de Villaine returned home, Lalou wasted no time and minced no words. She told him he had “spit in France’s soup,” and that he had just participated in a scandal that “had set the Domaine back a hundred years.”

As far as the Grand Monsieur was concerned it was a tasting. Nothing more. A single event with only a single reporter present. The scores were the scores. But he didn’t bother sharing any of that with his new codirector. He shrugged off her words. What was there to say? There was, he was learning, no talking to Lalou. He wasn’t going to try to explain to her that he thought California wines were indeed becoming very interesting and that France should heed the “Judgement of Paris” as a wake-up call. The Domaine was about to get a wake-up call of its own.

That same year, in 1976, Aubert and Lalou traveled to California and, unannounced, walked into the offices of Wilson Daniels, a wine importing and marketing firm, in St. Helena. To use the terms “offices” and “firm” might be a stretch to describe the Wilson Daniels of that time. Win Wilson and Jack Daniels, who had met while doing their own business in the American wine market, had just formed the venture. Their offices were on the second floor of the feed and seed building. Visitors of the time, like Aubert and Lalou, came through front doors and found themselves walking across barn floors covered in seed and hay, and then up the steps.

Win was tall with dark hair; Jack, short and blond. Both preferred Hawaiian shirts to suits and had the easygoing personalities to match. It was their likable demeanor, along with a work ethic of hungry hustle, that had made them independently successful wine dealers and marketers, and now, together, doubly successful.

Aubert and Lalou introduced themselves, asked if Jack and Win had a few minutes—of course, they did—and told the partners that the Domaine was looking for a new distributor in the United States. Frederick Wildman & Sons had been sold to another distributor, Hiram Walker, a Canadian company specializing in spirits rather than wine. Aubert and Lalou agreed that it was time to move on.

Very shortly thereafter, the Domaine and Wilson Daniels were in business, with Wilson Daniels agreeing to annually pay up front for its allotment of DRC wines. The partnership began with Wilson Daniels picking up what was left of the 1976 inventory and began in full with the soon-to-be-released 1977. In total, it was an outlay of about $5 million for Wilson Daniels.

In the weeks leading up to the arrivals of the 1977 shipment, Win and Jack got calls from Lalou raving about the ’77s. Really raving. Evidently, Jack and Win should prepare for wines with an especially fine finish. The way the American wine sales chain works is the winery sells to its distributors; in this case, Wilson Daniels was the exclusive distributor for the DRC. The distributor sells to a licensed wholesaler, and the wholesaler sells to the licensed retail shops, restaurants, and hotels. Not long after Wilson Daniels sold off its ’77s, calls started to come in from customers that there was something wrong with the wine.

Clients were complaining of a fizzy characteristic that a still fine wine should not have and that often indicates that a second fermentation has occurred within the bottle. Fermentation is the winemaking stage when the grape juice transforms into the alcoholic beverage, as yeast converts the juice’s sugar into ethanol and carbon dioxide. Vignerons like those at the Domaine rely on the natural or “ambient” yeast that comes with the fruit itself, while
others may add yeast. It’s one of many areas where man does influence the wine. Regardless, temperature and oxygen levels determine how long the fermentation takes.

At the Domaine, the fermentation begins within only a few short hours, or less, of the fruit being harvested. The grapes, at least at that time, were transported to the winery in crates stacked on a flatbed towed by tractor. The crates from each parcel were then dumped into massive wooden vats and the fermentation was under way. Fermentation can take anywhere from four days to two weeks.

For myriad reasons, the fermentation time for Romanée-Conti may differ from the fermentation time of La Tâche, and so on. When a second unintended fermentation occurs in the bottle, as was the case with the Wilson Daniels ’77 DRC wines, it is because residual natural yeasts in the wine come to life. It is nothing harmful, but it is unpleasant and certainly not what anyone pays for.

Jack gave Aubert a call. At first Aubert did not believe it, but Jack assured him that, indeed, all of the wines were bad. Jack felt a little like a Rolls-Royce executive calling all the dealerships to inform them of a recall on the latest models. Lalou insisted that there was nothing wrong with the wine, maybe just a few bottles. Jack said no, he was quite sure the whole shipment was bad. Aubert disagreed with Lalou and insisted they trust Jack’s judgment and allow Wilson Daniels to do what Aubert knew must be done to honor the customers and the Domaine’s reputation. Wilson Daniels took the entire shipment out behind the building and drove figure eights over it with a tractor, and the Domaine returned all of the revenue it had derived from it.

That Aubert would concede that the Domaine’s wines were unfit for American clients; that he would side with Jack and Win, put further strain on Lalou and Aubert’s already tense relationship.

J
ust before 7 p.m. on February 12, 2010, Jean-Charles Cuvelier pulled his Mercedes up to the front gate of the cemetery of Chambolle-Musigny. On the seat next to him was a canvas valise filled with one million counterfeit euros.

He held on to the steering wheel to keep his hands from shaking. His arms shook. He could feel his heart. He told himself to calm down, that if anything went wrong, he would be fine; the police were nearby and could be by his side within seconds.

On the previous day, the Domaine had received another letter via regular mail. The fourth and what would be the final piece of correspondence said that time was up. It instructed that the money be put in a cloth valise and be delivered to the cemetery immediately east of Chambolle-Musigny on February 12 at dusk. The note specified to leave the valise inside the cemetery, in a small ditch behind a row of bushes just to the right of the entrance.

Monsieur de Villaine was away again on business, in America, promoting the release of the most recent vintage of the
Domaine’s wines. Jean-Charles called him and alerted him to the contents of the note and informed him the police had a plan.

By the time that note had arrived, Commander Millet was ready. He had a team briefed on what was then known of the case, ready to mobilize. The lead investigators had anticipated that the architect of this crime would not select the same site for the drop-off. They had correctly guessed the new spot would be within the area. Less than two hours after receiving the note, Millet had the full team of approximately fifty officers gathered in a room at the Police Nationale’s Dijon office studying a map of the region.

There would be several teams of officers in small white vans, like the ones used by so many of the domaines. Careful, of course, not to draw attention, they would patrol the area around the cemetery bull’s-eye. They would cover everything north-south, between Vosne and Chambolle; and east-west, between RN-74 to the small rural roads just on the other side of the forest-covered
côte
. There would be undercover officers on foot, wandering the two villages, and in fixed positions in the forest and tucked still among the vines.

The next day, the morning of the drop-off, Jean-Charles went to the Dijon station, where he was briefed. A transmitter had been stitched into the bag, concealed in the lining. Another tiny transmitter had been sandwiched in one of the stacks of bills. Jean-Charles was instructed to wear his Bluetooth headset. Before he approached the cemetery he was to turn it on; Francis Xavier, the hostage negotiator who had traveled from Paris, would be on the line. They would keep the call live but say nothing. If at any moment it appeared he might be in immediate
danger, Jean-Charles was assured, the police would know it and they would swarm.

After the briefing, Jean-Charles thought about his
enfants.
He thought about calling his two daughters. Up to that point, as the police had asked him to, he had said nothing to them. The thought of doing so had not occurred to him until this moment. Now he found himself thinking of them intensely, wondering what they were doing, wondering what they would say if they knew.

His youngest, “Solène,” was in her midtwenties. Jean-Charles was interested in names and their meanings, the provenance of them. Solène: First time he heard it was from a mother on a beach. Solène is a type of seashell. Jean-Charles thought the word was lovely. Solène grows from a Latin root that means “solemnly.” His Solène was anything but solemn. She was ebullient. Everywhere she went, she was like a light, bright both in mind and spirit, eager for adventure. She worked in Paris with the fashion design company Chanel. Neither of his girls had ever given him any trouble, but Solène, his light, his sun sometimes put herself in a position where it rotated around her. She was like him. If Solène knew about all of this, of course she would be concerned, but, Jean-Charles told himself, she would likely understand why he felt the need to do it and she would have encouraged him to go for it.

His oldest, Raphaëlle, was in her late twenties—the ancient meaning of Raphaëlle is “God heals.” Now, she was the solemn, serious one. Raphaëlle’s dark eyes always pragmatically sizing up the world, vigilant for the worst-case scenario. Sharp, intolerant of injustice and willing to fight for her convictions, was it any
wonder she became an attorney. She worked as a jurist for the French government and also lived in Paris.

Raphaëlle was protective of her younger sister and of their father, who sometimes forgot he was no longer an indestructible rugby player. Raphaëlle would have wanted to be walked through every detail of the police strategy, and once satisfied that the plan minimized all risk—convincing her of which would not have been easily accomplished—she, too, would have supported him, probably saying something like, “Papa, get these bastards.” Raphaëlle was more like her mother.

His late wife. How he missed her. Annick. Means “gracious and merciful.” Oh, and she was. Through it all. To the very end. It was impossible not to think of his girls, their girls, and not think of Annick.

She and Jean-Charles had met in high school. Jean-Charles would always hope that she fell for him, at least in part, because she thought he was handsome. Unlike now, with his belly, certainly then, at least, he was fit. Prime rugby shape. Annick would come to watch him play, and when she did, he lowered his shoulder and hit harder. Annick was an athlete herself. Fencing. How she could dance with that foil. He loved to watch her. A ballerina with a blade. Remarkable instincts—after all, Jean-Charles would joke, she did marry him. And she did not know what it meant to quit. Not even when the diagnosis came.

Breast cancer. When Annick heard the diagnosis, in 2001, she heard “
Allez!
” To her it was like a fencing match had begun. She quietly made up her mind that she would riposte, parry, advance.
Attaque au Fer!
She would win. And she did. There was the victory of remission, but then another match in 2005. It lasted for three years. She spent her final months too weak to get out of bed.

Jean-Charles had long been a fan of magic. During Annick’s
cancer, he became more fascinated by it. He joined an amateur magicians’ group. Once a month, he and his fellow magicians would meet and share the tricks behind their tricks. Yes, Jean-Charles turned more and more to magic as the science of medicine seemed to fail his wife. He would pray, but he would escape into magic. Annick loved that Jean-Charles loved magic. She loved that he believed in it.

When he would sit by Annick’s bedside in those final months and weeks and days, first at home and then in the hospital, Jean-Charles would try to entertain her with a new trick. Something to make her smile. Something to make her see that what seemed so real and so certain was not. Annick liked the trick where Jean-Charles made an ace of spades disappear. Of course, the ace did not disappear. It was there all along. So was the cancer that took her life in 2008, after thirty-three years of marriage.

Jean-Charles continued going to the monthly magicians’ gathering. He continued to believe in magic. That’s part of what he loved about the Domaine. In every vintage, in every bottle there was magic. There was hope. There was rebirth. The magic of the Domaine, the magic of the family he had there, is what enabled him to get through Annick’s long bout with cancer and then begin his life without her.

Jean-Charles thought it was magical that a high school teacher had met Aubert de Villaine and that the Grand Monsieur had invited him into that world of the DRC. He felt as if he owed a great deal to Monsieur de Villaine and to the Domaine, to defend that magic. The idea that someone would destroy it, poison it… Jean-Charles felt confident his girls and his wife would understand why he was so willing to carry that bag into the cemetery. In many ways, they were why he was doing it.

Jean-Charles decided it was best not to call Solène and
Raphaëlle. They would worry. And, as he thought of what the night would bring, he convinced himself there was nothing for them to worry about.

“You’re doing great,” the voice in his earpiece said. “Walk in, leave the bag, walk out. That’s all there is to it. We’re watching. We’re right here.”

Jean-Charles reached over, grabbed the bag, and set it on his lap. He took a breath. He opened the door and slowly walked through the cemetery’s gates. Millet’s theory about why the note had disappeared so quickly from Romanée-Conti that night was that someone had been there, waiting in the dark. Mindful of that, Jean-Charles’s eyes scanned the tombstones as he walked in. Nothing. Only dead calm.

He left the valise right where the note had said to, then walked back to his car—he wanted so badly to run to it. He closed the door and drove off.

“Well done, Jean-Charles,” the voice in his Bluetooth said. “Go home.”

Less than forty-five minutes later, as Jean-Charles was walking into his home, about to pour a very full glass of wine and relax with his cat, Merlin, his cell phone rang. It was Inspector Pageault. “Jean-Charles,” he said, “we got him.”

Jean-Charles asked who the man was and was he working alone. Manu said he’d only had a few minutes with the man right at the arrest and that he expected to get more out of him at the station. That’s where Pageault was headed now. So far, Pageault told Jean-Charles, the suspect had identified himself as Jacques Soltys, and so far Jacques Soltys was saying he’d been in prison before and he wasn’t afraid of going back, and that he wasn’t going to say any more.