The French House by Helen Fripp (english readers TXT) 📗

a low bed, piled high with furs and a window in the roof revealing an expanse of sky above it. A fire cracked and spat in the chimney.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, giddy with the romance of the place.

‘Come.’

He led her to the big urn, bubbling and warm. He turned a little tap and gave her a patterned glass.

The warm brandy made her woozy and as she sipped, he silently took the hairpins out of her chignon, caressed the place on her shoulder where her hair fell, then kissed her brandy lips. Putting his arm around her, he led her to the furs, tenderly laid her down and stood back to regard his sultry wife with yearning, blue-green eyes.

‘Come here,’ she whispered above the fire’s roar.

He took her, there and then, with her dress still on, the stars astonished above them. He took her dress off and did it again, more slowly this time, and she was dewy and slippery and the stars shattered into a thousand pieces just for them.

They talked under the furs until the sun came up, together, sticky and warm. Nicole had never thought it was possible to be as happy as this.

He brushed her hair away from her eyes. ‘It will be a good harvest this year.’

‘How do you know?’

‘There are more shooting stars than usual. I’ve watched all my life from here. The more there are in June, the better the harvest.’

‘How long has this hut been like this?’

‘It’s my little piece of Russia. The rugs and furs are collected from my travels. They appreciate champagne even more than the French. And certainly more than the English. The urn over there, that’s a samovar. Every Russian house has one and it’s always bubbling. It’s an extraordinary place, Babouchette. Like the east and the west have collided and they’ve taken the best of both. We’ll go one day, together, sell them our best champagne. I’ll take you on sleigh rides and show you minarets and we’ll drink in underground bars, side by side with peasants, and tell them about Rousseau.’

‘Russia…’ She dreamed. She tangled herself around him and the sun began a new day in vermilion rays.

Chapter 4

The Tasting Committee

October 1799

Republican date: Brumaire, year VIII

‘My wife, Madame Clicquot.’ François introduced Nicole to the assembled tasters.

They nodded, tight-lipped, not bothering to disguise their annoyance at the presence of a woman. After over a year of marriage, people still found it difficult to accept that she was just as much the boss as her husband. In the wine calendar, the wine tasting committee was the most important moment of the year. Only the most highly respected ‘noses’ in the region were invited to arbitrate on which wines would make the finest vintages and which would be relegated to become a common vin de table. That such an upstart, never mind a female one, should be admitted to the sacred circle was, in their opinion, an outrage.

Nicole brazened out the raised eyebrows, harumphs and turned backs with smiles and greetings, François shooting her admiring glances for her boldness.

Never mind the revolution, that Napoléon was waging war in Egypt and that uprisings and lawlessness were constantly bubbling up across France. The tasting committee must endure, tradition must be upheld and young women most certainly should not be admitted. Jean-Rémy Moët, their de facto leader, encouraged this viewpoint whenever he had the opportunity and, more, was constantly petitioning her and François to sell him their best vineyards, always wanting to ‘help’ in any way he could. That was how she knew their business was becoming increasingly respected. She had Monsieur Moët good and worried.

The base wine was decanted with a slow gurgle, the bottleneck wiped reverently between each pour, solemn as a church.

Nicole sniffed the first glass, rolled it around her tongue.

‘Pinot Meunier,’ she said quietly, afraid to be proved wrong.

François nodded in encouragement.

The committee spat and pronounced their verdict. ‘Silky, blackberries. Single wine, grand cru, but not for this champagne.’

The next wine was poured. Nicole sniffed, rolled and spat.

‘A complex Pinot Blanc. Clover and cornflowers shared the soil with the vines. It will make an interesting top-note to the champagne. I recommend we include it.’

The venerable Monsieur Olivier, the head taster, took another noisy slurp, pressing the glass to his quivering nose, then spitting.

‘I agree, this will be good for the blend. I know the vineyard, she’s right about the flowers too.’ He grinned at the committee. ‘Your husband has given you a kind head-start, chère Madame Clicquot.’

‘He doesn’t need to. I can taste it, right here in the grapes.’

The next wine was poured, then the next. She called each one correctly, more confident as time went by.

‘If nothing else, she’s got a good memory,’ said Monsieur Olivier. ‘We have tasted ten wines, and each one has been on the nose.’

François laughed as they came out into the sun and looked out over the Clicquot vineyards. ‘It was more like they were sucking lemons than tasting wine.’ He kissed her. ‘They’ll just have to get used to my wife being more talented than them.’

She was triumphant. It was the result of two years of hard work, of shadowing his every move in the vineyards and at the press to learn. She learned about the terroir, the conditions and ‘magic’ that made a grand cru vineyard, the press and the blend, and the qualities of each varietal, nuanced by the soil that nourished them. It was magic, alchemy, science and chance in myriad colours.

Their fledgling wine business was growing, and it was their shared joy. They rode out every day side by side, kicking up dust on chalky paths to check every detail. They railed at spring hailstorms, delighted at budburst, watched the tendrils as they wound themselves around the posts and created a solid foundation for the plants to grow. They joked with the workers, understood their trials and tribulations, prayed with them to the harvest saints at church on Sundays and talked into the night about the