I'll Drink to That: Beaujolais and the French Peasant Who Made It the World's Most Popular Wine by Rudolph Chelminski

Author:Rudolph Chelminski [Chelminski, Rudolph]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: food
ISBN: 1592403204
Amazon: B001G7RC84
Publisher: Gotham
Published: 2007-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

VII

ONE OF US

A CHAMPION FOR THE BEAUJOLAIS

The Beaujolais harvest was small in 1957, a mere 240,000 hectoliters (the vines had suffered from the hail and deep frosts of the previous year), but the quality was excellent. Things were coming along nicely that year for young Georges Duboeuf, too.

At twenty-four he was just out of the army and freshly married to Rolande. He and his bride had set up in a wing of the family house in Chaintré, and the Duboeuf Frères Pouilly-Fuissé was selling well. His head was full of addresses for splendid wines both red and white, and thanks to Paul Blanc, he was becoming more and more widely known in French restaurant circles as a courtier (wine scout or broker) of unusual talent. He had already been selling to Lichine for a couple of years when he and Rolande loaded the Citroën Tube with six hundred bottles of Pouilly-Fuissé and a mattress and clattered off across the Massif Central to make his first personal delivery to Bordeaux. The great man wanted to meet him at home in his fiefdom.

Georges had no idea what to expect when he was ushered into Lichine’s office, and so, logically enough, he began by speaking about his Pouilly-Fuissé. Lichine said no, let’s not bother with that. I’m busy with journalists and distributors this afternoon, but we have to talk. This evening you’ll come to dinner at the Prieuré, and you’ll spend the night at Château Lascombes. I’ve got a nice room for you. The scene was like a general interviewing a newly arrived private. Refusal was out of the question for Georges, all the more so since he and Rolande had been expecting to spend the night in the back of the Tube after liberating it of its bottles. That was why they had packed the mattress.

Lichine was no dummy. He already knew all about the excellence of the Pouilly-Fuissé from Chaintré, and he had been hearing a lot about the talents of this Duboeuf boy. Now, sizing him up in person at dinner, he listened intently as Georges described his custom bottling operation. Even for an illusionless old pro like Lichine, hearing Duboeuf expatiate about wine was an impressive and edifying experience. “Georges,” he exclaimed, “that’s exactly what I’m looking for! You’re going to handle the Beaujolais and Mâconnais for me. You go to the domains, bottle the stuff and send it to me in Bordeaux. I’ll put the labels on and sell it. I only want domain wines—Moulin-à-Vent and Fleurie to start with, along with Pouilly-Fuissé. After that, we’ll see.”

The delivery of those six hundred bottles turned into a two-day sojourn in Margaux, during which Georges took the full atomic blast of Lichine’s hospitality, charm and salesmanship. Bordeaux—the money, the sophistication, the power—was dazzlingly different, miles above the little peasant world of the Beaujolais-Mâconnais. For Georges, that first visit was a commercial coup de foudre (love at first sight), as if destiny had meant him to work with Lichine. An entire

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.