"I'm almost tempted to swallow," he said. No compliment could have been higher.

Nor could the contrast be greater between Fleurie's s.p.a.cious, modern installation and the next stop in Corcelles, a village south of Romaneche lying in the shadow of a huge, dark, turreted chateau dating from the eleventh century. The farmhouse/winery where Georges parked had the bedraggled air of centuries of cohabitation between man and beast, both species having reached a relaxed compromise about the importance of neatness. Under inspection by chicken and goat, Georges penetrated into the combination caveau caveau and vinification shed, where a thin old man with a cigarette on his lip was tending the eight modest vats that held his production of Beaujolais and Morgon. I recognized Joseph Boulon, "Saint Joseph," the farmer-vigneron I had met three years earlier, tending a sick batch of wine with a glowing s.p.a.ce heater. His was a negligible operation in the greater scheme of things-a true micro-production-but Boulon was well known as an instinctive genius of vinification, and Georges had to see what he had come up with. and vinification shed, where a thin old man with a cigarette on his lip was tending the eight modest vats that held his production of Beaujolais and Morgon. I recognized Joseph Boulon, "Saint Joseph," the farmer-vigneron I had met three years earlier, tending a sick batch of wine with a glowing s.p.a.ce heater. His was a negligible operation in the greater scheme of things-a true micro-production-but Boulon was well known as an instinctive genius of vinification, and Georges had to see what he had come up with.

"Putain!" he exclaimed when he tasted. "d.a.m.n, that's good! Typical Duboeuf." The young wine exhaled a sweet breath of violets and black currant, and sure enough, out leaped the raspberries and the he exclaimed when he tasted. "d.a.m.n, that's good! Typical Duboeuf." The young wine exhaled a sweet breath of violets and black currant, and sure enough, out leaped the raspberries and the bonbon anglais bonbon anglais in the mouth, fresh and lively. It was the best wine he had tasted all day. in the mouth, fresh and lively. It was the best wine he had tasted all day.

"That's worth a Beaujolais-Villages, isn't it," said Boulon, a question that was more like an affirmation. Not demurring, Georges went on to taste the other seven vats. When he had finished, it was clear that Boulon had been touched with oenological grace that year. Georges took virtually his entire production.

"It's spoken, then," he said. "I'll send the paper later."

They shook hands, and Georges hurried back to the office to drop off the day's samples at the lab and make more phone calls. Within an hour the low autumn sun had sunk behind the hills of Moulin-a-Vent and Fleurie, and it was already night when Georges struck out for Regnie, where he knew the Rampon brothers were sitting on a harvest of quality. It was urgent to reach them before any competing dealer might have nailed down their best batches. An enormous orange harvest moon was just beginning to rise over the treetops when he pulled the Citroen into their courtyard. Accompanied by the yapping of a distant mutt, he strode toward the dim light over the doorway to the vinfying and storage shed.

Louis Tete, comradely with Georges like no other dealer, was already there, standing impatiently by the alignment of high, fibergla.s.s-lined concrete vats, tastevin tastevin cup in his hand. The eldest of the three Rampon brothers scrambled up a ladder, dipped his pipette into the top of the vat, then descended to pour out samples. This was going to be very good wine, Georges and Tete agreed: cup in his hand. The eldest of the three Rampon brothers scrambled up a ladder, dipped his pipette into the top of the vat, then descended to pour out samples. This was going to be very good wine, Georges and Tete agreed: serieux. serieux. The Rampon brothers were pleased with their work, and it showed. When all the vats had been tasted, they knew they had a winner. Now the time had come to talk money. They were not disposed to be as The Rampon brothers were pleased with their work, and it showed. When all the vats had been tasted, they knew they had a winner. Now the time had come to talk money. They were not disposed to be as arrangeant arrangeant (easygoing, cooperative) as Joseph Boulon. (easygoing, cooperative) as Joseph Boulon.

"What's your price?" asked Georges.

Silence. No one looked at anyone else. Some studied their feet; others found the ceiling intensely interesting. Finally one of the Rampons spoke.

"Dites voir?" What's your offer? What's your offer?

"Non, non, non. You're the sellers, not us." You're the sellers, not us."

More silence, and considerably longer this time. Finally a few words. Evasive, noncommittal. This was not going to be easy. For nearly an hour the parley drew on, a piece of rustic theater that hesitated between drama and comedy, complete with false exits, protestations of poverty, whispered huddles and even a small masterpiece of feigned outrage punctuated by a Soviet-style walkout by Louis Tete, until at length, at great, laborious length, a price with a little extra tacked on above the going rate was finally accepted with agonizing reluctance-almost adversarial now-by both sides: 1,860 francs for each piece piece (equivalent of a barrel) of 215 liters. Tight-lipped, all business now, Duboeuf produced a sales agreement, the equivalent of a formal contract, and all parties signed it in triplicate. (equivalent of a barrel) of 215 liters. Tight-lipped, all business now, Duboeuf produced a sales agreement, the equivalent of a formal contract, and all parties signed it in triplicate.

"They're hard to deal with," he said in the car on the road back to Romaneche. "Their father didn't used to be that way."

The work out in the field was drawing to a close on a note of exasperation. Things were changing in the Beaujolais, and once again Georges was caught in the web of ambiguities that his own success had largely helped to create. With the rush of prosperity that was flowing into the region, the old days and the old ways were already beginning to fade, and before long the forms in triplicate-a whole world of symbolism lay in the legalese of those doc.u.ments-would be replacing the customary handshake, artisan to artisan, in every vineyard he visited. Certainly many of the changes were welcome and entirely positive. A decade or so earlier, old-timers like Papa Brechard could never have imagined the new schoolhouses, munic.i.p.al tennis courts, gymnasiums and other public facilities that would be coming to the Beaujolais thanks to increased tax revenues derived from all those sales, but the sparkly new equipment would also be paid for with altered att.i.tudes and lifestyle: chillier, faster, choppier, more individualistic and disconnected from tradition. The old village solidarities were eroding as money, cars, consumer goods and television-the great leveler-exercised a surprisingly powerful ascendancy, constantly singing a siren call to consumption, self-interest and acquisitiveness. Georges could hardly criticize self-interest or the profit motive-as a businessman he was deep into its dynamics himself-but even so the loss of the comforting old bonds and human certainties of his youth was regretful. When he was a boy, it had been common for villagers to plan their harvests together and help one another out when extra manpower was needed. If a neighbor was haying and the rumble of an approaching thunderstorm gave an alert, vignerons would spontaneously drop their work in the vines and rush to help get the hay in before the rain. Hard to imagine that today.

Georges dropped me off at the hotel in time for a late dinner. He would grab a bite at home, then head back to the office for more paperwork until close on to midnight. Nothing tempers nostalgia like a heavy workload, especially when that work is bringing present success. And the Beaujolais was enjoying success just then-big time. Those were the days when Michel Brun, Georges' right-hand man and jack of all wine trades, was not afraid to proclaim that primeur primeur was "the only food product that is so widely distributed in a single day," and that was probably not too far from the truth, in view of the worldwide infatuation with the new wine and that magic November 15 date. was "the only food product that is so widely distributed in a single day," and that was probably not too far from the truth, in view of the worldwide infatuation with the new wine and that magic November 15 date.

Duboeuf being Duboeuf, it was inevitable that he would think up something special to do with that date, and he did: he threw a party. The original idea was for a relatively straightforward going away blast-la Fete du Depart-to begin on the evening of November 14 and to climax at zero hour of the fifteenth, when the trucks laden with his pretty floral cases of Beaujolais Nouveau would be legally permitted to leave Romaneche and hit the road of commerce, ensuring that the wine would be available in cafes throughout France by breakfast time. Fittingly enough, it was in that pivotal year 1970-the year of his first floral labels, the first time primeur primeur production broke through the bar of one hundred thousand hectoliters-that Georges organized the first production broke through the bar of one hundred thousand hectoliters-that Georges organized the first Fete du Depart. Fete du Depart. He squeezed a hundred or so vignerons, restaurant owners, chefs and journalists into his personal He squeezed a hundred or so vignerons, restaurant owners, chefs and journalists into his personal caveau caveau, gave them generous tastes of the new wine and a bit of dinner, then led them out at midnight to salute the enormous caterpillar of wine-laden semis as they rumbled off into the night.

But, naturally, Duboeuf couldn't leave it at that. An incurable tinkerer, he was constantly revising, adding, improving. Within a few years the Fete du Depart Fete du Depart had migrated from his had migrated from his caveau caveau to the cavernous confines of his main warehouse and had grown into one of the most lavish and sought-after bashes anywhere in the wine trade. By the nineties it had become an all-day affair for more than eight hundred guests, the Parisians riding in style down to Romaneche in specially chartered first-cla.s.s cars of the high-speed TGV bullet train, coddled along the way with coffee, croissants and Champagne, and then delivered for a gastronomic lunch at-where else?-the Chapon Fin in Thoissey, the place where Georges had made his first-ever sale of wine to Paul Blanc. Duboeuf doesn't forget friends. to the cavernous confines of his main warehouse and had grown into one of the most lavish and sought-after bashes anywhere in the wine trade. By the nineties it had become an all-day affair for more than eight hundred guests, the Parisians riding in style down to Romaneche in specially chartered first-cla.s.s cars of the high-speed TGV bullet train, coddled along the way with coffee, croissants and Champagne, and then delivered for a gastronomic lunch at-where else?-the Chapon Fin in Thoissey, the place where Georges had made his first-ever sale of wine to Paul Blanc. Duboeuf doesn't forget friends.

After visits to the ma.s.sive bottling plant, wine tastings and perhaps a quick zizz back at the hotel, Georges' guests filed back into the warehouse for the main event, a formal sit-down banquet at elegantly laid round tables where vignerons and the cream of French gastronomy- chefs, maitres d'hotel, sommeliers, restaurant owners-joined distributors, food industry professionals, journalists, politicians and a scattering of Georges' old friends for a multicourse dinner of astonishingly high quality, catered by Jean-Paul Lacombe, chef and owner of the wonderful restaurant Leon de Lyon in downtown Lyon, possessor of two Michelin stars. (Lacombe also happened to be Georges' son-in-law, having had the excellent idea of marrying Fabienne Duboeuf.) Lacombe's menus always featured five wines of Georges' selection, beginning with Champagne and moving on to Saint Veran, Beaujolais Nouveau, Moulin-a-Vent and finally a "mystery" wine as a challenge for the guests to identify. Guests rarely left the table hungry or thirsty. A typical menu (this one from 1985) included: pumpkin soup with croutons; Burgundy ham terrine; hare filets en gelee en gelee; endive salad with walnuts; hot Lyon sausage cooked in red wine; potato salad; duckling terrine with conserved onions; guinea hen with braised cabbage; cheeses from the internationally acclaimed Mere Richard in Lyon; desserts and coffee.

Along the warehouse's back wall was a wide stage equipped with a professional sound system and lighting, where jugglers, singers, dancers and acrobats did their numbers, replicating in the twentieth century the entertainment that medieval lords had provided for their banquet guests hundreds of years earlier, while a magician circulated from table to table picking pockets, removing watches from wrists and pulling large banknotes out of hairdos. Through it all, Georges indulged his secret gra.s.shopper side. MC now, he took over the show, radio mike in hand, to introduce acts, encourage applause and describe the year's growing conditions and the resulting wine.

"He's reserved and he doesn't make much noise, but secretly he's always been un homme de spectacle," un homme de spectacle," Michel Brun said. "A showman. It's obvious when you look at his marketing. He loves to organize and preside over these things." Michel Brun said. "A showman. It's obvious when you look at his marketing. He loves to organize and preside over these things."

Georges was still wet behind the ears and a beginner to the trade when he had organized his very first event in Romaneche. La Ta.s.se d'Or La Ta.s.se d'Or (the Gold Cup) he had named it, and its point was to honor his best winemaker suppliers, with the winner walking away with a gold (the Gold Cup) he had named it, and its point was to honor his best winemaker suppliers, with the winner walking away with a gold tastevin tastevin cup. It was a relatively modest affair, but it was the ancestor of the grandiose cup. It was a relatively modest affair, but it was the ancestor of the grandiose Fete du Depart Fete du Depart in its central purpose: to pay respect to the vignerons. At both the in its central purpose: to pay respect to the vignerons. At both the Ta.s.se d'Or Ta.s.se d'Or and the big party, the key to the evening was the moment when Georges called individual growers to the stage for prizes and certificates in reflection of the tasting medals their wines had won in the year. But this was not the end of his tributes. There were also trips to Disney World for vigneron families and, every February, an outing reserved for vignerons alone without intrusion from press, politicians or other such lowlife. It was rather special, this one: an invitation to more than a hundred of his best suppliers to join him in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or for a three-star meal with his friend Paul Bocuse. and the big party, the key to the evening was the moment when Georges called individual growers to the stage for prizes and certificates in reflection of the tasting medals their wines had won in the year. But this was not the end of his tributes. There were also trips to Disney World for vigneron families and, every February, an outing reserved for vignerons alone without intrusion from press, politicians or other such lowlife. It was rather special, this one: an invitation to more than a hundred of his best suppliers to join him in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or for a three-star meal with his friend Paul Bocuse.

The occasional cynic-the breed isn't lacking in the wine business- might have impugned Duboeuf's sincerity by dismissing these events and recompenses as exercises in public relations and/or paternalism, but the truth of the matter was simpler: they all harked straight back to the little window in Villefranche and the humiliations that the peasant vignerons of the Beaujolais had endured at the hands of the entrenched negociant negociant cartel. Georges knew the story all too well, and the very considerable expenses he picked up for these festivities were the best reminder that he had been there himself. The ironies of life had decided that the young vigneron who had begun his career in revolt against cartel. Georges knew the story all too well, and the very considerable expenses he picked up for these festivities were the best reminder that he had been there himself. The ironies of life had decided that the young vigneron who had begun his career in revolt against negociants negociants had become the most powerful had become the most powerful negociant negociant of all, but he was deadly determined not to abuse that position. The best way he could show that determination was by giving something back. of all, but he was deadly determined not to abuse that position. The best way he could show that determination was by giving something back.

"Compliments," Georges ritually repeated up on stage at the Fete du Depart Fete du Depart each time he awarded one of his suppliers a prize, and he meant it, too. When he handed the prize over and shook hands, the essence of the gesture was as much vigneron to vigneron as it was dealer to grower. each time he awarded one of his suppliers a prize, and he meant it, too. When he handed the prize over and shook hands, the essence of the gesture was as much vigneron to vigneron as it was dealer to grower.

IX.

THE BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU RUN.

NOW LET US PRAISE DRUNKEN BRITS.

In 1970, Georges' first Fete du Depart Fete du Depart happened to be snubbed by two worthy Englishmen who had preferred to organize their own dinner with the dignity befitting their status at a private table in the nearby Hotel Maritonnes, where the food was excellent, the ambiance was calm and the Beaujolais was by Duboeuf. happened to be snubbed by two worthy Englishmen who had preferred to organize their own dinner with the dignity befitting their status at a private table in the nearby Hotel Maritonnes, where the food was excellent, the ambiance was calm and the Beaujolais was by Duboeuf.

On the menu that evening for Joseph Berkmann and Clement Freud was coq au vin, a rooster stewed, unsurprisingly enough, in Beaujolais. Owner of eight London restaurants at the time, Berkmann also ran his own wine distribution company, was Duboeuf's agent for the UK and wrote a weekly wine column for the London Sunday Times. Sunday Times. His gallusophagous companion Freud was both a friend and a rival, a man of many talents who at one time or another had been a writer, broadcaster, chef, director of the London Playboy Club and even a respectable member of Parliament. In this instance, he was in Romaneche in his capacity as wine correspondent for the London His gallusophagous companion Freud was both a friend and a rival, a man of many talents who at one time or another had been a writer, broadcaster, chef, director of the London Playboy Club and even a respectable member of Parliament. In this instance, he was in Romaneche in his capacity as wine correspondent for the London Sun. Sun. What neither man could know, as they tied their napkins around their necks that evening and set to destroying the bird that had been sacrificed in their honor, was that they were about to make history. What neither man could know, as they tied their napkins around their necks that evening and set to destroying the bird that had been sacrificed in their honor, was that they were about to make history.

With all of Duboeuf's energy and marketing talents, neither he nor any highly paid PR genius could have planned or predicted the media event that Berkmann and Freud invented at that meal, helped along as they were with three bottles of Beaujolais wine: one of Beaujolais-Villages, one of Fleurie and one of Moulin-a-Vent, each one more delicious and thirst-inducing than the last. It went on to become the greatest public relations stunt that ever happened to the Beaujolais, one that catapulted its three lilting syllables around the world effortlessly and free of charge. Sometimes things just fall into your lap. It was called the Beaujolais Nouveau Run.

Only the Brits, that admirably odd people, could have given birth to the monument, the cathedral cathedral of nonsense that these two gents constructed from a tiny spark of an idea, or carried it off with such surrealistic virtuosity. It is such a fetching little chapter of the story of Beaujolais that it would be a pity not to relate a bit of it here. of nonsense that these two gents constructed from a tiny spark of an idea, or carried it off with such surrealistic virtuosity. It is such a fetching little chapter of the story of Beaujolais that it would be a pity not to relate a bit of it here.

The best part of the joke is that neither man was a true Brit, not in the usually accepted sense of ancient lineage on the island, at any rate. Berkmann had been born and raised in the Tyrol and Freud was the grandson of a Viennese shrink named Sigmund. But, warmed-over Austrians as they were, both had so thoroughly imbibed of the atmosphere and standards of behavior of their adopted island that they spontaneously came up with an undertaking that possessed to the highest degree every quality that makes an Englishman's heart throb with joy: it was arduous, exotic, expensive, moderately exhibitionist, potentially very dangerous and-best of all-totally futile.

As bottle succeeded bottle that night and as midnight drew nigh, Berkmann and Freud found themselves becoming keener of insight, bolder, more intelligent and more certain of their own virtues and capacities. The germ of an idea took shape; jovial boast became affirmation; affirmation became insistence; and insistence became challenge. The glove was hurled: I can get my cartons of primeur primeur to London before you can. Some time after midnight, each man roared away from Romaneche with several cartons of 1970 Beaujolais Nouveau in the back of his car, muttering Central European imprecations at the other and vowing to write nasty things about his rival's oenological inept.i.tude. to London before you can. Some time after midnight, each man roared away from Romaneche with several cartons of 1970 Beaujolais Nouveau in the back of his car, muttering Central European imprecations at the other and vowing to write nasty things about his rival's oenological inept.i.tude.

That year and the next, the race was purely a private affair between Berkmann and Freud, and both times Berkmann won, not by any exploits of great speed (both men caught the same morning ferry from Calais to Dover), but because of Berkmann's superior knowledge of how to deal with London's rush hour traffic. Little by little, amplified by appropriate tauntings in their respective wine columns, word got around town that something interesting (that is, arduous, expensive, exhibitionist, dangerous and futile) was going on, and others rushed to join in.

By 1972, it was already serious stuff. Smarting from his two successive defeats, Freud attacked the Run with grim seriousness and a brand-new Range Rover, which he counted upon to get him to the Channel in comfort, elegance and high speed, by cross-country with its four-wheel drive, if need be.

"He cheated, naturally," Berkmann said piously. "He left ten minutes before midnight, but he didn't have a chance, anyway. I had a three-liter BMW, and I figured out that I could make it up the autoroute autoroute to Dunkirk in time for the ferry that left at 4:20 in the morning. So I belted on up there, pa.s.sed Freud on the way, and just missed the ferry by a couple of minutes." (Driving legally, within the 130 kph speed limit of the to Dunkirk in time for the ferry that left at 4:20 in the morning. So I belted on up there, pa.s.sed Freud on the way, and just missed the ferry by a couple of minutes." (Driving legally, within the 130 kph speed limit of the autoroute autoroute system, Berkmann would have spent something like six hours en route to Dunkirk. As it was, even arriving late for the ferry, he established an system, Berkmann would have spent something like six hours en route to Dunkirk. As it was, even arriving late for the ferry, he established an average average speed of just under 170 kph from Romaneche to the Channel. This imperialistic att.i.tude toward the French traffic code was a constant of the New Beaujolais Run in the seventies. It became impossible only years later, when the gendarmes wised up, got fast chase cars and decided to crack down an anyone driving more than 130 kph.) speed of just under 170 kph from Romaneche to the Channel. This imperialistic att.i.tude toward the French traffic code was a constant of the New Beaujolais Run in the seventies. It became impossible only years later, when the gendarmes wised up, got fast chase cars and decided to crack down an anyone driving more than 130 kph.) "So I hurried on down to Calais," Berkmann continued, "but at 5 A.M. there was no ferry in sight. Then someone told me about a vegetable ship leaving from Boulogne a little bit later. I drove like mad and just made it-and Freud was there. He had known about the ship all along, but of course he had hidden it from me. When I walked into the lounge he was sitting there telling everybody how he had beaten me. His face fell apart when he saw me. After that, all he had up his sleeve was to give me directions for the wrong turn up to London, but I didn't fall for that. So I won again, in spite of his cheating."

The halo of sanct.i.ty was almost visible over Berkmann's head as he recounted tale after tale of the villainy of his rivals and his own irreproachable rect.i.tude. Having attained the supreme consecration of three consecutive victories, he decided to retire the nonexistent cup and voluntarily removed himself from the high-speed category in 1973 in order to "give the Run a bit of cla.s.s" by covering the route sedately in his new Rolls-Royce and allowing Freud to fight with the newcomers against the chronometer. In 1973 the organization of the Run was in such chaos that no outright winner could be declared, but everything changed the following year when Alan Hall, gossip columnist for the Sunday Times Sunday Times, published an article about the race and offered a bottle of Champagne to the first person to bring a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau to him at his office.

This threw the floodgates open. What had been a semiconfidential compet.i.tion between rival dealers was suddenly broached to the public and given a precise goal: one bottle of the year's primeur primeur, to be delivered to the Times Times, Gray's Inn Road, London WC1, as soon as possible after the stroke of midnight of November 14 to 15. Since Hall didn't specify the means of transportation, it was clear that the winner would be among those dedicated seriously enough to professionalism in inconsequentiality to make the Run not on the French roads but high above them.

Sure enough, the winner of this first "official" race was an enterprising, twenty-eight-year-old Londoner named John Patterson who ran a computerized dating service and who conveniently had opened a wine bar a few hundred yards from Buckingham Palace. Entirely innocent of expertise in the subtleties of Beaujolais procurement beyond the fact that he sold the stuff for a tidy markup in his bar, Patterson simply hopped into his Cessna 310, flew a beeline to the tiny airport at Macon, asked the man at the control tower where he could buy a case of primeur primeur and took a taxi to the first address indicated. After a relaxed French dinner (he swore he drank only mineral water), he returned to the airport at five to midnight-and there he saw a Piper Navajo, props already turning, into which a crew from the Peter Dominic Wine Club was loading cases of and took a taxi to the first address indicated. After a relaxed French dinner (he swore he drank only mineral water), he returned to the airport at five to midnight-and there he saw a Piper Navajo, props already turning, into which a crew from the Peter Dominic Wine Club was loading cases of primeur. primeur. Scorning police, customs and other such normal formalities, Patterson sprinted out to his Cessna with his carton under his arm, taxied away on one engine as he labored to fire up the second one and made an emergency takeoff, heading north-northwest. Scorning police, customs and other such normal formalities, Patterson sprinted out to his Cessna with his carton under his arm, taxied away on one engine as he labored to fire up the second one and made an emergency takeoff, heading north-northwest.

For the next two and a half hours the two aircraft were in constant radio contact, lying to each other about their positions. Patterson chose to land at Gatwick, the Dominic crew at Heathrow, and their wheels touched ground at almost exactly the same moment. It was finally the cars that decided the race. Patterson had presciently parked his Mercedes 350 SL in a good getaway position, and motored back to London through fog and rain at 150 kph, leaving a fog light, front license plate and part of a fender at a poorly marked corner. He arrived at the Times Times front entrance just as the luckless Dominic crew was rattling the rear door, which, Hall had a.s.sured compet.i.tors, would be left open, but wasn't. Patterson persuaded a cleaning lady to let him through and nipped up to Hall's office to be declared winner over the indignant vociferations of his rivals. front entrance just as the luckless Dominic crew was rattling the rear door, which, Hall had a.s.sured compet.i.tors, would be left open, but wasn't. Patterson persuaded a cleaning lady to let him through and nipped up to Hall's office to be declared winner over the indignant vociferations of his rivals.

Throughout that night and well into the next day, dozens of other contestants straggled in, driving everything from Ferraris to motorcycles to open-top vintage cars. Scarcely anyone in London paid them any attention, but for twenty-four hours or so the racers had been the media darlings of France, reinforcing the unshakeable Gallic conviction that all inhabitants of the British Isles were as mad as hares, spent their entire lives getting drunk and walking about in the rain saying "lovely weather."

The organization in 1975 improved considerably after Hall decreed that there would thenceforth be three categories: aircraft, automobiles and a third one, incomprehensible to anyone but a Brit: "any other form of transport imaginable." Patterson and Berkmann-back in the road race now-were favored in the plane and car cla.s.ses, and for good reason: both had laid meticulous plans and had greased the right palms. Patterson's new Twin Aztec was a good deal quicker than his Cessna and for the final sprint home he had hired a former police driver with a three-liter BMW and a motorcycle escort out of Heathrow.

"No one even came close," he recalled, savoring his victory. "I made it door to door in two hours and fifty-five minutes."

Berkmann was less lucky. Having covered the route from Romaneche to London innumerable times over years of dedication to drinking, he was determined to show all the contemptible upstarts that no one knew the Run like its inventor and prophet. This time he chose to race in a blood red Jaguar XJS, an even more terrifying automobile than his former three-liter BMW. He knew that there was one absolute requirement: to arrive in Calais in time to catch that 4:20 A.M. ferry. Which was why he had bribed the harbormaster to hold the boat for his arrival.

Berkmann set off from Romaneche that night under a driving rain that offered a visibility only slightly better than zero. Around 2 A.M., his speedometer was registering 225 kph and the tachometer needle was hovering near the 6,500 rpm red line when the trouble happened. A tractor-trailer rig, lumbering along on some anonymous delivery, strayed across the separator line into the autoroute's autoroute's fast lane, all but invisible behind the cloud of mist and spray churned up in its wake. At the instant the truck's taillight sprang out at him from the gloom, Berkmann jerked the wheel over, but he was a second too late. With a ripping crash the truck's protruding b.u.mper sliced open the left half of the Jag's roof, and the car bounced off the trailer's right rear tires, heading for the guard-rail. Berkmann was saved only because his car, being English, had right-hand drive: the incision in the roof was exactly where his head would have been in a normal car. Fishtailing and countersteering, he skillfully regained control, but now his car was thoroughly air-conditioned and humidified. He turned the heater up to maximum and plowed on, wondering why he was doing it but doing it even so. fast lane, all but invisible behind the cloud of mist and spray churned up in its wake. At the instant the truck's taillight sprang out at him from the gloom, Berkmann jerked the wheel over, but he was a second too late. With a ripping crash the truck's protruding b.u.mper sliced open the left half of the Jag's roof, and the car bounced off the trailer's right rear tires, heading for the guard-rail. Berkmann was saved only because his car, being English, had right-hand drive: the incision in the roof was exactly where his head would have been in a normal car. Fishtailing and countersteering, he skillfully regained control, but now his car was thoroughly air-conditioned and humidified. He turned the heater up to maximum and plowed on, wondering why he was doing it but doing it even so.

He made the ferry, too, with about five minutes' help from the harbormaster,only to have victory s.n.a.t.c.hed from his hands when the crew suddenly decided to go on strike just as the white cliffs of Dover were coming into view. For the next five hours he sat impotently, b.u.t.toned up tight in Folkstone harbor, making useless attempts at further bribes as the other compet.i.tors caught up with him. He could only watch in helpless rage as car after car laden with primeur primeur was discharged from the other ferry. There and then, he vowed never to engage in the race again, limiting himself to watching over the normal arrivals of wine from Duboeuf, making sure it got delivered on time, and enjoying the profits. was discharged from the other ferry. There and then, he vowed never to engage in the race again, limiting himself to watching over the normal arrivals of wine from Duboeuf, making sure it got delivered on time, and enjoying the profits.

"On the day of release," he told me, "there was more primeur primeur in London than there was in Paris. I used to sell twelve thousand cases in the first week alone. If a restaurant didn't get its supply by lunchtime on the fifteenth, I lost a client. The whole b.l.o.o.d.y town went mad." in London than there was in Paris. I used to sell twelve thousand cases in the first week alone. If a restaurant didn't get its supply by lunchtime on the fifteenth, I lost a client. The whole b.l.o.o.d.y town went mad."

"It is difficult to a.s.semble a convincing explanation of why the British should apply themselves so a.s.siduously to a race to get Beaujolais Nouveau," wrote a bemused Hall just before the start of the 1976 campaign, and then he went on to enumerate a new high of three hundred entrants, most of them satisfyingly silly. There was a coach party from Westcliff-on-Sea who, he was certain, would consume their supply of primeur primeur long before arriving back in London. There was also, he a.s.sured his readers, the entire town of Boston, Lincolnshire. (Which sounded plausible enough until I checked on its population: 35,400. Apparently Westcliff dwellers weren't the only ones into the Beaujolais.) Hall further promised a hot air balloonist, an American health nut who promised to jog up the long before arriving back in London. There was also, he a.s.sured his readers, the entire town of Boston, Lincolnshire. (Which sounded plausible enough until I checked on its population: 35,400. Apparently Westcliff dwellers weren't the only ones into the Beaujolais.) Hall further promised a hot air balloonist, an American health nut who promised to jog up the autoroute autoroute with a case strapped to his back, a major from the Sandhurst Military Academy and a team from Berkshire called Les Nouveaux Pauvres who proposed to go down and back by hitchhiking. with a case strapped to his back, a major from the Sandhurst Military Academy and a team from Berkshire called Les Nouveaux Pauvres who proposed to go down and back by hitchhiking.

Sniffing a free publicity bonanza, other non-Brits horned in on the act, making the Run into an international event. Most notable were a Danish Formula One driver who ran a load at top speed from Saint-Amour to the premises of a Copenhagen wine merchant, and a Dutch team promoting Holland cigars by moseying down to the Beaujolais country in a horse-drawn wagon, handing out free smokes along the way. The foreigners were mere amateurs of absurdity compared to the Brits, though. A team from Milton Keynes invaded first Belgium and then France with a load of British wine called Hambledon. (The Belgian part went all right, but at the French border two hours of palavers and the intervention of a senior French diplomatic official were required to let them through.) Another team, my favorite, whose origins and purpose were obscure, made the Run in a white Bentley Continental with a flashing blue police light mounted on the roof, while wearing gorilla suits.

Most bookmakers gave as pre-race favorites the Ford GT-40 driven by London businessman Robert Horne, but his red, white and blue monster, of the same breed that had won the Le Mans race a few years earlier, shredded a tire near Paris and limped home at half speed. All was not lost, though: the GT-40 team had the distinction of being the only one to present the judges with a case of Beaujolais still piping hot from its proximity to the enormously powerful central engine.

A Ferrari 365 GTC-4 inherited the lead from the crippled Ford and went on to win by catching that famous 4:20 A.M. ferry. The record also showed that four athletes on BMW 900s won the motorcycle cla.s.s, that the husband-and-wife team of David and Anne Ricketts, flying a pressurized Piper Navajo, finally beat Patterson's airborne record by ninety seconds and that the winning truck was a thirty-two-ton, twelve-liter Seddon-Atkinson with a forty-foot trailer. But the true moral winners (in the nonexistent category of history and decorum) were London businessmen Derek Atkinson and Tony Cattle, who flew to Gatwick, took a train to London and then switched to a coach and four and rolled up to the finish line dressed as Louis XIV and the Duke of Orleans. They were unanimously voted the nonexistent Judges' Cup.

Everyone remembered 1976 as a great year, for the exceptionally hot summer, for the wonderful quality of the Beaujolais, and for the silliness of the racing. Berkmann recalled the story of the truck driver who went AWOL by detouring his wine-laden semi into Paris to engage in some cultural exchange with the ladies of Place Pigalle. Being short of currency to pay his debts to them, he found himself denounced to the police and obliged to spend the night on-site until the banks opened the next morning. His load arrived late, and Berkmann lost a few clients.

Other truckers slipped up differently. Two of Berkmann's crack drivers crashed the buffet that Duboeuf had laid on for press and VIPs, and ate and drank their fill before driving off at midnight. They covered about a kilometer before pulling over to the side of the road and sleeping through the rest of the night. A few years earlier the same scenario had bedeviled Franz Keller, owner of the Schwarzer Adler Inn in the Black Forest town of Oberbergen, whose German drivers arrived three hours behind schedule because of the generosity of Duboeuf's buffet.

"Franz called to bawl me out," Duboeuf recalled. "He was shouting so hard in German and French that I could barely understand what it was all about. He said the delay was a catastrophe that made him lose face."

That great wine year of 1976 proved to be the swan song of the Beaujolais race, ancien style ancien style, because two things happened to change the picture. First Alan Hall at the Times Times received a visit from a Scotland Yard inspector who crisply informed him that his newspaper articles were tantamount to encouraging racing on Her Majesty's roads, an offense for which both he and the compet.i.tors could be liable for severe penalties. Faced with the iron arm of the law, Hall wrote a column amending the rules to turn the race away from pure speed into a rally for the least number of kilometers covered. Second, and even more disastrous for the spirit of compet.i.tion, the modality for releasing received a visit from a Scotland Yard inspector who crisply informed him that his newspaper articles were tantamount to encouraging racing on Her Majesty's roads, an offense for which both he and the compet.i.tors could be liable for severe penalties. Faced with the iron arm of the law, Hall wrote a column amending the rules to turn the race away from pure speed into a rally for the least number of kilometers covered. Second, and even more disastrous for the spirit of compet.i.tion, the modality for releasing primeur primeur was dramatically altered in response to pressure from foreign wholesalers. INAO's new ruling decreed that although was dramatically altered in response to pressure from foreign wholesalers. INAO's new ruling decreed that although primeur primeur could not be sold before November 15, it could be shipped anywhere in France as of the twelfth- and to Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Canada and j.a.pan as well-all of whom offered ironclad guarantees against cheating-and held for release until the fifteenth. The ruling changed the face of the New Beaujolais Run entirely. For the English, it meant that would-be racers had only to pop across the Channel and pick up their stock at a Calais warehouse. could not be sold before November 15, it could be shipped anywhere in France as of the twelfth- and to Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Canada and j.a.pan as well-all of whom offered ironclad guarantees against cheating-and held for release until the fifteenth. The ruling changed the face of the New Beaujolais Run entirely. For the English, it meant that would-be racers had only to pop across the Channel and pick up their stock at a Calais warehouse.

"Who wants to race from Calais to London?" asked Stirling Moss, the great English Formula One driver, who nevertheless signed on a couple of times to do just that, as part of some dealer's PR campaign.

In 1977 the early shipping date rule came into effect, guaranteeing that almost anyone this side of the Solomon Islands could have a gla.s.s of primeur primeur by lunchtime on the fifteenth. Efficiency was served, but folklore suffered. In 1979 Duboeuf persuaded Air France, Pan American and UTA to serve his by lunchtime on the fifteenth. Efficiency was served, but folklore suffered. In 1979 Duboeuf persuaded Air France, Pan American and UTA to serve his primeur primeur with inflight meals, and the Comite Interprofessionnel rushed four hundred bottles to the dining room of the a.s.semblee Nationale in Paris. Three days later they were obliged to supply four hundred more. Lawmaking is thirsty business. with inflight meals, and the Comite Interprofessionnel rushed four hundred bottles to the dining room of the a.s.semblee Nationale in Paris. Three days later they were obliged to supply four hundred more. Lawmaking is thirsty business.

After a pause to think it over, the British resurrected the race by the simple expedient of pretending that the early shipping ruling was not there and, once again, the roads around Romaneche were invaded by a motley army of Rosbifs Rosbifs (Roastbeefs), as the English are universally known in France, demanding Beaujolais in loud pidgin French. Off they clattered once again, sometimes on the road and sometimes into neighboring fields, while the natives smiled benevolently and counted their money. In 1981 the long-promised hot air balloon finally materialized when an English aviator named Ian Williams ascended majestically from the village of Saint-Georges-de-Reneins, his wicker basket ballasted with a consignment of (Roastbeefs), as the English are universally known in France, demanding Beaujolais in loud pidgin French. Off they clattered once again, sometimes on the road and sometimes into neighboring fields, while the natives smiled benevolently and counted their money. In 1981 the long-promised hot air balloon finally materialized when an English aviator named Ian Williams ascended majestically from the village of Saint-Georges-de-Reneins, his wicker basket ballasted with a consignment of primeur. primeur. As luck had it, the winds were from the north that day, and Williams soared away in the direction of the Mediterranean rather than the Channel, finally putting down north of Lyon to avoid the ignominy of having to deliver his wine to Ma.r.s.eille or Mallorca. As luck had it, the winds were from the north that day, and Williams soared away in the direction of the Mediterranean rather than the Channel, finally putting down north of Lyon to avoid the ignominy of having to deliver his wine to Ma.r.s.eille or Mallorca.

In 1982-not a very good vintage-Duboeuf was offering a.s.sorted hot sausages, coq au vin with fresh noodles, cheeses, dessert and the usual five sorts of wine at his send-off banquet, and arranged for racing drivers Jean-Pierre Beltoise and Jacky Ickx to thunder dramatically away from Romaneche. Like balloonist Williams they went only a few kilometers and then came back to the party, but onlookers had enjoyed the spectacle. Action on the international scene was highlighted in Chicago when Mayor Jane Byrne issued an official proclamation declaring the period of November 15 to 22 Beaujolais Nouveau Week. In Germany, a Munich restaurant dramatically brought a load into city center by helicopter, and in Oberbergen Franz Keller finally had his tasting on schedule at eight in the morning.

From a place called Peakirk to a place called Northborough (England, of course), someone delivered a very small load by motorized hang glider, while down in London the Red Devils, the British Army's crack parachute team, spilled out of helicopters hovering over the city and splashed down in the Thames, bottles of primeur primeur strapped to their thighs. One of the bottles went astray, tumbled off out of sight and finished its flight a quarter of a mile away, exploding at the feet of Mrs. Susan Weston, a forty-year-old Hampshire lady who had a stall in the Covent Garden Market. strapped to their thighs. One of the bottles went astray, tumbled off out of sight and finished its flight a quarter of a mile away, exploding at the feet of Mrs. Susan Weston, a forty-year-old Hampshire lady who had a stall in the Covent Garden Market. The Guinness Book of Records The Guinness Book of Records thereby missed its first entry for "Death by Falling Beaujolais." thereby missed its first entry for "Death by Falling Beaujolais."

The Run itself, now a rally devoted almost exclusively to vintage cars, was won by Keith b.u.t.ti, a driver from Brentwood in a 1927 Bugatti Grand Prix racer. With neither mudguards nor headlights to help him along, b.u.t.ti drove through the night in torrential rain- and hailstorms with two flashlights tied to the front of his vehicle, following the tail-lights of a fellow compet.i.tor. He arrived in London with a heavy cold. I say: jolly good show.

Among the compet.i.tors whom b.u.t.ti defeated were one man in a 1929 Bentley fire engine, one in an armored car and one in a red double-decker London bus. Its navigators carried a survival kit consisting of a French-English dictionary, bars of chocolate, headache pills, a jungle survival book and suntan cream. Another crew, in kilts (wearing nothing underneath, naturally) offered the citizens of Villefranche an impromptu bagpipe concert.

"There's no other nation but the British for this," reflected Stirling Moss, looking back over the history of the Run in the comfort of his souvenir-filled London flat. "Only the English would do something as stupid as this year after year."

Those were wonderful years for the Beaujolais. With primeur primeur as the locomotive pulling the rest along with it, the whole world appeared to have had signed on to the habit of drinking the wine of the gamay grape. Sales grew healthily through the eighties, and by 1998 fully 64 percent of normal Beaujolais and 62 percent of Beaujolais-Villages was being vinifed as new wine for November consumption-well over half of the region's entire production. as the locomotive pulling the rest along with it, the whole world appeared to have had signed on to the habit of drinking the wine of the gamay grape. Sales grew healthily through the eighties, and by 1998 fully 64 percent of normal Beaujolais and 62 percent of Beaujolais-Villages was being vinifed as new wine for November consumption-well over half of the region's entire production.

The party couldn't go on forever, though. Like a favorite song played a few times too many, the Run finally petered out, leaving fond memories and a determination within the British national bosom to go aquesting for other sources of fun: lobbying for tiddlywinks to be accepted as an Olympic sport, for instance, or the baffling pleasures of week-long cricket matches. Meanwhile, North Americans and Latin Americans alike were making more and more wine of better and better quality, Aussies and New Zealanders and South Africans were doing the same, Italians, Spaniards and Eastern Europeans were improving their vineyards and increasing production, the Chinese were rolling up their sleeves, and just about everywhere else in the world where there was plenty of sun and a grudging, rocky soil, investors were either already planting vines or surveying for the best spots to do it. Serious new compet.i.tion was on the way. The days of easy glory for the Beaujolais had been surprisingly short-lived. Harder times were creeping up.

X.

LABOR AND HONOR.

A PEASANT'S LIFE IN THE VINES .

" "Voila," Marcel cried, "you're seeing the birth of wine." "Voila," Marcel cried, "you're seeing the birth of wine."

Not many Beaujolais vignerons jump in and trample their grapes anymore, but Marcel Pariaud is a man who likes to do things traditionally, and he vinifies the old way, the same way his father and grandfather did. Decorously dressed in clean shorts and rubber boots, glistening crimson from the mashed grapes ma.s.saging his thighs and flowing over his arms, he stood inside his big cylindrical press stomping vigorously while directing a stream of fermenting fruit from a wide flexible tube fed by an Archimedes' screw. Winemakers have many moments in their eternally repeated yearly rituals that might be labeled as crucial, but this one-pressing time-was something like the climax. Now everything was happening at once, and Marcel had only himself and Guillaume, a local lad paid by the hour, to make sure that this, his last batch of Morgon, came out right. Completely hidden from view within the upright oaken vat wherein he was laboring, and similarly stripped to shorts and boots, Guillaume shoveled the ma.s.s of grapes that had been macerating there for more than a week up into the mouth of the Archimedes' screw, sending it cascading down to the press below, while Marcel stomped and stomped. The heavy, intoxicating odor of fermentation filled the entire room. Deep red, sweet as a soft drink and treacherously delicious, the juice dripping through the slats at the bottom of the press into the pan below already contained a few degrees of alcohol and bore a name that could not be more fitting: Paradis. Paradis.

The vinifying shed that Marcel had designed and built himself was not exactly a high-tech model of modern efficiency. Certainly he had configured it to be as labor-saving as possible by using the force of gravity from start to finish: outside, an inclined plane led to a high ramp for his tractor, from which he dumped the freshly harvested grapes down to a second level for macerating in vats, then a third for pressing and finally a fourth for storage. Even so, his radically limited budget had always obliged him to use mostly secondhand gear, arranged as best as he could make it. His big, 750-hectoliter oak vats were more than seventy-five years old and looked positively quaint in an era when stainless steel and fibergla.s.s prevailed just about everywhere else, but he had gotten them secondhand at a good price from a co-op in Roanne and, everything considered, was very pleased to have them. The vats absorbed certain ethers that stainless steel could not, he insisted, so modern plants have to use expensive micro-oxygenation systems to do what his wood does naturally. Old equipment and secondhand gear did not bother Marcel in the least. It meant a lot of handwork-shoveling, shifting, pumping, connecting and disconnecting, lugging heavy equipment and loads from one location to another-but so what? He saw nothing wrong with that.

"You know," he said, wine red of leg and arm as he hopped nimbly down from his perch in the press and set to work reconnecting his labyrinth of hoses before clamping the press closed and hitting the switch to set it into action, "there's always a bit of difficulty. Things never go exactly right, but it's not work if things go right all the time, is it? I always want to have some difficulty."

The man is maddening, because there is this about him: he really means it. Nothing, it seems, can defeat the good nature coded into his genes. Whether out harvesting with Choucroute, Zorro and the others, vinifying his grapes with his collection of archaic equipment or s.n.a.t.c.hinga half-consumed chicken leg from the plate of a skinny German youth of his harvesting crew (waste not, want not), his incorrigibly positive att.i.tude exudes such an air of optimism and goodwill that spending a few hours in his presence is enough to make you think that winemaking is a cinch.

It isn't. If a third of the region's vignerons have given up and walked away from their vines since the glory days of the seventies and eighties, if thousands of hectoliters of unsold wine have pa.s.sed ignominiously to the distillation plants, if reports of suicides are more and more frequent and if several hundred of the Beaujolais yeomanry have pet.i.tioned local authorities to go on the dole, it's not because the wine trade is easy. And yet a trade it is, and it can support-even support well-those who are more enterprising and more energetic than the average. Georges Duboeuf built a world-straddling commercial empire without any studies beyond age sixteen, never darkening the door of the least business school; and Marcel Pariaud, who left school at fourteen to help his father in the vines and struck out on his own at sixteen (hired laborer, 8 francs a day, or slightly more than $1.50), rose to become mayor of his village, Lancie, at age twenty-seven, served for twenty-four years straight while tending his vines and making his wine at the same time and finally entered his sixth decade comfortably well off and looking forward to a moderately prosperous retirement. All things being equal, each man had succeeded similarly in his own niche, and it was for the same reason: both were governed by the same qualities of peasant good sense, unbending honesty and an extraordinary capacity for work.

For the public at large Marcel Pariaud is as obscure as Duboeuf is renowned, of course, but they are brothers in the sense that both are cut from the same vigneron cloth and represent the essence of what is the best in the Beaujolais. Fittingly, unsurprisingly, it was Duboeuf who had set me on the trail of Marcel in the first place-go see him, he's a good man. Quality knows quality. Duboeuf has introduced me to dozens of other winemakers over the years, but none of them can stand better than Marcel, I think, as a model for his caste. So for want of s.p.a.ce to introduce them all, let his story represent the thousands of smallholder vignerons who make the Beaujolais what it is today.

"We weren't very well off," he explained when I asked him about his childhood in the forties and fifties. "Times weren't easy right after the war, and I can remember the days of bread rationing tickets. But we had a horse, which was more than a lot of other people who still had to do most of their work by hand. I began learning to plow at twelve. In 1958 I got my certificat d'etudes, certificat d'etudes, my grade school diploma. I was fourteen when I came back from school and showed it to my father. With that, he took my book bag and put it away. 'No more school now,' he said. 'Go out and hay the horse.' From that time on, my life was in the vines. my grade school diploma. I was fourteen when I came back from school and showed it to my father. With that, he took my book bag and put it away. 'No more school now,' he said. 'Go out and hay the horse.' From that time on, my life was in the vines.

"We had three cows, and in the worst years they were what kept us going. In 1951 and 1953 there were hailstorms, and in 1954 there was a drought. In 1955 the hail hit us again, and in 1957 worms ate most of the grapes. Things started to get better after 1960, but I can tell you we were happy to have the cows. I used to lead them out to graze by the roadside, because there were no real pastures-vines filled up all the available land. Sometimes my father hired himself out to plow with our horse in exchange for permission to graze the cows on other people's land.

"I suppose you could call those hard times, but I don't regret what we went through. Not at all. We had our pleasures, and the slightest little plus made us happy. When it rained, that meant we might find mushrooms, and that meant something like meat for the table. Same thing with the snails we gathered in the fields. Sundays, we took the horse to the Saone with a bottle of worms to fish for perch and catfish, or wheat grains to attract and net carp. Catching a carp was an event, a wonderful thing. It didn't take much to make us happy, you see? We don't have pleasures like that anymore. Today, we have everything too easy, and too much of it."

To an outsider, the Pariauds of Marcel's youth might have appeared as a curious family, but in many ways they were typical of rural France of the forties and fifties, scrambling to get by while mixing politics, economics and social relations with a degree of creative inconsistency that probablywould have astounded Anglo-Saxons unfamiliar with the historical and ideological wake trailing behind them. Heirs to the anticlerical pa.s.sion of the French Revolution and the turbulent rhetoric of the Popular Front in the thirties, Marcel's father and grandfather called themselves Communists, but nevertheless jealously guarded their prerogatives as landowners and private farmers. (Of course under real, Soviet-style communism they would have been expropriated without delay, sent to labor camps and shot if they protested, but in republican France they could safely indulge their political artistry.) a.s.suming their contradictions even further, the family went to ma.s.s every Sunday. The women insisted on that, and there was no gainsaying the women. Marcel's father agreed with them, anyway-religion helped maintain some values, he said. The real tough nut of the family was Grandfather, whose political faith was adamantine. Whatever one's political allegiance, though, the courtly, courteous manner that had always governed social intercourse in the Beaujolais clung on unchanged. Marcel recalled with enormous pleasure the anecdote about his grandfather and the village priest.

"Once the cure happened to pa.s.s my grandfather in the street when there were people around to hear the exchange. The cure said bonjour . . 'I am obliged to greet you properly because I am a polite man,' my grandfather said. 'So bonjour 'I am obliged to greet you properly because I am a polite man,' my grandfather said. 'So bonjour. But since I am against the Church, please do not greet me anymore when we meet. That way, I won't have to do it again.' " But since I am against the Church, please do not greet me anymore when we meet. That way, I won't have to do it again.' "

From age sixteen to twenty, Marcel was on his own as a day laborer, living at home in Lancie with his four brothers and sisters, working half the day for his father on the little 2.75-hectare family plot and the other half for a neighboring vigneron. Whenever he had a day or just a few hours free, he picked up extra pocket money by taking on jobs as a mason and helping with harvests. Strong guy-at age seventeen he was already measuring himself against the big men of the village, hefting 250-pound wheat sacks. Even as he labored, though, the lure of travel was upon him, and he dreamed of pa.s.sing the test for the license to become a truck driver. He carried the dream with him when he was drafted for his two years of military service, but it ended when his father died, just after his return to civilian life. Sometimes fate makes the right choices: just as the world lost one more sports trainer and gained a uniquely talented selector and propagator of wine when young Georges Duboeuf got fed up with the Paris rush hour mob scene, it got a top-notch winemaker in place of just another truck driver when Marcel's father died.

As the oldest of the children, it was his duty to a.s.sume command of the farm and the vines and provide for the family. He was twenty-two and charged with energy and ambition when he took over the family plot. He contracted to tend a neighbor's vines and took on some added acreage in vigneronnage vigneronnage rental terms, some in Lancie's Beaujolais-Villages territory, some over in Morgon. All told, he was working twelve hectares, using the family horse and one other that he rented at 50 cents a day. It was an exceedingly heavy load, but Marcel was already something of a specialist in heavy loads. By any scale of cosmic justice he ought to have been handsomely rewarded for his courage and sweat, but when the west wind sweeps in from the Loire Valley laden with humidity picked up over the big river, hits the chill of the air high above the Beaujolais hills, then comes whistling down through the gaps, wildly unpredictable things can happen to the weather. rental terms, some in Lancie's Beaujolais-Villages territory, some over in Morgon. All told, he was working twelve hectares, using the family horse and one other that he rented at 50 cents a day. It was an exceedingly heavy load, but Marcel was already something of a specialist in heavy loads. By any scale of cosmic justice he ought to have been handsomely rewarded for his courage and sweat, but when the west wind sweeps in from the Loire Valley laden with humidity picked up over the big river, hits the chill of the air high above the Beaujolais hills, then comes whistling down through the gaps, wildly unpredictable things can happen to the weather.

"May 4, 1966. Ascension Thursday," Marcel remembered. "Hail shredded the vines. Then in September, hail again. Harvest was set for September 15, and the hail hit us on the thirteenth. We got the total treatment. On the fourteenth, I picked up from the ground what grapes had survived the May storm. After I pressed them, I got a yield of six hectoliters per hectare, and the wine tasted of earth. Next year it froze. Those two years didn't make life easy for me. But I'm combatif. combatif. I'm a fighter." I'm a fighter."

Six hectoliters of wine, and earthy wine at that, when the normal yield at the time was seventy or eighty hectoliters-this was pathetic, derisory. Standing in his destroyed vineyard, it would have been easy, even understandable, for a man less resolute than he to give in to despair, but Marcel carried on. Those were the days when he tested to the limit the strength that his genes had provided him, because what he had undertaken was in fact a triple workload. At the same time as he tended his own and his neighbor's vines, he was building his cuverie cuverie , his vinifying and storage shed. He rose before first light, slipped his feet into his comfortable old birch wooden shoes, plowed, pruned, tied and treated his vines from 4 A.M. to 7, then did ten straight hours of masonry, putting the , his vinifying and storage shed. He rose before first light, slipped his feet into his comfortable old birch wooden shoes, plowed, pruned, tied and treated his vines from 4 A.M. to 7, then did ten st