Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine by Maximillian Potter Page B

with a warm formality informed by Old World French etiquette and great mutual respect. Edmond valued the Clins’ service and unwavering dedication to the Domaine. As tough as Madame Clin was, she had a wink in her and softened around Edmond. She knew what he had endured and she understood what the Domaine meant to him. It was a legacy that had come to him by way of a great love and loss.
    In 1906, Edmond had married Marie-Dominique-Madeleine Chambon, the woman he thought would be the only love of his life. Marie-Dominique was from a family of wealth and prominence, a status derived from her great-grandfather Jacques-Marie Duvault-Blochet.
    By the mid-nineteenth century, Duvault-Blochet had ascended to a position of political influence and become a titan of Burgundy’s wine industry. He was elected to the Conseil Général de la Côte d’Or, the department’s governing body, and was regarded as the most influential proprietor of the best vineyards in the region. All 329 of his acres of vines were considered among the top-growth vineyards in the region.
    His power and his vineyard holdings were not things he had aristocratically waltzed into. On the contrary, what Duvault-Blochet, a barrel-chested man of integrity and grit, owned he had acquired by being, as one family member wrote, “a nervy old man” unafraid of risk and, for that matter, death.
    Family legend has it that Duvault-Blochet once made a business trip to London in the midst of a cholera epidemic. Within a matter of days, he contracted the disease. The manager of his hotel quarantined him in the cellar and summoned a doctor. After examining the patient, the doctor whispered his prognosis to the manager. Thinking that the Frenchman would not understand him, the physician said, “He’s done for—too bad, because he’s got a constitution of iron.” The doctor did not realize that Duvault-Blochet also had acquired a mastery of
anglais
. Irritated by such underestimation of his fortitude, Duvault-Blochet called for a pail of boiling water, a steel brush, and soap. He set about scrubbing himself until he bled, until he was cured.
    During the second quarter of the nineteenth century, wine prices plummeted. Cellars throughout the Côte d’Or were filledto capacity, magnificent wines without buyers, and Duvault-Blochet had made a daring gamble. He had put up for credit all he had to his good name for a loan for 10 million francs and he had bought up just about all of the vineyards in the Côte d’Or. His vineyard empire included considerable patches of jewels like Richebourg, Grands Échézeaux, and Échézeaux. It was very informed speculation. In 1854, after three years of record-low wine production, prices soared. Duvault-Blochet was in a position to make the greatest vineyard acquisition of his or anyone’s life.
    In November 1869, he purchased the Romanée-Conti vineyard. By then, he was eighty years old and even the iron man had come to accept he was mortal. Although he knew he would not have much time left to enjoy the prestige of Romanée-Conti, he had not been able to resist the opportunity to own it, and passed it along with the rest of his estate to his children and their children. Among them were Marie-Dominique. She did not, however, inherit her great-grandfather’s genetics.
    In 1909, Edmond and Marie-Dominique had their first son, Henri, Aubert’s father. He was a healthy baby, a rather plump berry, in fact, and the birth was without any complications. A year later, Marie-Dominique was again with child. She and her unborn contracted diphtheria. The child, Jean, was born and survived thanks to Edmond’s mother, who cared for the baby while Edmond did what he could for Marie-Dominique.
    Whenever Edmond wasn’t caring for his gravely ill family, he was tending to the family’s vineyards. When he married into Duvault-Blochet’s legacy, Edmond did not have much in the way of viticulture experience. He did, however, recognize the value of the