So who actually owns this small vineyard but doesn’t know that it produces an indescribably complex Bordeaux laced with Cabernet? Pricey? Pricey! Happily, Charlie the plummy-voiced snob soon returns and gives the novel an amusing lift. Max’s inherited label, Le Griffon, tastes like pipi de chat even Max can’t drink it, and even Roussel, who oversees the vines and makes Le Griffon, calls it “a little naïve, a little unfinished around the edges.” Then we are led to the mysterious Le Coin Perdu, a Bordeaux from a vineyard too small even for wine tastings, a vineyard that can produce only 600 cases at $40,000 a case. For much of the tale, Max’s big loan from Charlie undercuts unease, distress, or suspense in the plotting nor do Mayle’s mildly lyrical descriptions add much excitement. The farmhouse is rundown, but Nathalie Auzet, the notaire who gives him its keys, is stunningly upscale, and young Fanny, who runs the local bistro, serves lusciously delicate meals along with her cleavage. Best friend and former brother-in-law Charlie, a budding wine snob who has just made full partner at a real estate firm, lends deep-in-debt Max £10,000, tells him that small vineyards can put out very pricey wines, and sends him forth for six months in his new vineyard.
On the same day he receives a notice from France that he’s inherited from his uncle Henry a farmhouse and 40-hectare vineyard in Provence. Illustrations not seen by PW.A Good Year (as in wines) finds Mayle back in Provence, the region that inspired his famous nonfiction debut, A Year in Provence (1990), and his first novel, Hotel Pastis (1993).Īfter his immediate boss steals his best client just as a huge deal is about to go through, Max Skinner quits his job as a financial agent in London. His adventures, gastronomic and otherwise, are thoroughly entertaining. He opens with an account of a memorable New Year's lunch, ends with an appreciation of an impromptu Christmas dinner, and describes just about every meal eaten during the months in between.
The Provencal cuisine is Mayle's leitmotif, however. Even donating blood is an occasion for fun. In nimble prose, Mayle, columnist for GQ, captures the humorous aspects of visits to markets, vineyards and goat races, and hunting for mushrooms. Throwing themselves into the life of this rural region, they master the local customs, gain partial understanding of their neighbors' patois, overcome the frustrations of French bureaucracy, and learn to deal with workmen who operate on the idiosyncratic Provencal sense of time.
The author describes his first 12 months in Provence, after he and his wife have abandoned England for an 18th-century farmhouse in the Luberon Mountains.
0 kommentar(er)
