Free The Critic by Peter May Page A

Mas Caussé you taste the real thing. If we’ve made a bad wine, you’ll know it.’
    He poured a small quantity into his own glass and took out another from the deep pockets of his overalls to pour a little for Enzo. Enzo watched, and followed suit, as the old winemaker held his glass up to the light, then peered into it before putting his nose almost entirely inside and breathing deeply.
    ‘Powdered sugar,’ he said. ‘Raspberry.’
    Enzo nodded. He could see what the old man meant, but perhaps his nose was not as well developed. It certainly wasn’t as big.
    Now the old man swirled his glass and breathed it in again. ‘Big fruit. Plums. And the raspberry’s still there.’ Then he took a mouthful, sucking air over his tongue as slowly he let the wine slip back over his throat.
    Raspberry and liquorice were the overwhelming flavours that filled Enzo’s mouth. The wine was freshly acidic, not too heavy, and with a peppery taste that lingered pleasantly in the nasal cavity. ‘Very nice,’ he said, and the old man lifted an eyebrow as if Enzo had just damned his wine with faint praise.
    Enzo opened the photo album. Its pages were filled with large, colourful prints that had been pasted on either side. Men and women in flowing crimson gowns edged in black. Jean-Marc Josse with his tri-pointed red Rabelaisian hat, brandishing a piece of gnarled and polished vine root that served as an induction rod.
Intronisation
into the
confrérie
was symbolised by the presentation of a gold-coloured representation of an
amphora
, the Greek urn in which Gaillac wines were originally stored and sold. This came in the form of a chunky medallion hung around the neck on a gold rope.
    He flipped over a page, and there was Petty: a maroon apron over a red jacket, Josse hanging the amphora around his neck. Petty, Enzo knew, had been almost exactly the same age as himself, but he seemed much older. He was much more conservative, with his short cut, dyed black hair, a little silver left at the temples in an attempt to deceive the world into believing this was his natural colour. There were few things more unedifying than a man who dyed his hair and pretended not to.
    Petty had been a private man, but vain. Biographers had found it hard to get background information about him. Most of their research material had come from his ex-wife and former friends. It was something Enzo had noticed in almost everything he had read. Petty seemed only to have
former
friends. In the end, it appeared, he had been a lonely and introverted soul, estranged from his family, never giving interviews, and turning up only rarely at public events.
    The induction in the photograph was held in a place with tiled floors and vaulted brick arches. ‘Where is this?’ Enzo asked.
    ‘The vaults of the Abbey Saint-Michel. It’s where we hold our chapters and many of our inductions.’ Old Josse filled both their glasses, then held his up to contemplate the wine. ‘Hard to believe that the vine started life as a forest creeper, climbing tree trunks, twenty, thirty metres, to reach the canopy. The fruit was for the birds, to carry the seeds off to germinate elsewhere. It’s the great thing about Man, you know, that he can shape and bend nature to his will, cut a thirty-metre creeper down to a metre and a half and make it produce fruit to his specifications. And then turn it into something as wonderful as this.’ He took a mouthful. His concentration was intense as he extracted every last moment of pleasure from the wine. Then he beamed, sharp eyes a little less sharp than before, his diction a little more slurred. He looked at Enzo. ‘Who exactly are you, Monsieur Macleod?’
    Enzo told him, and Josse thought briefly before taking a sheet of paper from his folder and slipping it across the table. Enzo picked it up. ‘What’s this?’
    ‘Terms and conditions. If you want to apply to become a
chevalier
.’
    Enzo glanced at the sheet. ‘Don’t I have to be someone