‘What was wrong with the American gentleman?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘I fear he was somewhat over-concerned about his health. He had a pain in his chest and thought his heart was going to stop.’
‘And was it?’
‘The doctors said his heart was in fine condition. They said he had probably pulled a muscle, coughing from an overgenerous intake of cigarettes.’
‘I see. Let me return to Somerset, Mr Brandon. Even with your superb travelling hospital, as it were, I do not think the family would be happy bringing the old gentleman to London. Let me apologize to you. What I meant to ask you right at the beginning was for the name of your wine merchants. I have been diverted by the quality of your service and the range of what you can supply.’
Powerscourt smiled at the little hotel manager. George Brandon rubbed his hands together again.
‘I should be happy to oblige. All I would ask, Lord Powerscourt, is that you would consider our services for any special occasions in the future. We should be only too happy to oblige. Now then, the name of the pre-phylloxera wine merchant is Piccadilly Wine, of Sackville Street, behind Regent Street. You should ask for Septimus Parry – he’s the gentleman we deal with.’
Powerscourt wondered if Brandon carried the names and addresses of all his principal suppliers – florists, butchers, greengrocers, bakers, tea merchants – round in his head. ‘Might I ask if these gentlemen supply all your wines, or just the special ones?’
George Brandon smiled. ‘They just supply the pre-phylloxera wines. They came to us in the first instance a couple of years ago. They said they had found large stocks of these pre-plague vintages. They more or less threw themselves on our mercy as to what to do with them. Piccadilly knew there were people who would pay a great deal of money to drink these wines but they didn’t know how to find them. Fortunately we were able to help on that score.’
And Piccadilly Wine, in the person of one Septimus Parry, had finessed themselves into a position where they would be able to charge the very top prices, with a band of drinkers assembled by Whites Hotel. God only knew how much they charged for a bottle of the stuff.
‘Mr Brandon, I am most grateful to you. I will detain you no longer. I shall set out for Piccadilly Wine at once.’
Twenty minutes later Lord Francis Powerscourt was shown into the office of Piccadilly Wine. There were two large desks, an enormous map of France on the wall and two young men, Vicary Dodds, attending to his account books with great care and total concentration in his suit of sober grey, and Septimus Parry, leafing idly through some wine catalogues from France in a suit that looked as if its owner should have been taking bets in the enclosure at Newmarket.
‘Good afternoon to you, sir,’ said Septimus. ‘How may we be of service?’
‘A very good afternoon to you too,’ Powerscourt replied. ‘I am interested in buying some of your pre-phylloxera wines.’
Was it just a normal reaction, Powerscourt wondered, or did Septimus Parry put up his guard at the mention of the word pre-phylloxera? Even Vicary Dodds, keeper of the eternal verities of the account books, put down his pencil and inspected his visitor. Certainly Septimus’s manner from now on was more reserved than it had been when he came in.
‘Who told you we sold these wines?’ said Septimus.
‘I’ve just been informed about them by George Brandon at Whites Hotel.’
‘I see,’ said Septimus. He only realized later that a more devious wine merchant would not have been satisfied with Powerscourt’s answer. George Brandon might have confirmed to Powerscourt that these dinners with these wines existed, but it was unlikely that he would have volunteered the information. Powerscourt must have heard about them from somebody else. But who?
‘We do have access to some of these wines, Lord Powerscourt, but might I ask about the occasion for which they are needed and the quantities required?’
‘Of course you may, Mr Parry. There is an elderly gentleman in our family approaching his eightieth birthday. He lives in the depths of Somerset. He is not very strong or very well. His doctors are not sure if he will reach this birthday. In his youth,’ Powerscourt knew he was embroidering the life and times of the old gentleman every time he spoke, ‘our elderly friend was a great connoisseur of French wines, burgundy and Bordeaux in particular. Most people prefer one or the other, Bordeaux or burgundy. The old boy liked them both. He would travel there in his holidays and taste them on the spot. You know as well as I do, gentlemen, of the terrible ravages of phylloxera that ran for thirty years or so from the 1860s. Over time all the great vineyards had to be replanted. Our elderly gentleman,’ Powerscourt thought he had better give him a name fairly soon, ‘saw one important part of his life taken away from him, his love of these great French wines. The replacements and their produce he did not care for. He said they might as well come from Morocco as far as he was concerned. Then, somewhere, he can’t remember where, his memory is going so fast, he read of the existence of pre-phylloxera wines in France, and a limited quantity in England. Gentlemen, I am sure you can see why I am here. The chance to bring back to an old man some of the joys of his youth. The chance to let the old gentleman taste once more the wines that he loved so well. The chance to brighten his last days and let him approach the final one floating in a lake of Chateau Lafite or Chateau Latour.’
Septimus Parry smiled. ‘I can almost see the old gentleman, tottering slowly round his house, taking a few hesitant steps in the garden. I regret to have to tell you that we have no Latour and no Lafite. That is not to say there is none of it in England – there is – but we cannot persuade the owners to part with it for any amount of money. Just let us know how many red and how many white you would like, what quantities of Bordeaux and burgundy would suit you and we will do the rest.’
‘You don’t have a carte des vins, a wine list?’
‘Not as such,’ said Septimus, feeling rather anxious now. ‘As I say, we ask the clients what they would like, in general terms.’
‘Is that not rather unusual?’ said Powerscourt. ‘You mean my old relative can’t even have a bottle of his favourite Nuits St Georges?’
‘I think we could manage that, Lord Powerscourt. You see, the way it works at Whites Hotel is that we supply the wines at our discretion. Their chef plans the meal round the particular vintages we are going to provide and everybody is happy. So if you let us know the colour and the quantity we can set to straight away.’
Powerscourt wondered if the young man knew that he, Powerscourt, suspected that the wines were fake, that they weren’t playing an elaborate game of charades. ‘I should be most interested to know,’ he said, ‘how you discovered these wines. And how nobody else has discovered them. That’s rather a coup, I should say.’
‘It was luck, really,’ said Septimus, running his fingers through his hair. ‘I’ve got this great-uncle, he’s dead now, but he was a great lover of wine. Every year Berry Bros. amp; Rudd would send him their pick of the best clarets and the best burgundies of that year. In the early 1860s he saw the writing on the wall – he thought that sooner or later the phylloxera insect would munch its way through all the vineyards of France, starting in the south and going all the way up to Champagne. So he doubled the size of his order. Soon the cellar was full to bursting with this stuff. Then, before he had time to drink a tenth of it, he died. His son wasn’t interested in wine at all, hardly touched it. I knew his son, third in line from the man who bought all the wine, at Oxford. So when we started the business, Vicary and I, we got in touch with this chap. His family knew two or three others who also had supplies. Then we got into touch with Whites to organize the dinners.’