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    Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of a Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine
    Unavailable
    Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of a Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine
    Unavailable
    Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of a Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine
    Audiobook8 hours

    Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of a Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine

    Written by Maximillian Potter

    Narrated by Donald Corren

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Amazon Best Book of the Month, July 2014
    Journalist Maximillian Potter uncovers a fascinating plot to destroy the vines of La Romanée-Conti, Burgundy's finest and most expensive wine.

    In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the tiny, storied vineyard that produces the most expensive, exquisite wines in the world, received an anonymous note threatening the destruction of his priceless vines by poison-a crime that in the world of high-end wine is akin to murder-unless he paid a one million euro ransom. Villaine believed it to be a sick joke, but that proved a fatal miscalculation and the crime shocked this fabled region of France. The sinister story that Vanity Fair journalist Maximillian Potter uncovered would lead to a sting operation by some of France's top detectives, the primary suspect's suicide, and a dramatic investigation. This botanical crime threatened to destroy the fiercely traditional culture surrounding the world's greatest wine.

    SHADOWS IN THE VINEYARD takes us deep into a captivating world full of fascinating characters, small-town French politics, an unforgettable narrative, and a local culture defined by the twinned veins of excess and vitality and the deep reverent attention to the land that runs through it.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateJul 29, 2014
    ISBN9781611132038
    Unavailable
    Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of a Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine

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    Reviews for Shadows in the Vineyard

    3/5

    43 ratings19 reviews

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    • 2/5
      This book did not work, it is a fleshed out version of the Vanity Fair article. The book comes across as disjointed and full of filler, which is not really relevant to the story at hand. And too much sappy Le Grand Monsieur, les enfants etc. Not impressed and a disservice to the DRC.
    • 3/5
      Well, the blurbs on this book paint a vision of a book that will hold you spell-bound. Words such as daring crime, gripping, arch-criminal, bizarre twists, and sinister plot. Unfortunately the book does not live up to the expectations that these words convey.The book does tell the story of a threat to one of France's greatest vineyards, but it keeps deviating to give you a history of France, a history of the wine industry and other things only loosely connected to the wine industry, or the crime. Items from the 18th century, the 19th and the 20th pop in and out of the story in no particular order, usually just when the story of the crime gets interesting. In fact, when the criminal is about to be apprehended one of the characters begins thinking of his daughters and the book takes several pages to tell us about their names and about his wife. None of which relates to the story.The book has so much potential as a crime story (actually there is almost nothing about the police investigation methods), as a history of wine in France, as a portrait of a great winemaker. Unfortunately it can't stay focused on any one aspect long enough to hold you.
    • 3/5
      I had great hopes for Shadows in the Vineyard. The announced plot theme sounded interesting and in a setting I know very little about. This was an expansion of a magazine article and I think would have been better unexpanded. The additional material does tell us a lot about the history and culture of French winemaking, but most of it does not add to the actual story and never is tied together in a meaningful way.
    • 3/5
      Truth can be stranger than fiction. Shadows in the Vineyard is the true story of an attempt at extorting money from a prestigious vineyard owner, by threatening to poison the vines. Interspersed with the crime tale is the history of France and the development of the wine industry. Somewhat meandering, this work will appeal most to oenophiles and Francophiles. Salut!
    • 3/5
      "Shadows in the Vineyard" didn't grab a hold of me as I hoping it would. It has been my good fortune to have relatives in France. And even more so to have had the opportunity to visit them almost on almost a dozen occasions over the last 30 years. These visits have given me the wonderful and fascinating experiencing of "living among the locals." It is an exposure that most tourists and visitors don't get to see. Thus, I was excited to be awarded a copy of this book by LTER, delighting in the anticipation of digging, like a fine grapevine's roots, dipper into more aspects of the French experience of life. In that respect, "Shadows in the Vineyard" lived up to wishes and expectations. Mr Potter utilizes a "time travel" method to give context to the overall story (one of France's premiere vineyards being threatened with potentially fatal poisonings), with an up-close and personal view of the vineyard's vingeron, among others. All this back-and-forth inspired the kid of dizziness that one might expect from one glass too many of a much lesser kind than an exclusive French vineyard. More than once during this read I felt a twinge of of how Billy Pilgrim may have felt. Fascinating topic, good story, but the writing style unfortunately possessed an awkward taste
    • 4/5
      Shadows in the Vineyard by Maximillian Potter is a gripping read.. I found myself drawn in, not only by the crime that was being committed, but also by the history surrounding french (and American) wines, and the viticulture facts.. giving me a greater appreciation of wines in general.The true story is centered around the blackmailing and of one of the worlds top vineyards, and in particular the vineyards for the worlds greatest wines. But beyond that story, Mr. Potter also explains how the owner of the vineyard got to where he was, the in-fighting between the different families concerned in the vineyard, and the history and intrigue surrounding the Prince de Conti, King Louis XV and Madame Pompadour and the formation of the vineyard. A cracking good detective story combined with historical intrigue and an education in wine. I loved it.
    • 1/5
      This was an exceptionally frustrating book. The plot was fascinating and could have been handled with lots of suspense and drama. Instead, the author chose to keep switching time periods and interspersing French history, with a history of the winery, with an account of the extortion plot. I got so frustrated that I didn't bother to finish the book.
    • 2/5
      This book sounded like such a great read. Intrigue, wine... wait. That actually was all there was, and to be honest the intrigue was minimal. Grown out of a Vanity Fair article on the same topic, I have to wonder why anyone thought that expanding it into a book was a good idea. There was just so. much. padding.The book jumps all over the place- the medieval origins of the famous vineyard, the 18th century royal connection, all the owners between then and the present. It just wasn't interesting to begin with, and by jumping around I was left confused. It's hard to keep track of so many people when none of them are particularly engaging! To add to the book's issues, the writing was just too wishy washy for me. Based on what I read in the acknowledgements, it seams that the author was trying to create a certain mood, to evoke Burgundy. But after enough might be's, may haves's, may very well have been's, and perhap's I wanted to throw up my hands (and throw away the book- this would have been a Did Not Finish if it wasn't an Early Reviewer copy.)I was glad to finish the book because I really did want to know what happened with the blackmailer. Only problem was that after that I realized that the majority of the book had NOTHING TO DO with the blackmailing. Really, this book should have been called "My Love Affair with a Super Famous Vineyard." I wish I had just read the VF article.
    • 3/5
      While I enjoyed the writing of "Shadows in the Vineyard" very much, and I appreciated the story, the story got muddled midway through the book and I found it difficult to finish. The book opens with a lot of promise, the story looks to be a roller coaster ride/who done it mystery, but did not deliver on it's initial promise. I got bogged down half way through the book when the author introduces the history of the vineyard stretching back to the 1700s. I can't see how it helps to shape the plot of the book, and I ended up skimming these chapters, just trying to get to the end of the story. The story was interesting because it was true. However, what looked to be an exciting story became somewhat boring and tedious, which let me down.
    • 2/5
      I read the original article in Vanity fair and thought it was not very interesting though well-written. Now I have had to suffer through an entire book that spreads what little interest that was in the article incredibly thin and over-stuffs the text with minutiae of wine history. The result is a poorly written lengthy slog through a certain dimension of French culture. I drank an entire bottle of Sancerre after I finished and found that experience to be the only pleasure associated with this book.
    • 5/5
      I was interested in 'Shadows in the Vineyard' from the first time I read the brief description on LibraryThing. I had never heard of the poisoning of the vineyard in Burgundy, and this looked to be an interesting read. What I really ended up enjoying about this, however, was the fact that there is so much going on in the book. This covers true crime, mystery and biography, all centering on one of the greatest wine vineyards in the world. Then for added measure, Maximillian Potter has thrown in a good deal of history regarding the region and the wine industry. I love wine, and Potter has been able to explain each step the grapes take, from planting the vines, to the bottle arriving on the store shelf, with everything in between. Along with this he has told an incredible story of how the greatest vineyard in Burgundy came into being, and was blackmailed in 2010 with the possibility of all their vines being poisoned. It wasn't even the criminal aspect that made the story interesting, it was the deep connection between the people who work the vineyards with the earth itself, and how that is so much more meaningful than any money the blackmailer could have extorted. This is one of the best books I have read in the last couple years, and I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys crime stories, wine, history or just a really great read!!
    • 4/5
      I was so impressed with the extensive research and historical information provided in this very detailed account of a bizarre crime to extort money from the world’s most eminent winery in the world, the Domaine de Romanée-Conti. I really enjoyed the historical depiction of the French Court and how Prince Conti navigated his relationship with the king, as well as his adversary and the king’s mistress, Madame Pompadour. In fact, I later read that Prince Conti’s disdain for Madame Pompadour was so great, that when Madame Pompadour cast her eyes toward acquiring the coveted wine from La Romanée, Prince Conti immediately paid an enormous sum for the winery estate and added his name to it, thereafter being called Romanée-Conti. Subsequently, I was also intrigued by the historical transcendence of the winery and how family members came to become keepers of the estate through the generations.In regard to the extortion and crime, I thought that the author provided extensive information as to how the crime unfolded, and he described the unfortunate background of its key players. Mostly in this non-fiction work, the author was able to deftly convey the family’s great respect for the terrior of the vineyards, and how this exalted wine is like a divine gift. When the author was given a taste of 2008 La Tâche, his first Burgundy, he described it as ‘like divine, liquefied Pop Rocks that make me feel light headed—the kind of happiness that I felt after I first kissed my wife.’ Such a wine that exuded such perfection was not to be forgotten or taken lightly.
    • 4/5
      Aubert de Villaine should have been looking forward to well deserved twilight years. He had capably served for decades as the Director of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, one of the oldest and most respected vineyards in Burgundy -- and indeed, the world. And then, in 2010, the Grand Monsieur Villaine received a chilling communication: Pay a 1.3M euro ransom or I will poison your vines. Directions to annihilated vines were provided as proof of both ability and serious intent. Thus starts the real life drama, the details of which will horrify any wine lover. In addition to following the police in their hunt for the oeno-criminal, we are treated interviews with Villaine and other personages, and provided with background on French wine making and vineyards. This even includes a fanciful, hair-raising trip through Parisian streets with Louis-Francois de Bourbon, cousin and adviser to King Louis XV. I greatly enjoyed the history and the winemaking. The ‘true crime’ aspects took a back seat, lacking the tension and intrigued I’d anticipated.
    • 2/5
      The subtitle tells you what half of this book is about. In 2010 a few vines were killed and over a thousand others held ransom at two Côte d' Or vineyards in Burgundy, most of them belonging to Romanée-Conti. Maximillian Potter weaves the story of the crime, the investigation, and the punishment with a history of Burgundy, the Côte d' Or, La Romanée-Conti and the personalities involved. Along the way the history provides one of the better explanations of the reasons behind the classifications of Burgundy, while not getting into the details of the classifications themselves. Without the side-trips into history and politics the book would be very short indeed. As it is, the historic machinations of Madame de Pompadour, and Louis François, Prince of Conti, as well as the more modern business conflicts of Aubert de Villaine and Lalu Leroy pad it out to a reasonable length. They also hint, much like the main story, at stories that could be so much more, but ultimately are not. Instead of scandal and insurrection, the failed plot resulted in the aristocrats in a distant standoff. Instead of scandal and massive upheaval of the business the former business partners became business rivals with different philosophies. And instead of master criminals an intrigue the police find a sad petty criminal with dreams above his ability who confesses easily and doesn't even make it to trial.At the end, Potter touches on the illusion of wine, and how easily people are deceived into believing in quality when told a price. Appropriate then that the book hints at many things more elaborate and interesting than they are when telling the story of a failed crime committed against one of the most expensive wines, with a price artificially elevated to the point that most of us will never see a bottle, let alone taste it.
    • 5/5
      Shadows in the Vineyard (New York and Boston : Twelve , an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group, Inc. ; published July 2014), is Maximillian Potter's story of the attempted extortion in 2010 of the proprietor of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti [DRC] vineyard in the Côte d'Or department of the Burgundy region in France. Potter begins his intriguing account with a luxurious description of the Côte d'Or's vineyards and the folks who work them season to season, year after year. The Grand Monsieur of the DRC is Aubert de Villaine, whose felt knowledge of its vines, soils, rain, sunlight, and the wisdom to trust in nature and the Lord, make him, in the eyes of his fellow vintners, the master of those who know how to produce, or more accurately, how to let nature produce, the world's finest wines. He is the 'Grand Monsieur' whose heart is in the land – “son coeur est dans la terre” in the words of one of his principal workers. Underground, literally, is the setting of “Unthinkable”, the book's second chapter, which describes the secret, camouflaged bunker of the extortionist who during the early morning hours when others are asleep, goes into the vineyards to drill minute holes in the roots of vines, inserts chemicals with a syringe, seals the holes with tiny wooden plugs, and covers all with soil. Afterward, the culprit would post ransom notes to Monsieur demanding a million Euros, which if not paid, will result in not receiving the locations of the poisoned vines and the antidote to the poison. The book's remaining chapters time travel, as it were, from the present day investigations by French police of the extortion, to past times, to wit:18th-century France and intrigue of Louis-Francois de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, with cousin King Louis XV, that resulted in the prince acquiring the renowned vineyard that today bears his name;post-World War II, when eight-year old Albert de Villaine meets his gran-pere, Edmond Gaudin de Villaine, who in 1906 married into a family whose early 19th-century ancestor owned considerable land in the Cote d'Or, to include the Richebourg, Echezeaux, and Grands Echezeaux vineyards, and who purchased in 1869, the prestigious Romanee-Conti vineyard; the mid-1860s when Phylloxera bugs infested vineyards in the Rhone region south of Burgundy and devastated vineyards throughout France, with the ironic fix being the grafting of American vines to French ones; and the mid-1840s when two fortune-seeking Frenchmen in California imported Pinot and Sauvignon and Cabernet cuttings from Bordeaux and grafted them onto local vine stock which what would become the largest wine producer in California – Almaden, and the ensuing development of the California wine industry by viticulturist luminaries Masson, Mondavi, Schoonmaker, Wildman, and Winkler;the 16th century when the Creux de Clos vineyard, first developed by the Order of St.-Vivant and the Benedictines at nearby Citeaux, was sold to defray taxes and a century later ended up in the hands of a Dutch noble who renamed the vineyard La Romanee, the provenance of which remains a mystery. Meanwhile, our story teller Maximillian Potter, details the detective work of Burgundy's Finest, with its wild goose chases, false leads, stakeouts, and plain luck. The perp was caught, interrogated, and finally confessed to the extortion. Actually, perps, since the crime involved a father-son team from the Champagne region. Cedric and Jacques Soltys. Son Jacques, we learn, actually got the idea of blackmailing one of the leading wine producers in Burgundy from a fellow prisoner, a wayward son of an aristocratic French family. Irony of ironies.Notwithstanding Potter's time-travel woven narrative, Shadows in the Vineyard is a clear, thoughtful description of the most prestigious vineyard in France and perhaps all the world. Wine lovers everywhere will relish the intrigue of the criminals, the persistence of the police in solving the crime, and the cultural complexities of Burgundy and its renowned wines.
    • 2/5
      Yikes. I was really hoping this book would be something along the lines of The Billionaire's Vinegar, and the story certainly had that potential, but Potter fails to pull it off. The writing is clunky and overdone, the story is padded far too much with barely-connected tangential elements that aren't in any way essential to the main plot, and the particularly interesting part of the story (the police investigation) is barely covered at all. The tangential plot lines, handled well, might have added much to the book, but as they are, they don't work at all. Potter's uncritical treatment of the owner of the vineyard treated here is far too obsequious to be interesting, and the pacing—what with all the jumping between topics—is much more frustrating than it should be.Pretty bad, I'm sorry to say.
    • 4/5
      “Shadows in the vineyard : the true story of a plot to poison the world's greatest wine” is an interesting mix of history, biography, and true crime. In spite of the subtitle’s hype true crime takes a backseat here. There is just not enough mystery in the story to fill a book. Maximillian Potter took an intriguing mixture of genres and produced an enjoyable and informative book.With looks at how religious orders established winemaking in France, the establishment of fine California wines, and how, after World War II French wine became rooted on American vines*, and the biography of the head of Burgundy's most prestigious winery Potter has managed to fill out the tale of poisoned vines to a book length tale. And, somehow he managed to keep it all interesting. I do have to say that at some points I found the book a little disjointed, for instance I spent way too much time wondering what Madame de Pompadour had to do with the narrative. In time I learned but, for me, the delay was distracting as was some of the bouncing back and forth between current events and generations of family history.Still I enjoyed the book. My limited knowledge of the wine world was not a hindrance. My wife is a big fan and thanks to her I have picked up a little information. She encouraged me to watch the movie “Somm”, a 2012 documentary, that gave me the background to understand how impressive a feat it was for someone to simply show up at the test site, talk his way and take the written part of the sommelier test and receive a perfect score. Other events mentioned in the book are the basis for another movie, “Bottle Shock” an enjoyable 2008 comedy / drama. Potter’s book is fun, informative, and, overall, an easy read. I am glad I finally have something wine related to show my wife.* Yes, literally rooted on American vines, this is one topic covered that I would like to learn more about.
    • 4/5
      In 2011, the director of the finest vineyard in Burgundy received a letter threatening to destroy the vines unless a substantial ransom was paid. Maximillian Potter's Shadows in the Vineyard tells story of the crime and the investigation. But it's also an interesting history of the Domaine Romanée-Conti and the families who owned and tended this piece of living history. Potter's a pretty good storyteller; he certainly knows how to bring the Domaine to life. In spite of the blurbs on the cover, this isn't a suspenseful book. But that's ok - it's a delightful read anyway.
    • 3/5
      Few topics seem to enflame more passion amongst dedicated food and beverage connoisseurs than when the conversation turns to ranking fine wines. Further, few discussions of fine wine invoke a more reverential tone than when extolling the virtues of the Burgundy region in France. So, when a nefarious plot that threatens the destruction of two of the legendary grand cru vineyards in the world occurs, it is certainly a newsworthy event. In Shadows in the Vineyard, crime journalist Maximillian Potter tells the story of how, in early 2010, the plan to poison the vines at two estates, most notably the incomparable Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (or DRC, as it is more widely known), in the Côte d’Or was first hatched and then quickly resolved.Actually, instead of using the phrase “tells the story” in the preceding sentence, it would be more accurate to say that the author re-tells that story in this book. In fact, Potter originally chronicled this same tale in a 2011 Vanity Fair article titled “The Assassin in the Vineyard”. Thus, what this book represents is a repackaged version of that article with a considerable amount of embellishment to back-fill the historical and social context for both the crime as well as those most affected by it. Since I had not read the initial magazine piece—in fact, I had not even heard of the attack on DRC vines—this degree of repetition was not a deterrent to my enjoyment of this book. What was a distraction, however, was the overbearing and often disjoint way in which the author used this supplementary material to bulk up an otherwise slim account.The crime itself was rather straightforward: A disturbed man conceives of a plan to hold two revered vineyards hostage for 1.3 million euros. Over several months, he and his son covertly drill holes in hundreds of vines to create the threat that they have been poisoned and will die unless the ransom is paid. Once the ransom notes are delivered, though, the case is quickly solved and the vines suffer no permanent harm. Recounting these facts takes no more than roughly one-quarter of the 274-page book, meaning that Potter spends most of his time developing myriad side-stories, including an overly fawning biography of Aubert de Villaine (DRC’s proprietor) and his extended family, the political intrigue surrounding Prince de Conti and Madame Pompadour in Louis XV’s court, an aborted English invasion of France during the mid-18th century, the history of the terroir concept and the climat classification system in Burgundy, profiles of the police detectives who solved the case, the wine distribution system in the United States, and so on.To be sure, some of these departures are interesting and they all appear to be carefully researched and reported. On the other hand, almost none of them are essential or even particularly relevant to the main purpose of the book; for example, the reader does not really need to know that Monsieur de Villaine does not like baseball and had a meaningless blind date while visiting America in the 1960s. Unfortunately, the cumulative effect of these many tangents was to create the impression that the author just did what it took to turn an article he had already written into a full-length book. So, while I am not really sorry that I read the book, I suspect I would have been just as happy if I had just read the original magazine report instead.