The Angels' Share, page 1
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For Rick Tagg
With thanks and love for twelve years of educating me about the business of grape growing and winemaking, for answering my many questions with good-hearted patience and humor, and for plying me with fine Virginia wine.
What’s past is prologue.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Tempest
Today relatively little Madeira is drunk in the U.S. Americans seem to want light, quick-drinking wines, and Madeira, which is heavy and must be sipped and savored at leisure, is like daytime baseball: a wonderful institution, made for the spirit of another age. Really fine Madeiras are today the Edsels of the wine world: a handful of fanatics hoard them and talk about them, but most people have never tasted one, let alone bought one.
—JOHN HAILMAN, Thomas Jefferson on Wine
One
Vintage Madeira is the color of old blood.
A nearly indestructible wine, it improves almost magically with fire and heat. Once upon a time the value of a barrel of Madeira was determined by the number of voyages it made secured in the holds of cargo ships that crisscrossed the oceans. Thomas Jefferson famously used to send his Madeira back to sea—to African ports or the distant Indies—if he decided there were not enough destination stamps on the barrels he’d ordered.
No other wine in the world requires at least half a century to fully mature or can live for two centuries and remain so potent and wonderfully drinkable. To taste Madeira—really old Madeira—is to taste history.
“I have a proposition for you, Lucie.” Prescott Avery’s pleasant baritone, breath hot with alcohol, was low in my ear even though no one else was around. Somehow he had managed to whisk me away from party crowds, rooms filled with laughter and chatter, the clink of china and glasses, and the beguiling beat of a samba.
“I thought we could discuss it over a glass of one of my old Malmseys,” he added.
Malmsey is the best Madeira in the world. Sweet, made from the malvasia grape, it comes from Madeira itself, a mountainous Portuguese island off the coast of North Africa with a reputation as a place of eternal spring.
No one turned down Prescott Avery, even though he always managed to make it seem as if he were doing you a favor when, in reality, you’d find out later it was the other way around. He meant to charm and flirt with me—I already knew that—but in five years, he’d be a century old. This was the harmless seduction of a sweet old man with hearing aids and a cane.
We were at an after-Thanksgiving neighborhood party in his magnificent home, alone in an opulently furnished room filled with museum-worthy art and bookcases lined with leather-covered books, no doubt all rare volumes or first editions. A fire flickered in a fireplace surrounded by an elaborately carved mantel of cream-colored Italian marble. My brain was already buzzy with alcohol, two deliciously lethal Caipirinhas that I had drunk too quickly in the past few hours. If Prescott wanted to make some kind of deal with me, I wanted to be clear-headed and have my wits about me.
“I’d love to try your Malmsey,” I said. “Maybe I could come by one day next week. Now that harvest is over and we’ve finished most of our cellar work, things have finally quieted down at the vineyard.”
Prescott made a tsk-tsk sound with his tongue. “Actually, my dear, I was thinking about right now.”
I didn’t want to do this now. “What about the party? We really shouldn’t leave…”
He gave me a coy wink, cutting off my protests. “Nonsense. It’s my party, isn’t it? Besides, we won’t be gone long.”
It wasn’t actually his party. Prescott Avery II, his grandson, whom the family called Scotty, and Scotty’s Brazilian wife, Bianca, were hosting their annual Saturday-after-Thanksgiving celebration, a traditional feijoada dinner for about a hundred friends and neighbors. Normally the get-together was Atoka’s laid-back antidote to leftover turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing, with its Brazilian comfort food menu of black bean and pork stew, garlic rice, fried manioc, collard greens, and sliced oranges. It was served with caipirinhas, Brazil’s potent national drink of muddled lime and a sugarcane hard liquor called cachaça. This year Prescott had insisted the gathering be held at Hawthorne, his home—or “the Castle” as everyone called it—rather than at Scotty and Bianca’s magnificent horse farm just down the road. And this year the vibe was anything but laid back.
A few caipirinhas in and word had gone around that Prescott had insisted that everyone in the family spend the night at the Castle so he could convene a board of directors meeting first thing the following morning at which he planned to share news about the future of Avery Communications. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was on his mind. For the last three years Prescott had watched his stepson Clayton relinquish his role as publisher of the Washington Tribune to his two grandchildren, Scotty and Alexandra. He had also witnessed their increasingly public feud over how the newspaper should be run. Clayton, caught up in an ugly divorce, had done little to tamp down or even discourage the bickering between his son and daughter until it had finally disintegrated into two warring camps at the Trib. This afternoon Alex and Scotty were barely speaking to each other and when they did, they were icily civil.
Maybe Prescott just wanted to get away from the taut-as-a-violin-string tension among his family, and needed an accomplice. Plus he had piqued my interest: what proposition?
“This must be important if you want to discuss it right now,” I said.
He didn’t bite. “Then let’s go, shall we? We can take the elevator. It will be easier for both of us.”
He indicated my cane with the tip of his. Mine was utilitarian, the consequence of a near-fatal automobile accident ten years ago and doctors who said I’d never walk again. His, crystal with a beautiful antique silver handle engraved with his family crest, was merely an aid to help with balance, though he often joked that it was his magic wand. He slipped his free hand under my elbow. His grip was surprisingly strong.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“My wine cellar. I thought you might like to see it since the little renovation was finished last month.”
Ah, the hook. I’d visited Prescott’s wine cellar before, though more often I’d seen photographs of it in the pages of glossy lifestyle or shelter magazines. “Wine by Design: The Twenty Most Beautiful Wine Cellars in the World” or “The Largest Private Wine Collections in America You’ll Never See.”
“I would.”
“Excellent. We’ll be back before anyone misses us.”
I doubted that. Clayton, Scotty, Bianca, and Alex had all been keeping an eagle eye on Prescott this afternoon, no doubt wondering about the news he planned to announce tomorrow morning. Our departure would not go unnoticed.
“What about Quinn? Why don’t I go find him?” I said. “I know he’d love to join us.”
Quinn Santori, my fiancé, was also the winemaker at my vineyard. If I got a private tour of Prescott’s newly renovated wine cellar without him, I’d never hear the end of it.
Prescott drew my hand through his arm and patted it. “Oh, he’ll give you up for a few minutes, my dear,” he said in a reassuring voice. “Besides, you’re the one I want to talk to. Only you, Lucie.” He laid an index finger over his lips like we were conspirators. I could read the message in his eyes.
Don’t tell anyone.
He led me down a long corridor lined with more paintings in ornate gilded or carved wooden frames that I knew for a fact were original Old Masters. Classical bronzes and marble sculptures that had once graced temples, palaces, and gardens in ancient Greece, Italy, or somewhere in the Middle East were subtly lit and so beautiful they took my breath away.
Then there was Hawthorne Castle itself, an honest-to-goodness castle with turrets, towers, crenellated walls—even a portcullis leading to an inner courtyard with a multi-tiered fountain in the center—built by Prescott’s father, Jock, in the 1800s as homage to his British wife, Lady Daphne, so she would not be homesick for her beloved England. Hawthorne also possessed a knight in a full suit of armor that stood guard in the foyer, a small garden maze modeled after Henry VIII’s maze at Hampton Court Palace, an orangerie, servants’ quarters, three swimming pools, a bowling alley, and dozens of formal rooms for entertaining where hand-woven silk and wool carpets from Morocco, Iran, China, and Turkey covered floors with elaborate inlaid borders of exotic wood. In total, the Castle had sixty rooms, including fifteen bedrooms, along with three Tudor-style guest cottages. In addition to the art on the walls, the high-coffered ceilings were painted with murals of hunting scenes and pastoral landscapes or cherubs and creatures from mythology; the intricate woodwork had been carved by craftsmen Jock had flown in from Italy.
“I’m sure you must never get tired of seeing these beautiful things,” I said. “I know I wouldn’t.”
“I don’t,” he said, “but to be honest, acquiring them is what really interests me. It’s more about the thrill of the hunt, if you know what I mean. Learning the provenance of each item—about the artist, the owners—traveling the world to find something so rare and exquisite, so sought after…” His voice trailed off.
Only to give it all away.
People in Middleburg and Atoka still talked about it. How shortly before Rose Avery, Prescott’s beloved wife, died five years ago, the two of them had signed the Caritas Commitment, a philanthropic promise drawn up by some of the world’s most influential billionaires, to give away the majority of their wealth as a legacy, a way of giving back for the very good fortune they had enjoyed in their lifetime. Already Prescott and Rose had bequeathed many paintings and sculptures in the Avery art collection to important galleries and museums upon their deaths, adding to donations made by Jock and Daphne. What remained after those bequests were fulfilled—more art, furniture, jewelry, books, carpets—would be sold at auction with the proceeds going to charities the Averys supported—most of it to the Miranda Foundation, named for their late daughter.
“I think it’s incredibly generous that you’ve committed to giving it to charity,” I said. “I can’t imagine how you could do that—let go of everything.”
“It was Rosie’s idea. She was the driving force in setting up the Caritas Commitment, you know. My Rosie always said that we are merely temporary stewards of our good fortune.” His hand swept the length of the hall. “All these things belong in a place where anyone can see them. Where everyone can see them … My God, we have a Picasso in one of the guest powder rooms because there was no place else to hang it.”
He chuckled at the irony of a Picasso in a bathroom. We reached the elevator and he pushed the call button. Like everything else in the house it had its own fascinating history: originally commissioned in France to be installed as the first elevator in the Senate wing of the U.S. Capitol, Congress changed its mercurial mind while Hawthorne was being built and Jock had snapped it up instead.
The elevator gave a faint whine as it descended from one of the upper floors and stopped on the main floor. Prescott pulled the outer door aside and the inner door slid open.
He gestured to me, ever the courtly Southern gentleman. “After you, my dear.”
I stepped in and saw my reflection in the dusky glass of an antique mirror on the back wall, my features accentuated in the slightly distorted reflection. Dark brown hair pulled back in a French braid, my favorite pearl drop earrings that had been my mother’s, hollowed cheeks, eyes with smudged circles underneath since we had been hard at work in the vineyard right up until Thanksgiving this year and I still hadn’t caught up on sleep.
Prescott’s eyes met mine in the mirror and I knew that he had been studying me. What did he want to talk about that we couldn’t have discussed upstairs?
It still surprised me to realize that he and I were distantly related. My great-aunt Grace had married Prescott’s uncle, joining the Montgomery and Avery families together three generations ago. I had been named for Grace’s sister Lucy, who the family had nicknamed Lucky, because of her carefree joie de vivre and uncanny good fortune. Like the time she gave a girlfriend her ticket to sail home from London so she could stay behind and continue an affair with a married man, who happened to be a count. The ship was the Titanic.
We reached the lower level and the elevator stopped with a tiny jolt. This time Prescott opened the inner door and the exterior door slid open. We stepped into another corridor; sharply cooler and lit by flickering gas wall sconces. More art hung on the walls: paintings that were darker, surrealistic. Macabre. I thought I recognized Salvador Dalí, Goya, and Andy Warhol. Originals, all of them.
I looked away from a bloody severed head being held up by a gruesome-looking demon and said, “What else is down here besides your wine cellar?”
His lips curved in a small smile. “The bowling alley, the Italian marble swimming pool, storage rooms for the chairs and tables when we have our big parties, holiday decorations … that sort of thing. And, of course, my archives.”
Prescott’s collection of documents and memorabilia dating from the earliest days of the country—particularly anything belonging to the Founding Fathers who were Virginians—was probably the most extensive in the world outside of the Library of Congress. Leland, my late father, had also been a historian and collector of documents and first editions on early Virginia history, and occasionally had sold some of his precious books and papers to Prescott when he needed money—usually to pay gambling debts.
We walked by a door with an old-fashioned dead bolt and a padlock.
“What’s behind that door?” I asked.
Prescott’s smile widened. “The dungeon. No castle would be complete without one.”
My stomach tightened. Was he serious, or merely teasing me?
“I thought that was just talk,” I said. “Kids trying to scare other kids, especially at Halloween.”
“So I’ve heard, but it’s part of the mystique of Hawthorne,” he said. “I certainly wouldn’t want to discourage the idea. Would you?”
He hadn’t said yes or no. “I suppose not. Especially considering the cheerful art collection that’s on display down here.”
He chuckled as we turned another corner. “I like to think we have very catholic taste in art. A little of everything.”
I had now completely lost my bearings. The wine cellar, I knew, extended underground well beyond the Castle walls. Reportedly it contained twenty thousand bottles and was so extensive Prescott’s sommelier used a golf cart to traverse its many aisles. Supposedly every bottle had been chosen because it was one of the best, and there were no fillers. The value was somewhere in the millions of dollars.
We stopped in front of another door that looked sturdy and unyielding, from an era when the Castle occupants might have needed to reinforce every entrance, ensuring they were protected from potential enemies. Ironically next to the door was a state-of-the-art keypad that flickered to life when Prescott touched it and keyed in a code. I was standing near enough to see it flash on the display before disintegrating into a set of asterisks: HTWSSTKS.
Probably a mnemonic for a phrase that meant something to him. A series of heavy clicks sounded, as tumblers fell into the right places and the door silently swung open.
Once again Prescott indicated that I should go first.
I hesitated, a flash of panic in case the moment I walked through the doorway he’d key in his “Close Sesame” passcode, abandoning me inside. He had sidestepped the question about the dungeon, just as he had avoided telling me why he’d brought me here. But of course nothing of the sort happened and he followed me into the room.
Dim lights brightened automatically as though we were in a theater at the end of a performance. It was all I could do not to gasp. The “little renovation” had transformed the tasting room from a 1920s jazzy Prohibition-era hideaway with Tiffany lamps, lighted mirrored shelves filled with crystal glasses, acres of marqueted paneling, and a plush, comfortable sofa with matching chairs surrounding a tiled fireplace into an austere room of carved stone that reminded me of a medieval French château. White pendant lights hung from the vaulted barrel ceiling and in the alcoves, twinkling like stars. Rows of wine bottles lying in clear Lucite wine racks so they looked as if they were floating formed an undulating wall that separated the bar from a seating area. An arched door had been left ajar so I could see into the wine cellar itself where row upon row of dark, gleaming bottles lined the walls until they vanished into the inky blackness. If there had been music playing, I would have expected a Gregorian chant.
“So, do you like it?” Prescott asked. “All the stone was quarried here on the property. I brought in master stonemasons to do all the work … master stonemasons. The best.”
Prescott only worked with the best of the best.
“It’s … spectacular. Nothing at all like the way it looked before.”
