Page 35 of The Vines Between Us

Chapter Twenty-Five

ALEXANDRE

Our vines. Not just Henri's anymore, not just an inheritance or obligation. Mine and Hugo's, together.

I dressed quickly and headed to the kitchen, startled to find Madame Fontaine already there, measuring coffee into the press.

"You didn't think I'd let you boys do this alone, did you?" She pushed a mug toward me. "Marcel's gathering the picking crew. We start in an hour."

I blinked, overwhelmed by this unexpected support. "How did you—"

"Hugo called last night after you fell asleep. We may be down to four vineyards in the Alliance, but we're the stubborn ones." She patted my cheek. "Drink your coffee. You look terrible."

An hour later, I stood at the edge of our ripest Merlot section, watching a small army descend on the vines.

Marcel had rallied fifteen pickers—retired vignerons, their grown children, even a few teenagers who should have been in school.

Hugo moved among them, demonstrating the careful selection process we needed—only the most perfectly ripened clusters, nothing that wasn't ready.

"We'll get maybe thirty percent of a normal harvest," Hugo explained to the group. "But it must be perfect. Every grape matters."

I joined a row beside an elderly woman who worked with practiced efficiency. My fingers remembered the motion from childhood summers—the gentle twist to free the cluster without damaging the vine. My corporate life in Paris seemed impossibly distant, as though it had happened to someone else.

"You cut like your grandfather," the woman said, nodding approvingly. "Henri was always gentle with the vines."

Pride warmed my chest. "Did you know him well?"

"Fifty years I picked for Domaine Moreau. Henri and Claude, they treated us like family." She selected another perfect cluster. "They would be proud, seeing you two boys fighting for this place."

By midday, sweat soaked my shirt and my back screamed in protest, but the satisfaction of filling basket after basket kept me going. Hugo appeared beside me, his auburn hair tied back, face flushed with exertion.

"We're ahead of schedule," he said, squeezing my shoulder. "The fruit looks good—better than I hoped."

"What about the press?" I asked. "Have you found one we can rent?"

His smile faltered. "That's the problem. Nothing available within 200 kilometers. Rousseau's work, I suspect."

"Then we use the old basket press in the cellar," I said. "It's slower, but Henri kept it in perfect condition."

Hugo's eyes widened. "That would take days to process this volume. "

"Then we work in shifts." I straightened, ignoring the pain in my lower back. "We've come this far. We'll find a way."

As the sun began its descent, we transported the first day's harvest to the cellar.

The old basket press—a massive oak contraption Henri had maintained out of respect for tradition—stood ready.

While Hugo organized the pressing operation, I retreated to Henri's study to make calls to potential buyers.

Three hours and seventeen calls later, I had nothing but polite rejections. Without finished wine to taste, no one would commit to futures at the prices we needed. My head throbbed with exhaustion and desperation.

Hugo found me there, staring blankly at the list of crossed-out names.

"No luck?" he asked softly.

I shook my head. "They need samples. We won't have anything to show them for weeks, and by then—"

"We'll be too late." Hugo sank into the chair opposite me. "What about your Paris contacts? Any wine collectors among them?"

"A few, but they're not the sentimental type. They want investment-grade wines with established pedigrees." I ran a hand through my hair. "They'd laugh at futures from struggling vineyards."

Hugo reached across the desk and took my hand. "Then we need something else to show them. Something they can't refuse."

The determination in his eyes gave me strength. "What did you have in mind?"

"The secret room," he said. "We've only scratched the surface. Our grandfathers spent fifty years there—there must be something we've missed."

An hour later, we stood in Henri and Claude's sanctuary, examining every inch of the space. The pressing crew worked above us, the rhythmic creaking of the old press a counterpoint to our search.

"There has to be more," Hugo muttered, running his fingers along the stone walls. "Claude always said a vigneron should have contingency plans for his contingency plans."

I studied the bookshelves, pulling volumes at random, checking for hidden switches or compartments. Nothing. The record player yielded no secrets, nor did the comfortable chairs or the small table.

Frustration mounting, I slumped against the far wall, feeling the cool stone against my back. Something about the texture caught my attention—a slight difference between stones. I pressed my palm flat against it.

"Hugo," I called, "does this section of wall look different to you?"

He joined me, running expert fingers over the stonework. "It's newer mortar. Maybe repairs from water damage?"

I shook my head, excitement building. "Or a false wall." I tapped the stones, listening to the hollow echo. "Help me find a way to open it."

We examined the adjacent stones, looking for anything unusual. Hugo found it—a small depression that, when pressed, released a hidden catch. The section of wall swung inward with a groan of disuse.

"Mon Dieu," Hugo whispered.

Beyond the false wall lay another chamber, smaller than the first but lined with wine racks from floor to ceiling. The bottles, thick with dust, bore handwritten labels dating back to the 1940s.

"This is..." I stepped inside, my voice failing.

"A fortune," Hugo finished, gently lifting a bottle from 1947—one of the legendary post-war vintages. "Alexandre, these are worth—"

"Tens of thousands each," I breathed. "Maybe more."

We moved deeper into the hidden cellar, discovering bottle after bottle of exceptional vintages. But it wasn't just commercial wines—many bore experimental labels with cryptic notations: "C3-R7 cross, drought-resistant trial" and "Heat-tolerant Merlot variant, third generation. "

Against the back wall stood a wooden filing cabinet. Inside, we found decades of meticulous notes—detailed records of experimental vine crossings, climate adaptation trials, and long-term projections of changing growing conditions.

"They were developing climate-resistant varieties," Hugo said, leafing through a notebook from 1985. "Look at these grafting techniques—they were decades ahead of their time."

I pulled out a folder labeled "Contingency." Inside was a letter, sealed in an envelope addressed to "For Alexandre and Hugo, should they need it."

With trembling fingers, I broke the seal and unfolded the letter.

My dear Alexandre and Hugo,

If you are reading this, then you have found our legacy and, we hope, each other.

For years, Claude and I worked to create vines that would survive the changes we foresaw coming to our beloved region.

Climate shifts, corporate consolidation, the loss of traditional methods—we watched these threats gathering on the horizon.

What you have discovered is our insurance policy against uncertain times.

The experimental vines documented here have been planted in the northeast corner of Domaine Tremblay, disguised among traditional plantings.

They represent decades of selection for heat tolerance, disease resistance, and drought survival, while maintaining the character that makes Saint-émilion wines special.

The vintages stored here were kept as both proof of concept and financial reserve. We never needed to use them in our lifetime, but they are yours now, to secure the future of both domaines.

We hoped that one day our legacy might reunite our properties as they should always have been—together, as we wished to be but never could publicly acknowledge. Perhaps you will succeed where we could not.

With all our love and faith,

Henri and Claude

I looked up, vision blurred with tears. Hugo stood motionless, one hand covering his mouth .

"They knew," he whispered. "Somehow, they knew we would need this."

"They knew we would find each other again," I added, my voice breaking.

We spent the next hours cataloging our discovery.

The collection included over two hundred bottles of investment-grade wines from the 1960s through the 1990s—conservatively worth well over €2.

5 million. The experimental vines represented something potentially even more valuable—proprietary grape varieties specifically developed for changing climate conditions.

"This changes everything," Hugo said as we climbed the stairs back to the main cellar. "We can meet the bank's demands and still have capital to invest in the domaine."

"And we have a unique selling proposition for the future," I added. "Climate-adapted vines with Saint-émilion terroir—that's something VitaVine can't replicate with their industrial methods."

Above us, the press continued its rhythmic work, but now each squeeze represented not just desperate hope but tangible future. The pickers had gone home, promising to return at dawn. Madame Fontaine remained, stubbornly feeding clusters into the press despite her obvious exhaustion.

"Go home," I told her gently. "We've found a solution."

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What kind of solution?"

Hugo smiled. "The kind our grandfathers planned for us, one that has been decades in the making."

The next morning, I placed calls to three of the most respected wine appraisers in Bordeaux.

By afternoon, they arrived at Domaine Moreau, skeptical but intrigued by my vague description of a "significant discovery.

" Their expressions as they entered the hidden cellar were worth every moment of our struggle.

"This is extraordinary," the eldest appraiser murmured, reverently examining a 1968 bottle. "Museum-quality provenance, perfect storage conditions."

"And you say these experimental varietals are already planted?" another asked, studying the documentation .

Hugo nodded. "We verified this morning. The vines are there, exactly as described—thirty-year-old plantings that have never been harvested commercially."

By evening, we had preliminary valuation documents and three competing offers to broker the sale of select bottles to collectors. The appraisers agreed to absolute confidentiality—this kind of discovery would create a sensation in the wine world, but we needed to control the timing.

In the kitchen that night, Hugo and I sat with Marcel and Madame Fontaine, explaining our discovery and planning our next steps.

"We'll sell only what we need to clear the debts," I explained. "The rest we'll release strategically over years."

"And the experimental vines?" Marcel asked.

Hugo smiled. "We'll propagate them immediately, starting with test plots at all four remaining Alliance vineyards. If they perform as the documentation suggests, we'll have a tremendous advantage."

"They were thinking of us," I said quietly. "All those years, working in secret, they were building something to protect us."

Madame Fontaine reached across the table and patted my hand. "Of course they were, mon cher. That's what love does—it prepares the way for those who come after."

Later that night, Hugo and I returned to the sanctuary, this time with a bottle of our early-pressed juice—fermentation just begun, cloudy and imperfect, but alive with promise.

"To Henri and Claude," Hugo said, raising his glass. "For loving each other enough to plan decades ahead."

"And to us," I added, "for being stubborn enough to find each other again."

We sat in the chairs where our grandfathers had spent countless hidden hours, surrounded by the evidence of their foresight and devotion. The weight of the past days—the desperation, the frantic work, the fear of losing everything—began to lift .

"Do you think they knew, even back then?" Hugo asked softly. "About us, I mean. That we would fall in love too?"

I considered this, remembering how Henri would watch us during those teenage summers, a certain knowing sadness in his eyes.

"I think they hoped," I said finally. "They created all this, this sanctuary, these reserves, these special vines—not just as a contingency plan for the vineyards, but as a bridge across time. Their way of giving us what they couldn't have."

"The freedom to be together openly," Hugo murmured.

"And the means to make it work." I reached for his hand. "They couldn't change their time, but they could help shape ours."

In the gentle silence that followed, I felt the presence of Claude and Henri—not as ghosts or memories, but as the foundation beneath us, the careful planning that had brought us to this moment.

They had loved in secret, stealing moments in this hidden room while maintaining separate lives above ground.

We wouldn't have to live that way. Thanks to their foresight, their patience, their fifty-year plan that had finally come to fruition, Hugo and I could build something they had only dreamed of—a life together in the open, preserving both domaines as one.

Tomorrow would bring the appraisers' final valuation, calls to the bank, the continuation of our early harvest. We would face Rousseau and VitaVine with new confidence, armed with resources they couldn't have anticipated. The remaining Alliance members would celebrate our unexpected salvation.

But tonight, in this sanctuary that had waited so long to reveal its final secret, there was only Hugo and me, and the profound certainty that we had been given a gift beyond measure—not just financial security or unique grape varieties, but the love of two men who had seen the future and prepared the way.