The Winemaker (41 page)

Authors: Noah Gordon

BOOK: The Winemaker

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Some elements of this novel are based on historical fact and some are invented by the author. The Carlist struggle in Spain was only too real, of course, as was the phylloxera disaster, but the village of Santa Eulália and the Pedregós River exist only in
The Winemaker
.

Members of royalty are taken from history. General Juan Prim lived most of his life as a soldier and was a politician and a famous statesman when he was slain. As with the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy, there are many rumors about the plot and the people behind Prim’s killing, and there is the likelihood that neither assassination will ever be truly solved. To learn about General Prim’s murder, I went to the late Professor Pere Anguera, author of the definitive Prim biography. I tried to utilize the assassination scene as Professor Anguera recreated it for me. The details—the substitution of one horse-drawn coach for another, the lighting of matches when the coach turned into a new street, the halting of the coach by two blocking coaches, and a
mob from which gunmen fired at the president of the Spanish government council—are presented as closely as possible to the historic facts that were so generously shared with me by Pere Anguera. I am grateful for his information and for his subsequently vetting the pages of this book devoted to the shooting.

Because the real-life drama of the assassination was never brought to closure with the conviction and punishment of the killers, I felt free to add my own characters to the scene. So it is pure fiction, drawn wholly from my imagination, that young men from a village called Santa Eulália participated in the assassination mob.

For answering many questions, I thank Maria Josep Estanyol, professor of history at the University of Barcelona.

Accompanied by my wife Lorraine and Michael Seay Gordon, my son, the first Spanish bodega I visited in my research for
The Winemaker
was the Torres winery in Penedès, the region of the vineyard in the novel. It was an auspicious beginning: Albert Fornos, who spent his career as a winemaker there, gave us a splendid tour, and Miguel Torres Maczassek presided over a five-course dinner, at which a splendid wine was poured with each course.

Michael and I made several trips into the Priorat and Montsant wine regions. Almost invariably I have found that vineyards are located in beautiful places. Tucked into a small, lovely valley we found Mas Martinet Viticultors, the bodega of the Pérez family. Sara Pérez Ovejero and her husband, René Barbier, both have fathers who have won distinction as wine pioneers, and they are busily carrying on the family tradition, making successful and delicious wines. Sara Pérez has produced several volumes in which she mounted and described the leaves of the various grape varieties so that her children were
able to begin their grape-growing education early. Munching on Spanish cheese and sipping her good wine, I was an appreciative student as I went through the books with her.

On several other occasions Michael and I drove a narrow and precarious road along the lip of a much larger valley, ultimately climbing a small but steep mountain to the village of Torroja del Priorat, where in 1984 Maria Ángeles Torra founded her family winery in a former monastery. It is managed by her sons, Albert and Jordi. Their grapevines are planted nearby, some on steep slopes, and several of their sought-after wines are made from grapes whose vines have persevered in the slate soil for more than a hundred years. I am extremely grateful to the brothers Albert and Jordi Rotllan Torra for reading the manuscript of this book.

In June of 2006 I was awarded a special literary prize by the City of Zaragoza, and while I was in that region, author and journalist Juan Bolea provided friendship and guidance and made it possible for me to visit two vineyards. I am grateful to Juan and to Santiago Begué Gil, president of the Wine Denomination of Cariñena, for his hospitality and wine lore.

On the Finca Aylés, a vast estate of 3,100 acres where wine was first made in the 12
^thcentury, the winemaker Señorío de Aylés has planted 70 hectares of grapes, the end and beginning of each row of vines marked by rose bushes. I was thrilled by repeated sightings of eagles and to learn from owner Frederico Ramón that the lovely spot is designated by the European Union as a special zone for the protection of birds. I thank him for his hospitality.

In an enormous valley that reminded me of some of the great valleys of the American West, we visited The Bodega Victoria. I am grateful to José Manuel Segura Cortés, president of the Grupo Segura Serrano, for providing a lunch of regional foods and for giving me a tour of his winery.

Since writing this book, I have visited a number of other winemakers in various Spanish locations, and I have a great appreciation of Spanish wines and the men and women who create them.

I am grateful to Alfonso Mateo-Sagasta, prize-winning historical novelist of Madrid, for information about village elections in the nineteenth century and for a description of the architecture and construction of the small village homes of the period.

I thank Delia Martínez Díaz for bringing me to the city of Terrassa, where I spent time in one of the most interesting museums of my experience. Housed in the sprawling brick buildings of an early textile mill, the Museu de la Ciència i de la Tècnica de Catalunya brings a visitor into direct touch with the technological revolution. One walks through exhibits that were the guts and machinery of the early mill, and I was able to see how the advent of steam power had created jobs such as the one filled by Donat. For infinite patience in answering my questions, I thank the museum director, Eusebi Casanelles i Rahola, conservationist Contxa Bayó i Soler, and the entire staff.

I thank Meritxell Planas Girona, a member of the Minyons de Terrassa, for answering my questions about castelling.

Ángel Pujol Escoda answered innumerable questions about hunting and nature with sweet patience, and his wife Magdalena Guasch i Poquet told me different ways to cook a rabbit.

In the wonderful central market of Sabadell, Maria Pérez Navarro took time from selling pork at her business, Cal Prat, to draw an outline for me and to make clear exactly where Josep and Jaumet would find the choicest cut of meat in a wild boar.

Dan Taccini, a wonderful American creator of handmade furniture, told me how to make a door from scratch.

For details regarding the Catholic confessional I turned to our friend Denise Jane Buckloh of Ashfield, Massachusetts, the former Sister Miriam of the Eucharist, OCD, and I thank her. I also thank Dr. Pheme Perkins, Professor of Theology at Boston College, for answering my questions about Catholic burial, sin, and penance.

I am a writer extremely rich in family and friends.

Lorraine Gordon has lived with me for more than 60 years and has given me sustenance that is better than food.

My daughter Lise Gordon again was my editor, providing arguments, polishing, and superb editing skills that made this a better book.

My son Michael is now my literary agent. He is—and was throughout the many research sojourns for this book—the very best of companions on the road, at times merry, always responsible, with a keen and reasoning mind and a strong arm.

My daughter Jamie, my favorite photographer, is ever faithfully on call despite my lifelong discomfort in front of a camera. I am grateful for her great skill and loving patience. Jamie, Lorraine, Michael, Charlie Ritz and Ed Plotkin also read the manuscript of this book.

My daughter-in-law, Maria Palma Castillón, never refused a research question, and I am grateful to her and to the Centre de Promoció de la Cultura Popular i
Tradicional Catalana, in Barcelona, for answering questions she posed on my behalf, ranging from the tolling of church bells to the practice of hiring women to weep at funerals.

Roger Weiss, my son-in-law, has kept my computer working. I thank him for his knowledge and his willingness to answer my calls for help.

All of the many persons named above have helped me; but this book is mine, and if it contains flaws and mistakes, they are my own as well.

I am grateful to Blanca Rosa Roca for publishing
The Winemaker
. I value my association with her, which goes back more than a quarter of a century. Under her skilled guidance, as
La Bodega
this novel already has been a great bestseller in Spain and Latin America. Now Barcelona eBooks and Open Road Integrated Media bring it to English-language readers everywhere, and honor me by including
The Winemaker
among Barcelona eBooks’ first American and international offerings.

This novel has been a bestseller in a number of countries under the title of
The Bodega
, except in Germany, where with my permission the book was called
The Catalan.
While Europeans are familiar with the concept that a bodega is a place where wine is made and sold, in America it has become a term to describe a small grocery business. To avoid that confusion, this novel is published under the title of
The Winemaker
. I am happy to offer my story in the English language to each reader with affection and respect.

Noah Gordon

Dedham, Massachusetts

April 23, 2012

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Noah Gordon
has had outstanding international success.
The Physician
, soon to be a motion picture, has been called a modern classic, and booksellers at the Madrid Book Fair voted it “one of the 10 best-loved books of all time.”
Shaman
was awarded the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for historical fiction. Both of these books, and five of the author’s other novels—
The Rabbi, The Death Committee, The Jerusalem Diamond, Matters of Choice
, and
The Winemaker
—are published in digital formats by Barcelona eBooks and Open Road Integrated Media. Gordon’s novel,
The Last Jew
, will also be published digitally in the near future. He lives outside of Boston with his wife, Lorraine Gordon.