Shadows in the Vineyard
The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine
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Narrated by:
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Donald Corren
About this listen
Journalist Maximillian Potter uncovers a fascinating plot to destroy the vines of La Romance-Conti, Burgundy's finest and most expensive wine.
In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the Domaine de la Romance-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.
©2014 Maximillian Potter (P)2014 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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The beloved author of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared returns with an enchanting adventure that skewers the greed and hypocrisy that dominates our time and holds lessons about what’s truly important in life.
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Entertaining
- By Alek Grant on 07-17-24
By: Jonas Jonasson
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The Billionaire's Vinegar
- The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine
- By: Benjamin Wallace
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Abridged
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It was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold. In 1985, at a heated auction by Christie’s of London, a 1787 bottle of Château Lafite Bordeaux - one of a cache of bottles unearthed in a bricked-up Paris cellar and supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson - went for $156,000 to a member of the Forbes family. The discoverer of the bottle was pop-band manager turned wine collector Hardy Rodenstock, who had a knack for finding extremely old and exquisite wines. But rumors about the bottle soon arose.
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Not just for enophiles
- By Julie W. Capell on 06-03-09
By: Benjamin Wallace
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The House of Mondavi
- The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty
- By: Julia Flynn Siler
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in California's lush Napa Valley and spanning four generations of a talented and visionary family, The House of Mondavi is a tale of genius, sibling rivalry, and betrayal. From 1906, when Italian immigrant Cesare Mondavi passed through Ellis Island, to the Robert Mondavi Corporation's 21st-century battle over a billion-dollar fortune, award-winning journalist Julia Flynn Siler brings to life both the place and the people in this riveting family drama.
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LESS EXCITING THAN WATCHING GRAPES GROW
- By The Louligan on 11-27-09
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The Monk of Mokha
- By: Dave Eggers
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Mokhtar Alkhanshali grew up in San Francisco, one of seven siblings raised by Yemeni immigrants in a tiny apartment. At age 24, unable to pay for college, he works as a doorman. Until: a statue of an Arab raising a cup of coffee awakens something in him. He sets out to learn the rich history of coffee in Yemen and the complex art of tasting and identifying varietals. He travels to Yemen, collects samples of beans, eager to bring improved cultivation methods to the farmers. And he is on the verge of success when civil war engulfs Yemen in 2015 and he is trapped in Sana'a.
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MOVING THE NEEDLE
- By Dog Fish on 02-20-18
By: Dave Eggers
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Street of Eternal Happiness
- Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road
- By: Rob Schmitz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace's Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city's sleek skyline a brighter future, and a chance to rewrite their destinies.
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Deserving of better audio
- By Rachael on 02-19-18
By: Rob Schmitz
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Wine and War
- The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure
- By: Donald Kladstrup, Petie Kladstrup
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1940, France fell to the Nazis and almost immediately the German army began a campaign of pillaging one of the assets the French hold most dear: their wine. Like others in the French Resistance, winemakers mobilized to oppose their occupiers, but the tale of their extraordinary efforts has remained largely unknown - until now. This is the thrilling and harrowing story of the French wine producers who undertook ingenious, daring measures to save their cherished crops and bottles as the Germans closed in on them.
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Good story, terrible performance
- By Sean on 05-28-12
By: Donald Kladstrup, and others
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The City of Falling Angels
- By: John Berendt
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil returns to give us an intimate look at the "magic, mystery, and decadence" of the city of Venice and its inhabitants.
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Do Yourself a Favor and Skip This Book!
- By AUDIBLE on 10-08-05
By: John Berendt
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The Sugar King of Havana
- The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon
- By: John Paul Rathbone
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifty years after the Cuban revolution, the legendary wealth of the sugar magnate Julio Lobo remains emblematic of a certain way of life that came to an abrupt end when Fidel Castro marched into Havana. Known in his day as the King of Sugar, Lobo was for decades the most powerful force in the world sugar market, controlling vast swaths of the island's sugar interests.
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VERY INFORMATIVE
- By Terry on 03-26-12
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Strange Stones
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Full of unforgettable figures and an unrelenting spirit of adventure, Strange Stones is a far-ranging, thought-provoking collection of Peter Hessler’s best reportage - a dazzling display of the powerful storytelling, shrewd cultural insight, and warm sense of humor that are the trademarks of his work. Over the last decade, as a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three books, Peter Hessler has lived in Asia and the United States, writing as both native and knowledgeable outsider in these two very different regions.
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funny, entertaining
- By Katherine on 08-02-13
By: Peter Hessler
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Iberia
- By: James A. Michener
- Narrated by: Larry McKeever
- Length: 37 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Spain is an immemorial land like no other, one that James A. Michener, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and celebrated citizen of the world, came to love as his own. Iberia is Michener’s enduring nonfiction tribute to his cherished second home. In the fresh and vivid prose that is his trademark, he not only reveals the celebrated history of bullfighters and warrior kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards, he also shares the intimate, often hidden country he came to know, where the congeniality of living souls is thrust against the dark weight of history.
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Michener's Masterpiece
- By ahusmc on 09-14-17
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Where I Was From
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In her moving and insightful new book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history and ours. A native Californian, Didion applies her scalpel-like intelligence to the state’s ethic of ruthless self-sufficiency in order to examine that ethic’s often tenuous relationship to reality. Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, Where I Was From explores California’s romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons.
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California belongs to Joan Didion.
- By Darwin8u on 11-04-15
By: Joan Didion
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The Red-Haired Woman
- A Novel
- By: Orhan Pamuk
- Narrated by: John Lee, Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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On the outskirts of a town 30 miles from Istanbul, a master well digger and his young apprentice are hired to find water on a barren plain. As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, the two will develop a filial bond neither has known before - not the poor middle-aged bachelor nor the middle-class boy whose father disappeared after being arrested for politically subversive activities. The pair will come to depend on each other and exchange stories reflecting disparate views of the world.
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Drags On
- By T. Conrad on 10-25-17
By: Orhan Pamuk
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Dreamers and Deceivers
- True and Untold Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America
- By: Glenn Beck
- Narrated by: Jeremy Lowell
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The new nonfiction from number-one best-selling author and popular radio and television host Glenn Beck.
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Astounding History stories gather life
- By Gil on 11-13-14
By: Glenn Beck
What listeners say about Shadows in the Vineyard
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Colorado Listener
- 10-01-17
Wow. Absolutely loved it!
Wonderful story full of mystery and intrigue. Great insight into how wine is made from grape to fermentation to tasting. It was as if I was there with the author during the picking and harvesting of the grapes. I wondered until the end who was the one poisoning the wine. The additional mix of French history really added to the story. Loved it! Well narrated , easy to hear, understand and great use of French and French accent. Now it's time for me to plan my trip to the DRC!
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- S. Mahon
- 11-05-22
France wine crime, who could ask for more
How the best wines in the world are made, their history, the people who make them, the sad crime and criminals that tried to undo them. Well written, well reported. If you like wine and like France, you must read this book.
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- B. Liu
- 01-16-21
surprisingly exceptional
I didn't expect too much from this book because how could you turn a small crime story into an entire book? but as a lover of burgundy this is not to be missed!!
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- Gary Dworkin
- 12-18-20
An extraordinary story
The author has provided a wonderfully rich tapestry and backdrop for his love and reverence of wine and it’s creators! Very Well Done
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- B Hart
- 07-10-15
Too many unnecessary details
This was an okay listen. The crime and wine history are very interesting, but the details that had nothing to do with those were very boring. I skipped through chapters that didn't apply to the story
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2 people found this helpful
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- @mapp
- 11-15-23
Hidden Figures in the Vineyards
This book was recommended by a friend. So glad I listened to it. Max interleaves history of the place with business and the story of what could have been a catastrophe. The real irony here is that the culprit was an alcoholic. Very well told and narrated. I’ll look for more of his books.
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- dullman
- 03-28-15
Fascinating history of wine
Really enjoyed the story along with the history of wine, terroir, & the families. A really good story even if you are not "into" wine.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Daniel Morrison
- 09-24-18
Very good book for wine people
If you’re a wine guy, and especially like Burgundy and the history of the region, you’ll dig this book. It’s a good mystery, but a better history lesson of DRC is DRC.
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- Gh
- 07-27-16
Wife YES Husband NO
Great if you are interested in wine and a rambling tale. Painful if you like a good tight story.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 03-26-24
Interesting info on history of wine industry
The narrator's largely mediocre and uneven pronunciation of the many French words and phrases appearing in this book substantially reduced my enjoyment of this otherwise decent effort. It's a pity because there must be many narrators with better command of French pronunciation than this individual.
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