Michel Chasseuil: The Man Behind a 50M€ Wine Cellar | FULL DOCUMENTARY

In my 20s, I started taking a few bottles of wine from my parents' cellar, because back then, in those days, we mostly drank cider. We didn't know about all the grands coups classés such as Petrus, which in fact, at the turn of the century, people would drink while out hunting on Sunday mornings. It really shows how much things have changed. I'd go and buy a few bottles of burgundy, but at the time, the quality wasn't great. People would say to me, why are you going to get booze? I went to do my military service in Strasbourg. I was 20 at the time. When I was on leave, I stopped by in Paris. My father, who'd served in the military and was passionate about aviation, would tell me stories about pioneers like Mermoz and Guynemer. I started to think that maybe I could see myself working at Dassault. So, I went to the personnel office, and that's when I discovered the world of aviation and its secrets. I would take clients out to restaurants to maintain good relationships and boost airplane sales. That's when I started ordering fine wines at these top restaurants. And that's where I learned about the grands coups classés, with the help of the sommelier, who introduced me to the After a fall in sales of the Rafale airplane, the company decided to offer a severance package, with a bonus to a number of employees. They told me, you're not going to have a big pension. Leaving your job at 47 means you won't get much when you retire. And that's when I realized I should invest my severance package and part of my bonus into wine. Here I'm unpacking a box of Chateau Petrus magnums. I keep them in individual cases so no one knows what they are. If people realize it's Petrus, they could get stolen. Given their value, there's at least 200,000 euros worth in here. Here I'm unpacking a double magnum. You have to be able to prove the bottles are authentic, so you can't open the cases. I remember when I was around 15 or 16, he would scour auction rooms for rare and valuable bottles. But he often struggled, financially, to afford even a few of them. 5,150, 5,200, 50, 5,250, 500, 5,300. Sometimes he would end up taking my savings, the money I'd received as gifts from my grandparents and parents over the past 15 years. He came to see me one evening and he said, I had to take your savings, I'm sorry, but I'll pay you back later, don't worry. 6,200, 6,300, sold for 6,300. Listen, I've got a rooster. I'm very proud of the fact that the rooster is France's emblem, because, you see, this rooster will fight to the death. It'll peck at my calves and attack me with its spurs. I sometimes fight it off with my rake, but it never gives in. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28. I have a wine cellar that's 28 meters long by 6 meters wide. No wonder it took 3,000 concrete blocks and 5 or 6 pallets of cement. Plus, to reinforce the cellar, we added 50 centimeters of surface covering on top of the reinforced concrete slabs with ventilation shafts. That means there's no air conditioning. The natural temperature ranges from 8 degrees in the winter to 15 degrees in the summer. When I was younger, his passion was all-consuming. My father also had a second home that we were always fixing up during holidays and weekends. He didn't always have a lot of time to spend with me. We hardly ever went on holiday. We had to focus on renovating the house, expanding the cellar, and buying bottles to keep growing the collection. Come on, boy. If you can hear me. Hi, Mr. Rooster. So here we are in my personal cellar. We have all kinds of wines. Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, some from Crimea, as well as Sauternes. There are some large bottles such as Magnums, Double Magnums, Jerry Boehms, Imperials, Methuselahs, Salmanazars, basically the whole range of large size bottles. This is for my friends and family, for when I host dinner parties. And over there, that dark spot, that's the dungeon for troublemakers. I was told, one day, you're going to get attacked. Oh, I was joking, by the way. It's not a dungeon. It's where I keep the secret Fonfollet liqueur. This is where I make a sort of Pinot de Charente. Let's go and check it out together. The Fonfollet Nectar. This small dungeon is actually where I make my own liqueur, a sort of Pinot de Charente. So here's the nectar in question. A little gem. These liqueurs were made by Monsieur Mitte, who died a few years ago. He crafted 33 different varieties, using ingredients like Polly, Slow, Rowan, Elderberry, Truffle, and even Garlic. Do you know what's in this case? It's Cointreau from Göring-Cellar. This case came all the way from Germany. A case of 12 bottles of Cointreau. Someday, I'll give it a taste. They say that after 70 years, it develops a different flavor, like the Chartreuse from Tarragona. Here's the complete Petrus collection, ranging from 1945 to today. There's one bottle on display and another in the case. The oldest ones are from 1914, 1928, and 1934. And here, you've got them in 12-bottle cases, from 1971 onward. In the 1980s, before the famous Titanic film, I went to an auction in Versailles, where they had bottles of 1805 Napoleon Cognac and Marie Brizard that were served on the Titanic. The bidding started at 300 francs, then 400 francs, and no one seemed interested. I put up my hand, and just like that, I won 10 gold-flake Marie Brizard bottles. Everyone in the room was laughing, but after the Titanic movie hit the Champs-Élysées, the Marie Brizard company called me and said, we would like to buy your gold-flake Marie Brizard bottle for 10,000 euros. And at that auction, there were also bottles of 1805 Napoleon Cognac. None of the restaurant owners, who were there for the Grand Cru wines, showed any interest in the Cognac. So I put up my hand and asked if I could get one or two bottles. My friend said, grab both, you can sell one to pay for the other. I was low on cash, so I went with two bottles, and that's how I ended up with Napoleon's personal bottles from 1805, from the Château de Fontainebleau. One day, I got a call from Mr Chamouty, a brandy producer from Ukraine. He'd heard of me and seen me online, and he wanted to invite me to his estate for a 50-year-old brandy tasting. To us, brandy is what we call Cognac. During that visit, I met someone who said, you have bottles from Napoleon's cellar, but I have one from Hitler's cellar. He said, after the war, while the French were taking the silverware, we raided Hitler's eagle's nest and found this bottle. My great-grandfather had it. I asked him how much he earned each month, and he said 150 dollars. I told him, listen, if you find the bottle, I'll pay you a month's salary. So the next day, he came back to the hotel with the bottle, which had a photo of Hitler from 1942. It was a gift Hitler had given to his officers. Here, you have a complete collection of Ikem from 1900 to 2014, with one bottle for each year. I also keep a second bottle of each in reserve, in case we need to recondition any of the bottles. And here's the incredibly rare 1811, which sold for a hundred thousand dollars in Hong Kong a decade ago. The 1811, 1847 and 1921 are the three most sought-after bottles from the last two centuries. Finding all three together is quite a feat. Well, here are the renowned Romane Conti bottles. I have about 40 different bottles, with one case per year from 1971 onward. The highlight is the 1945, which went for 500,000 dollars at Christie's Auction in Geneva not too long ago. When I bought this bottle in the 80s, it cost me three months' salary, 115,000 francs. I never dreamed it would someday be worth 450,000 dollars. Early one morning, I got a call. Hello, Mr Chassé. Yes, speaking. This is the Principality of Monaco. His Highness would like to visit your collection. I thought it was a joke. I said, cut it out. I figured it was just a friend playing a prank. But they assured me, no, no, no, I'm Colonel Fragon, the butler. This is very serious. I had heard from various sources that there was a collector in France gaining some recognition. I thought I'd check if it was possible to meet him. He agreed to meet with me and the small delegation that I brought along. I had a rough idea of his appearance, but he was much shorter than I had imagined. The Prince came to see my collection. We were cataloguing everything, and I could see he was genuinely bowled over. The experience was astonishing on many levels. The more we explored the cellar, the rarer and more incredible the bottles became. I wanted to get his autograph, of course. An hour passed, then two, then three, and I thought, I guess the autograph isn't going to happen. I asked him about how he managed to get certain cases and bottles. After we left the cellar and moved over to the kitchen, I asked, Your Highness, could I please have your autograph? He sat down at the table and said, yes, of course, Mr Chassé. It was a spontaneous gesture. I can't quite explain how I felt in that moment. Later on, I was invited to the Principality. It was a dream come true, being there with Princess Caroline, with her son and Prince Albert. We enjoyed some exceptional wines in their private quarters. What makes a bottle of wine more sought after than another is its rarity. The rarer it is, the more people want to taste it, to hold it, to see it, making it all the more valuable. For a bottle to be considered rare, it can't just come from some unknown winemaker experimenting with 300 different bottles. That won't catch anyone's attention. It needs to come from a respected and recognized producer. People who seek out collectible bottles are often misunderstood. These aren't wines meant to be drunk. They're meant to be admired. And not everyone has the opportunity or the insight to grasp why these bottles are revered so highly. Right, it's Sunday, so let's give ourselves a treat. We're going to make a nice beef stew, Bordelais style, just to jazz it up a little. Yes, a Boeuf Bourguignon is the classic. With a good bottle of Bordeaux, you'll get a whole different set of flavors. So let's do it. Three or four onions, nice and slow. Now some little potatoes from the Ile de Ré. These look really good. Right, into the pot they go. While that simmers, let's head to the cellar and pick out some nice booze. Not just any Bordeaux, but something with a bit of depth. Now that's got some texture. 1983, perfect for a Bordeaux-style beef dish, if you ask me. I always say that like in the best restaurants, a good wine makes a great sauce. This one's aged well. It's what we call a bit truly, which is normal given its age. We use the term truly when it turns slightly reddish-brown with time. Let's pour it slowly into the sauce. And no, I definitely won't be using my prized 1931 Noval. Yes, indeed, I did manage to get my hands on the legendary 1931 Noval, the world's best port. One time in Paris, I was tasting ports with some top restaurant owners, and one of them said, I've got a 63. And I said, you've got a 63, a whole case? And then I asked, but what about the 31? He said, oh, the 31, that's impossible to find. It's the port of the century. Then someone said, oh, there's an Englishman who's selling a bottle. Of course, the Brits, they're the experts when it comes to port, Madeira, and sherry. They're 10 years ahead of us. I went over to see him, and he said, yes, I've got one, but it'll cost you several bottles of Petrus if you want it. So I offered him six bottles of Petrus 85. Are you joking, he said? It turns out he knew exactly what it was worth, two full cases of Petrus 85, he said. Oh, man, I thought it was over. I went back the next day with two cases of Petrus 85. The guy was a bit stunned, and he handed over the 31, and into the cellar it went. And just recently, I saw an ad in Asia saying, looking for any Noval National 1931, asking price $100,000, and my two cases of Petrus 85 are nowhere near worth $100,000. So in the end, I actually got another pretty sweet deal. Here, I'm just making my little tart, but the fact is I ended up being ranked among the top 10 collectors in the world. Who would have thought I'd make it to number one? Yep, two of them turned out to be frauds. One's in prison. Another guy in Germany has been around for ages, and one passed away from cancer. So now I'm the number one collector in the world. I guess you can say sometimes fate works in mysterious ways. So many fakes have been sold at auctions that one day, Maureen Donner, a renowned wine expert, showed up at my place with a colleague. I saw her arriving with scanners, magnifying glasses, and lamps to check the labels. This expert was on a mission to track down counterfeiters worldwide, and they figured that the guy from La Chapelle Baton must have some fakes in his cellar. Unfortunately for them, there wasn't a single fake to be found. These days, the best way to ensure a bottle is genuine is to buy it directly from the estate that produced it. So now I'm heading out of my little hotel and setting off to cover the entire Burgundy vineyard, visiting all my producers from Meursault to Chambertin. So I'm off to collect my little bottles. Today, we're at Domaine Lamarche, a prestigious estate with a plot called La Grande Rue, right next to the Domaine de Romain et Conti. I've been coming here regularly for about 30 years to stock up. Here, we'll be tasting a selection of Grand Cru and Premier Cru, including Grands Echiseaux and others. We're being graciously hosted by the daughter, who's in charge of the cellars. That's what you call the cellar master, right? So we're moving on to the wine tasting. It's an introduction to the vintage wines that will shortly become part of my collection. And of course, Clos de Vouges as well. There must be around 50 different owners of that vineyard. 56 owners with 85 producers. Can you imagine? Clos de Vouges is divided between 50 different owners. So when someone says they've had Clos de Vouges, it doesn't really mean much. You need to specify which Clos de Vouges you had, as each owner has their own section of the vineyard. And each section produces a different wine. The winemaking process also varies. So it's crucial to mention the owner's name when you say you've had a Clos de Vouges. When Mr. Chasseu first started visiting the estate, he bought his wine out of pure passion and would eat sandwiches and sleep in his car, preferring to spend all his money on his hobby. That's the memory we have of him. It's been that way for a long time. Actually, it's always been like that. Well, thank you. Okay, see you soon. And here's to good health above all. You too. And how old are the kids now? Oh, they're 12 now. So here we are at the Romani-Conti estate. Typically, you need an appointment to visit, but I come every year to pick up my case. The clientele is already set in stone. Each customer has their allowance every year. Oh, I go to around 15 in a day. So I'm here to pick up my prized Morceau from the Coche d'Urry estate, one of the most prestigious estates in Burgundy. White wine, of course. Is this the way to the cellar? Yes, downstairs. Because it's a new cellar. Oh yes, here are the cases. Let's put them in the boot. Yes. Can we get the cases first? The renowned Domaine Romier. I get a bottle of Musigny every five years, and I'm quite lucky. Anyway, I don't sell them. Because obviously, private buyers who buy and then resell them for five or six times the price, well... See you next year, then. See you next year, Mr. Chassoy. Have a good trip. Goodbye. What I admire is that he didn't just come with a wad of cash saying, I'll buy this bottle, I'll buy that one. No, he was patient and worked closely with the winemakers, exchanging bottles in the process. It's a huge amount of work, but most of all, it's meticulous work because he didn't force any of it. He just stayed persistent, and that, indeed, deserves recognition. I had the build for running. So I was selected to run the New York Marathon in 1979. There were three of us from Dassault. And before we left, they told me, well, you'll get to taste some Chateau Dassault with the Americans from Marcel Dassault's estate. So I completed it in three hours and 15 minutes. I was quite the athlete, as they say. And in the evening, we enjoyed our Chateau Dassault. Then I met some American friends after the marathon at Central Park. Oh, we've got some pomerol at home. Really? Chateau Fetid Clinet. I didn't know Fetid Clinet at the time. Yes, but we haven't heard from them for two years. A lovely lady runs it, and she used to send us six bottles every year for the holiday season. So I went back to my job at Dassault, and I looked up Chateau Fetid Clinet. I found the number, called the chateau. And then I heard a voice saying, oh, help, help. I'm thirsty, I'm hungry. They've taken all my stuff. What's going on? I told my colleague, do you hear that? What's this all about? We thought it was just an old crank, so we hung up. And a week later, I called again and got the same message. It was clear something serious was going on. I had the time to do whatever I wanted, so I decided to leave at 3 a.m. and drive 600 kilometers in my old Peugeot 204. It's about an eight-hour drive. I planned to drive through the night to get there at dawn, and then back to work at Dassault. As I drove along the motorway, I kept asking myself, what am I doing? What's the point of this? What am I going to find? And I kept driving and driving until finally I arrived in Pomerol. I spent half an hour circling around before I finally saw Chateau Fetid Clinet painted on a wall. What a relief! The fog was starting to lift, and I was exhausted. I pulled into the courtyard, and then I saw a dog chained up and barking furiously. And there was a man there looking quite rough with two missing front teeth. He asked, what are you doing here? Who are you? And I was confronted by this man who was obviously tasked with keeping the lady inside. Amidst the shouting, the shutters of the house began to open slowly, and I saw a face. Just the nose and eyes and the head of an older woman with long straggly hair and a look of deep sadness. And I said, hello, good morning. Immediately, her eyes lit up. Here was a woman who had been held captive for months. Maybe here was a glimmer of hope. An English-speaking person? Could it be possible? Maybe he'll be able to help me. And I quickly asked her, how are you, Madame Domergue? She said, oh, I'm so hungry and thirsty, speaking both French and English at the same time. I went inside and saw everything scattered on the floor, dishes, clothes, shirts, photos. She said to me, since 1977, I've had everything taken from me. I was so starved, I had to remember the survival training from the American commando courses that I'd taken. She told me I was collecting worms from the ditches in Pomerol, eating pine nuts that I gathered from umbrella pine trees, catching crickets and scavenging for whatever I could find, here and there. I left for Paris thinking, this is unbelievable. What did I just witness? What a story this old lady in Pomerol has. So I said to my friend, come back with me to Bordeaux and you can sit in the back with the old lady while I drive and we'll take turns. I returned to Bordeaux a week later, picked up Mrs. Domergue and drove her back to Paris. And since I'd just separated from my wife, there were no family complications to deal with. I had time to take care of this lady and be curious. Enough to find out what was going on and to host her at my place. I mean, she hadn't showered in six months. The smell was awful, like a barnyard, we say. So I took off her dirty, greasy Astrakhan coat and put it to one side. I put her in the bathtub and the water quickly turned into something that looked like manure because she was so filthy. She hadn't washed in six months, just muck. My son came in and said, dad, what's going on with this old lady? Give me the scissors. I cut through her blouse, her clothes, even her underwear and tossed everything into the laundry basket. And there she was, stark naked, this poor old lady who was like, oh, in the bathtub, making the most of it. I thought to myself, this is quite a scene. I said to Jeremy, hand me those old pyjamas and the old dressing gown. I gave her the dressing gown and we sat down to eat. I watched as this radiant old lady enjoyed her meal. We'd made a stew and I saw her eating and then hiding some bread. What was she doing? She was hiding pieces of bread, stashing them away whenever we weren't looking. She must have thought it might not last. I cared for this lady for six years, from 79 to 85. Jeremy was 12 and had already started in secondary school. She taught him English. She was like his granny, calling him my darling. We became a little family. Time went on in this way and I ended up becoming her legal representative. If anyone thought I was taking care of her out of self-interest, I can only say that when I first met her, I had no idea that Chateau Fetides Clinées was hers through her late husband's inheritance. In 1985, she died from a blood clot at New York Hospital and that's when my lawyer informed me, Mr Chasseur, she has named you the sole heir to the vineyards of Chateau Fetides Clinées. I discovered who Jean-Gabriel Domergue was, the famous painter known for his paintings of long-necked women. I managed to recover a few of his less notable paintings from the attic as most of the valuable ones had been looted. I had Madame Domergue laid to rest in Agin, in the family tomb carved and sculpted by the painter himself, complete with a magnificent crest depicting the family patriarch. He was then lying in pieces. As time passed, my son grew up and became an enologist. To honour her memory, I decided we needed to do something special. So instead of calling it Chateau Fetides Clinées, we created a Cuvée Marie Domergue. One year we had labels printed in her honour and crafted a special cuvée named Cuvée Marie-Alice Domergue. Over the 40 years I've been collecting wine, I've crossed paths with hundreds of people. Just to give you an idea, I've got all the business cards from those encounters right here, and there are still just as many here. I end up sorting them into little piles by country, by champagne. Sometimes I get a call. Hello, this is Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre, sure, but which Jean-Pierre? I know seven of them. He's got no idea. I don't have a secretary or a computer. Everything's organised in the old-fashioned way. If I had all the resources to fulfil my dreams, it wouldn't be to buy a Rolls-Royce or a private jet. Instead, I'd build a kind of Louvre for wine, a grand international museum for posterity, a place to teach, to showcase to the public, a cultural centre for wine tasting. So here are the plans for my wine museum. I'm just waiting on the building permit. You see, that's my house. The current cellar holds 40,000 bottles, but the plan is to extend it into a 50-metre-long space that would reach all the way to the little path over there. We're going to start by digging out the cellar, setting it up, and covering it. So they arrived just over a week ago with a truck and an excavator. They dug out more than 100 truckloads, which we deposited in the field over there. The field with the deer. And it's still too small. I built the first cellar in 1990, and by 2000, it was full. And in 2000, I renovated the cellar you see now. By 2020, it was full again, so I'm hoping this one will last until 2041, when I'll turn 100. When I think about it, I've got 6,000 of these slats with 25,000 screws. Oh, the work! 500 partition walls to place side by side, 30 centimeters apart to store the cases and build 4,000 compartments. Before I can even start on this wine temple extravaganza, it's going to take a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, I reckon. It fits. Oh, check this out. This is the champagne of choice for American rappers and singers. Can you imagine? A gold-plated, jerry-bomb, Armand de Brignac champagne. Very well known. They bring these bottles to celebrate, to party. I'm very careful with this bottle. I can assure you I take care of it. Let's get some of this dust off. Fitting the shelves, that's what's the most time-consuming. I need 21 and a half centimeters for this one. Hope it'll fit. After sorting my 50,000 bottles into their respective compartments, white wine, red wine, I'm in the alcoholarium. And among the 3,000 or 4,000 bottles, one of the last bottles was a port from 1941, the year I was born. Here's the outfit I wore during the six months I spent organizing my cellars. I was too lazy to shave in the morning, so for the last 40 days, I've been sporting these old velvet trousers and this goatee beard. The mustache could work, but it does look a bit strange. It's true that lately I've been gaining more and more global recognition, but there's a downside. One morning, bright and early, I was kidnapped, held hostage, and tortured by 11 thugs. I was sleeping peacefully in bed around 7 or 8 o'clock when the doorbell rang. Ding dong, ding dong. A delivery this early? What's going on? It's usually later. So I slipped into my pajamas and rushed to the door, thinking I might miss the delivery if I'm not quick. I opened the door, saw no one around, and as I stepped outside, I spotted a truck parked against the wall with someone inside. I said, what's going on? They replied, it's a wine delivery. The guy sat down a wine box and said, now sign the delivery slip. And just as I bent down to pick up the box, the UPS truck, part of the whole setup, opened up. And out popped four guys with AK-47s shouting, don't move or you're dead. And at that moment, I thought, so today's the day. Because I'd been hearing for ages, with all the talk about your wine cellar, you're bound to get robbed eventually. They dragged me into the first cellar. I saw only four of them initially, but there were 11 thugs in total. They'd come to steal some cases of wine with four trucks from up north for their boss. They took me down into the first small cellar and started hitting me, demanding, where's the key to the armoured cellar? They tortured and beat me up. At one point they said, hold on, he's going to give us a key. Then they told one of them, tie his hands with duct tape. So there I was, hands bound together with duct tape. And then I had this huge brute, a guy about six feet tall, right in front of my face, twisting my fingers until I was screaming. The others could hear me shouting from a distance, let me tell you. In the end, my little finger was so messed up, the nerves were torn and it was flailing around uncontrollably. Suddenly, I saw one of them show up with a shotgun and two shells, saying, I'm going to shoot you in the stomach. I said, I don't have the key. Another one came with two screwdrivers and put one each side of my neck and he said, I'm going to stab you in the neck if you don't give me the key, damn it. You're desperately trying to find a way to survive and it seemed like I was growing more resilient to the torture. Since my hands were already bound together with duct tape, I kept repeating, oh God, help me, oh God, help me, oh God, help me. They couldn't kill me, otherwise they'd leave empty handed, so I wasn't afraid of dying. But in my mind, it was all about preventing them from getting through the armored door. And then they realized they weren't going to break me, so they left, locking me inside the cellar with the heavy oak door and its massive bolt. So there I was, trapped in my own cellar behind that God-forsaken door. I thought to myself, maybe this is my chance to escape. But I knew that as soon as I tried to get away, they'd spot me and say, look, he's trying to escape. And I'd end up getting beaten even more. So I had to think quickly. The situation was about survival. Maybe I could break down the door. I had a heavy duty strut filled with glass that I sometimes use when I'm away for a week. I grabbed it and struck the door. Bang. But that oak door would not budge. I tried hitting the lower hinge. Bang, bang. I managed to squeeze through a hole like a rat. And when I got out, there was nobody around. I ran up the stairs. Still no one. Finally, I made it to my brother-in-law's place. And he yelled, Daniel, Daniel, call the police. I've been robbed. 15 minutes later, bam, bam, bam, bam. The village was swarming with cops and fire trucks, cars at every intersection. It looked like a full-scale manhunt. And I was in my pyjamas and it felt like something out of a movie. By 10 a.m., I was wondering what on earth was happening. They laid me down in the ambulance and took me to the hospital where I spent the entire afternoon. And then they said, well, we need to search your house. I said, wait, it's 7 p.m. I have friends coming to visit my little wine cellar. They'll be upset if I'm not there. Don't worry, Mr. Chassé. Let's go, guys. And with the sirens blaring, the cops guiding us through the streets, we reached Chapel Breton just 10 minutes later. I saw all my friends at the back. Hey, Michel, you're late again. What's going on? They had no idea what had happened. A copper went up to them and said, you know, Mr. Chassé, with what's just happened to him. Really? Oh, well, yes, well, it's true. Okay, okay, then we'll go home. I said, no, no, guys, you're here now. We're not going home. Let's grab the bottles we'd planned to taste. But Michel, given the state you're in... Don't worry. I'll tell you my story. It'll help me feel better. We'll have a drink. Forget what's happened and keep going. I'm still alive. That's what matters. By midnight, everyone was in high spirits. Hey, Michel, don't you have any more bottles? We'll all pitch in. And we kept drinking till 3 a.m. So instead of being alone at home after the robbery, dwelling on what had happened, this allowed me to chat. And by 3 a.m., I fell asleep as if nothing had happened. Yes, most wines are meant to be drunk. But perhaps these particular bottles are more valuable than that, as they represent memories, history and geography. They have many stories to tell. We shouldn't drink them. What happens once the bottle is empty? The story is gone. If a wine from the Napoleonic era leaves its bottle, then Napoleon himself disappears along with it. Hello, brother. It's an honor to meet you. Thank you, brother. So I'm putting on protective gloves to handle this little relic, which is a book published in 1845. This book is a catalog of all the plants used in making the Chartreuse liqueur from Tarragona in Spain. It was considered a medicinal elixir back then. To treat the monks isolated in their Spanish monastery for 175 years, they relied on centuries of trial and error, mixing various plants to cure all sorts of ailments. They ended up using over 130 different plants. But on top of that, there are roots, lichens and even insect wings. Nowadays, Chartreuse is made in Voiron, France, but it's just a copy made with various crops. Most of the original plants used in the Chartreuse de Tarragona no longer exist due to pollution. I thought to myself, if I ever have trouble reaching 100, at least I'll be able to have a spoonful of this Chartreuse de Tarragona now and then as a rejuvenating remedy. Since the medicinal liqueur oxidizes with air and I've already consumed two-thirds of it, I keep adding glass beads every time I drink from it. So spicy. Orange blossom, quince paste, candied oranges, exotic, superb. All those wonderful years on the road searching for you. At the crossroads of our fates, your presence guided the frail child I once was and shaped me into a man. The maiden journey that so many have embarked on sparked the flame of the explorer within me. I've braved arid plains, crossed valleys with unstable cliffs and walked the earth driven on by the unspoken passion of a magnificent quest. From the echoes of Burgundy's bell towers to the shade of Saint-Emilion's streams, the deep roots of the vines course through my veins. Stone by stone, the challenges I faced were a testament to my ambition. I have sometimes faltered under the weight of my dreams, betrayed by resolve yet saved by audacity. Following in the footsteps carved out by cathedral builders, I have achieved the impossible through blood, sweat and tears. This timeless creation bestows its artist with an everlasting legacy. Here lies salvation, the ultimate reward. Now, it's time to reconnect. At long last.