Architect Nicolas Hollmann inherits a port wine estate in the Douro Valley. He has as much knowledge of the language as of wine - none. When he arrives at the estate, he finds himself in mortal danger. "The Port Wine Heir" is the new wine thriller by author Paul Grote. He succeeds in creating a gripping story about port wine, psychology, the past - and murder.
The young architect Nicolas Hollmann leads a completely average life in Berlin. He has a small flat, a very moderately paid job and somehow also a girlfriend. He comes from a rich family, his father runs a large construction company. But Nicolas prefers to muddle through life as a technical draughtsman than to bow to the constraints of family expectations and a preordained career as a junior in his father's company. Now there is a letter from a lawyer in his mailbox. His uncle Friedrich, who as a 68-year-old had also turned down the great company fortune and emigrated to Portugal, had died. And Nicolas, as he had stipulated, was to inherit - the port wine estate that Uncle Friedrich had built up over the years in the Douro Valley. The only condition: The inheritance should only go to him if he continued to run the estate himself. This is the initial situation of the wine thriller "Der Portwein-Erbe", written by Paul Grote, one of the founders and currently probably the most successful author of the German-language wine thriller genre. This much in advance: he succeeds in telling a rounded and exciting story from this point.
Confused and undecided, Nicolas first flies alone to Porto to take a closer look at the "Quinta do Amanhecer". The starting conditions are very bad: the sympathetically drawn, thoughtful muddler doesn't know a word of Portuguese, doesn't know how to run a winery, doesn't even have the slightest idea about wine. And soon he finds himself in danger. At the winery in the Douro Valley, he receives a hostile reception, he has serious communication difficulties, German and Mediterranean mentalities collide. Only a black, shaggy and frightened dog approaches him cautiously. He doesn't get to visit the cellar because the wooden stairs collapse and he badly injures his arm.
But Nicolas does not give up, not even when employees of the estate disappear without a trace, his car is stolen and he is almost buried by a sliding mountain. He understands: someone doesn't want him there - and yet he signs the documents at the notary's office to accept the inheritance. He remains stubborn. Nicolas learns to train his senses, to taste port wine, plus a lot about Portuguese viticulture and port wine production. Grote integrates these details intelligently into the action, they are not lexical add-ons but move the complexly constructed story forward - an aspect where many other wine crime writers fail.
Every attempt on his life makes Nicolas even more stubborn, clever and curious. He learns Portuguese quickly and diligently, becomes meticulously involved with wine tasting, with the estate's business figures - and makes new friends. Over the suspense of the thriller, Grote describes with psychological skill the development of a man in a hopeless situation. The loner finds friends, and soon it is clear: his uncle Friedrich did not die of natural causes, although all signs pointed to a heart attack. Now he wants to find the murderers. The hunted becomes the hunter at the same time - a classic crime constellation in the setting of an old winery on the breathtakingly beautiful Douro. "The Port Wine Heir" is such an intelligently constructed and confidently narrated crime novel, which is worth reading not only because of the many details about wine and port, but because Grote has written a multi-layered story with good dramaturgy and fine timing.
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Paul Grote, "The Port Wine Heir", dtv, 384 pages, ISBN: 3423210826, 8,95 Euro