Les veuves soyeuses

Benjamin hesitates to accept the request of recent Champagne wine estate widow Alice de Vonnelle to assemble a special vintage in honor of son Arthur, who died in an equestrian accident six months before his father's death in bed. Lebel realizes the old lady is wine-ignorant, unlike Arthur's widow Marianne, whom she hates but has to share the inheritance with, and who has the good sense to stick to experienced wine-maker François Norbert. Benjamin drops by from time to time, leaving Silvère on site, courted by the then merry widows, to keep digging for family dirt. Crucial and/or suspect are uncle Edouard d'Ortef, who decides to sell his estate shares but is killed in afire, Alice's cousin and virtual stepbrother, if not more, army officer Aymeric Montet, her gym coach and lover and a Swiss artist.