Carnet de Voyage: Salut to the Winner

Travel notes from the real France. Carnet de Voyage is a weekly personal travel story in France sent in by readers. If you’d like to write a story for Carnet de Voyage, head here for details on how to submit.

“Sold! To the lady in the red scarf!” Exhilarated and dumbstruck, I was perched on a gilded chair in the elegant French Consulate in New York, having just won a bid at my first (and only) auction. My unlikely journey to this moment felt like kismet.  

In the early 1990s, my young husband and I lived in a modest brownstone apartment in Brooklyn. Among our shared interests was a taste for culinary experiences. On our first trip to Europe, we ate (and drank) our way across Paris, and we often browsed the French bottles in our local wine shop, where we befriended one of the clerks. 

In this neighborhood store in 1994, on a brisk autumn day, I admired a colorful advertising poster depicting a cheery, grape-bedecked couple toasting glasses of red wine. “Le Beaujolais Nouveau de Georges Duboeuf est arrivé!” it declared. 

Timidly, I asked our guy, “Could I possibly have that poster when you’re done with it?”  

“Sure, come by when the Beaujolais Nouveau promotion is over,” he replied. The poster’s backstory was vaguely familiar: since the mid-1980s, the noted French winemaker had been releasing Beaujolais Nouveau every third week in November, along with a splashy US marketing campaign.  

At the appropriate moment, I gratefully fetched the free wine poster from the shop, had it framed, and hung it in our kitchen. 

Fast forward to November 2000, when I learned about a benefit auction at the French Consulate featuring Georges Duboeuf’s annual, limited-edition wine prints. Perhaps my poster’s prototype would be there? A friend agreed to join me, and—filled with anticipation—we arrived at the beautiful Italianate building on Central Park. 

Inside the grand edifice, a series of bold, original Duboeuf prints was arrayed on easels. Before the auction began, we grazed on passed hors d’oeuvres and sipped the winemaker’s sprightly young red. With glee I spotted “my” original lithograph, signed by the Swedish artist Lennart Jirlow and numbered 34/100. It was identical to my store poster, save for a discrete nipple shown on the merry lady. I silently determined the top price I was willing to pay for my quarry. 

It was soon time to take our seats in a stately chamber. The auctioneer led off the bidding with the oldest Duboeuf wine print from the 1980s. “Do I hear $125?” he called out. No one in the room seemed to be biting. With resignation (and obvious dismay), he kept going. Finally, he came to the jolly couple in my familiar 1994 artwork. 

At the start of the bidding, I awkwardly raised my hand. The other attendees turned around to glance at me. “Do I hear $150?” he asked, and again I gestured. 

Slowly, the somber mood started to lift. “Do I hear $175?” the auctioneer bellowed, warming up. Another fellow in the back lifted his hand. 

Oh no! I had competition! I clenched my teeth and vowed not to surpass my price limit, no matter how much I coveted the wine print.  

Everyone in the posh room was now teetering on the edge of their gilded seats, watching me and the stranger battle it out. The auctioneer kept adding dollars, and we both kept indicating our interest. Up, up, up went the price. My friend glanced at me with new eyes. 

At last, the auctioneer reached my limit. “Do I hear $300?” he cried out. That was it. After a long, silent pause I raised my hand, held my breath, and waited. The guy in the back gave up—and the Georges Duboeuf print was mine! 

For the rest of the evening, I barely registered what was happening. The solemn room had suddenly come alive with boisterous energy, and the other auction-goers eagerly bid on the remaining artworks. The benefit at the French Consulate was now a success.  

When it was all over, the auctioneer rushed over to greet me. “Thank you, Madame!” he smiled, and shook my hand. I drank a farewell glass of Beaujolais Nouveau before hustling my prized signed lithograph into a taxi and heading for home. 

Read our other Carnet de Voyage entries here.

Kathleen Paton is a retired editor and copywriter based in New York City. For more than 30 years she has travelled throughout France—most recently to Paris and Antibes—and has invariably found the French to be polite, helpful, and welcoming.