A delightful, best-selling tale about the business and pleasure of wine, adapted into a Ridley Scott movie starring Russell Crowe and Marion Cotillard. Max Skinner has recently lost his job at a London financial firm and just as recently learned that he has inherited his late uncle’s vineyard in Provence. On arrival he finds the climate delicious, the food even better, and two of the locals ravishing. Unfortunately, the wine produced on his new property is swill. Why then are so many people interested in it? Enter a beguiling Californian who knows more about wine than Max does—and may have a better claim to the estate. Fizzy with intrigue, bursting with local color and savor,  A Good Year  is Peter Mayle, beloved author of A Year in Provence , at his most entertaining. “A delightful divertissement . . . .plenty of . . . local color, comic dalliances and a feastful of entertainment.” — The Seattle Times “Happily snide (and knowledgeable). . . . Wicked turns of phrase . . . . Quite agreeable, with an insouciant nose . . . perfect for summer reading.” — Chicago Sun-Times “Mayle makes Provence sound like the most enticing place this side of paradise. Reservations, anyone?” — People “Bubbly, light-hearted, good-natured. . . . [Mayle’s] descriptions of food and country ambience. . . live up to his reputation.” — The Baltimore Sun “Fast-moving and fun. . . . a deliciously light-hearted tale. . . . The Provencal life never tasted so good.” — Rocky Mountain News The writer with a claim to being the world's foremost literary escape artist is back, with an intoxicating novel about the business and pleasure of wine, set in his beloved Provence. Max Skinner has recently lost his job at a London financial firm and just as recently learned that he has inherited his late uncle's vineyard in Provence. On arrival he finds the climate delicious, the food even better, and two of the locals ravishing. Unfortunately, the wine produced on his new property is swill. Why then are so many people interested in it? Enter a beguiling Californian who knows more about wine than Max does-and may have a better claim to the estate. Fizzy with intrigue, bursting with local color and savor, A Good Year is Mayle at his most entertaining. Peter Mayle is the author of fifteen books, nine of them novels, including the beloved bestseller A Year in Provence . A recipient of the Légion d’Honneur from the French government for his cultural contributions, he lived in Provence with his wife, Jennie, for more than twenty-five years. Mayle died in 2018. One It was high summer in London, and the raindrops felt almost warm on Max Skinner’s face as he ran up Rutland Gate and into Hyde Park. He followed the curve of the Serpentine while the shapes of other people determined to suffer before breakfast came and went in the gray predawn murk, their faces slick with rain and sweat, their progress marked by the moist slap of their footsteps on the path. The weather had discouraged all but the hard-core joggers. It was too wet for those bouncing, pink-cheeked girls who sometimes provided Max with a little welcome distraction. Too wet for the resident flasher who was usually on duty behind a bush near the bandstand, leer and raincoat at the ready. Too wet even for the pair of Jack Russells whose joy it was to nip at every passing ankle, their embarrassed owner lumbering after them mouthing apologies. It was too wet, and perhaps too early. Max had been getting into the office late recently, often as late as seven-thirty, and Amis, his boss and nemesis, was not pleased. This morning would be different, Max promised himself. He’d get in first, and make sure the miserable sod knew it. That was the big problem with Max’s work- ing life: he liked the job but loathed the people, Amis in particular. Turning at the top of the Serpentine, Max started back toward the Albert Memorial, his thoughts on the day ahead. There was a deal that he’d been nursing along for months, a deal that would deliver a bonus big enough to pay his infinitely patient tailor and, much more important, get the bank off his back. Occasional murmurs of discontent about the size of his overdraft had turned into letters couched in ever more menacing terms, underlining the fact that it had been a lean year so far. But it was going to change, Max felt sure. With a surge of optimism, he sprinted down Rutland Gate, shook himself like a dog on the doorstep, and let himself into the stucco-fronted Georgian house that a developer had gutted and converted into what he described as highly desirable executive pieds-à-terre. The janitor of the building, a gnome of a man with a papery, subterranean complexion, looked up from his vacuum cleaner and clucked his tongue at the trail of wet footprints Max was leaving on the carpet. “You’ll be the death of me, you will. Look at that bleeding mud, all over my Axminster.” “Sorry, Bert. I keep forgetting to take off my shoes before I come in.” Bert sniffed.