Virgile and his vintner boss Benjamin Cooker head off to Chateau Blanzac as winter arrives. Cooker is an expert witness and an insurance firm wants an estimate of their client's loss in a fire at the chateau. In France, of course, a wine cellar is taken seriously and stocked well. Not only that but the chateau was home to a producer of Armagnac brandies. A nearby friend of Cooker's provides them with a feast and some juicy gossip. The cellar master was killed in the fire. And brandies are not selling well anymore so every producer has a cellar tightly filled with barrels.

We see that the ancient chateau in Gascony is stone-built and enormous, cold and damp. The books are going musty and no fire can heat the rooms. The elderly owner, a Baron, seems dispirited and takes offence at a teasing speculation that he needs an alibi for the night the fire started. Cooker and Virgile don't know of anything wrong, but they would be remiss if they didn't ask questions of the staff. Poking about amid the ashes, counting barrel hoops and demijohn necks, they start to hear more than they'd expected, including tales of family rivalries.

Wonderful-sounding foods include locally shot pigeon, rabbit and boar pate, truffle omelette, guinea fowl with wild mushrooms, foie gras ravioli. Not to mention, tasting wines and brandies. There's even a home-made walnut liqueur. The French certainly enjoy their food and drink. Any gourmets will thoroughly enjoy this instalment which includes showing us the method of brandy distillation. We also stroll through a town of half-timbered houses and cobbled streets, and the national enthusiasm for rugby gets an airing.

As always, I recommend this latest by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen, ably translated by Sally Pane to flow like smooth rich brandy. FLAMBÉ IN ARMAGNAC would make a great Christmas gift for food and wine lovers who enjoy a classic mystery, and it may appeal to men more than other amateur sleuth stories.

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