Maximillian Potter talks about fate as if it were a conscious being monitoring him from a darkened room, not a deity so much as an omniscient presence that takes notes on his journey through the world.
How else to understand the chance mention of a bizarre French blackmail scheme that led to Potter’s Vanity Fair article on the subject — and now, his first book, “Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World’s Greatest Wine”?
The Denver-based writer’s own provenance implies a rugged, guy’s-guy character, considering his blue-collar Philadelphia upbringing (neither of his parents finished high school), his staff gigs at men’s publications like GQ and Details, and his years tracking down grisly true-crime cases.
“He played college football and was one of those strong guys down in the trenches,” said Michael Hainey, Potter’s editor at GQ. “He knows how to hold his ground and how to take ground.
“He’s also generous and kind — though I think he doesn’t want people to know he’s kind. He likes people to believe he’s a gruff kid from Philly who likes his Yuengling beer.”
Much of the appeal of exploring the world of wine was that it was utterly foreign to Potter — and therefore an exciting place to visit — especially after spending nearly a decade as a top editor at 5280 Magazine.
That and, well, fate.
“I totally, totally believe it was that,” Potter, 43, said over a burger and fries at CityGrille earlier this month. “I was burning out, and I was in a bad place, mentally, which is part of the reason why I left 5280.”
So: wine. And not just wine, but the world’s finest wine, in a region with a culture as long, tangled and seemingly guarded as the vines from which its products originate.
Potter and his wife, Lori, had planned on leaving their two boys stateside and spending their 15th wedding anniversary in Paris in 2010. But when a botched bathroom installation led to a flooded house, the rebuilding costs held them back.
They settled for a trip to California wine country, where an old Delta Tau Delta frat brother of Potter’s from Allegheny College happened to mention an insider tip about intrigue in the Burgundy region of France.
Potter sniffed a complex, intoxicating narrative, despite his ignorance of wine culture.
“Forget all these crime stories,” he remembered thinking. “I need to find a story that brings me back here to rainbows and wine. I need some reason to believe in humanity again.”
The story did not disappoint. Reports had surfaced that the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, known for producing arguably the rarest, most expensive wine in the world (some bottles fetch tens of thousands of dollars at auction), had fallen victim to a blackmailer who was poisoning its vines for a $1.3 million ransom.
Small-town French politics and shock on the part of vineyard master Aubert de Villaine had kept the situation both quiet and volatile — which only made it more attractive to Potter.
“My wife was throwing shoes at me and saying, ‘What are you doing? This is our wedding anniversary!’ ” Potter remembered after he decamped to their hotel room in California and began Googling the story. “I said, ‘Just give me a minute, will ya?’ “
Vanity Fair loved the idea, which led to a crash course in French wine culture via months of research, trips and reporting.
“It seemed like a classic Max story,” said Amanda Faison, a longtime 5280 staffer who accompanied Potter on his final reporting trip to Burgundy. “There was drama, darkness, power, and within all that, humanity. The fact that Max neither spoke French nor had much wine knowledge was almost secondary. As with his other stories, he would figure out a way to become a quasi-expert.”
The article, published in May 2011, won the Deadline Club Award for Magazine Feature Reporting and led to a book pitch (and more reporting), which spurred a bidding war among publishers.
Potter won’t say how much he earned from Twelve Books for “Shadows in the Vineyard,” but he was drawn to their marketing savvy, which can make or break a title in the crowded publishing market.
Following Potter’s drive to finish “Shadows,” his eye wandered for a different day job. He had done well at 5280 Magazine as the executive editor and then editor-at-large, leading the publication to more awards in his nine and a half years there than it had won since its founding in 1993.
Fate tapped on the glass again.
After being “embedded” for nearly a year with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper as part of a 5280 profile, Potter struck up a friendship with Hick, who convinced him to take “a significant pay cut,” according to a statement in August 2013 from spokesman Eric Brown, to join his team as senior media adviser for $130,000 per year.
“I feel like I’m in this time and this place in the universe with him for a certain reason,” Potter said. “But you try and have that conversation with veteran cynics of the political world and they’re like, ‘Whatever, dude. You’re out of your mind.’ “
It’s not a classic fit.
“It’s hard for me to remain dispassionate,” said Potter, who has difficulty concentrating in the bustling, nearly privacy-free offices at the Capitol.
Save that for his “head shed,” a small structure behind his Platt Park house where he turns ideas into stories.
He enjoys the challenges of working in politics — and there are plenty, particularly since Hickenlooper isn’t the folksy, bulletproof icon he once was. And Potter isn’t keen to rub elbows with most legislators outside his job.
“The politicos hang out here, too,” Potter said as he sipped an Arnold Palmer at CityGrille, a tee-drive’s distance from the Capitol. “Which is why I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been here.”
Nonetheless, there’s a buoyance these days that was missing in his previous years, a buzz in Potter’s professional life thanks to Colorado’s beer-touting governor and a wine-loving country that helped him rediscover his fading wonder.
Lest that sound treacly to the grizzled journos he’s surrounded himself with the past couple decades, Potter — the senior media adviser — still knows how to temper a statement.
“At some point the vast majority of us went into journalism because you have that pie-in-the-sky aspirational notion that you can nudge the universe a little bit,” he said. “I don’t think you can change the world, but if you pick the right stories at the right time and you do them well, you can nudge things a little bit.”
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642, jwenzel@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johnwenzel
“SHADOWS IN THE VINEYARD: THE TRUE STORY OF THE PLOT TO POISON THE WORLD’S GREATEST WINE.” Discussion with author Maximillian Potter and “Colorado Matters” host Ryan Warner. 7 p.m. July 29 at Tattered Cover, 2526 E. Colfax Ave. Free. 303-322-7727 or tatteredcover.com.
