Maurice-Richard Hennessy

The Vintner

Text by Josh Sims

Portrait by Olivier Lalin

"It's where you want to go if you want a proper drink," says
Maurice-Richard Hennessy. To a swanky five-star hotel bar or velvet-roped nightclub? "The working men's clubs of Newcastle and Wales -
they're heavily subsidised, comfortable and the men who go there don't want any rubbish." The advice is all the stranger coming from Hennessy -
not only because he is an erudite, middle-class, middle-aged French gentleman vineyard owner, but also because his name gives him away as a member of the Hennessy family. That would be the one that has been making fine cognac since 1765; the "H" in luxury-goods empire LVMH.

"The name certainly has more advantages than disadvantages, especially around cognac, and there are not many parts of the world now where the name does not give most people a little tingle," he says, his Berluti loafers undercutting an otherwise salary-man attire. "I remember once passing through US Customs in San Francisco and the officer asked me if I had any samples. I joked that she could get it in the shops. Back then I was still impressed by how well known the brand name is."

These days that renown is, in part, down to Maurice-Richard choosing to pick up where his grandfather left off. He is part of the eighth
generation of the Hennessy family since ancestor Richard emigrated from Ireland and began making what was then still called brandy, and is now the
only family member still involved. (His father opted to become a nuclear physicist.) Hennessy is the brand's ambassador, with the not-unenviable
job of travelling the world, espousing the spirit's merits and annually clinking glasses with royals and celebrities in a private box at the Hennessy Gold Cup, Britain's oldest established horse race. When he is not doing
that, Hennessy, the man, is growing grapes to sell to Hennessy, the company, to make Hennessy, the cognac.

"First and foremost I'm a farmer, which I love," he explains. "It is
something I want to build up and one day leave in good health to my daughters. But, of course, I grew up with cognac: my father giving me a piece of sugar soaked in cognac on Sundays, or an ounce of wine - a very good Bordeaux, mind. When I started drinking cognac I didn't really
like it. But, of course, while I think it's more important to look forward, I'm conscious of the family heritage. Then the taste comes until you like it very much."

He is not alone. Though once seen as a luxury good with a secondary function as an economic barometer - if sales of cognac go down, watch out, yacht brokers - the spirit now seems to be bucking the trend. And this despite its prices, which reflect the fact that it takes nine litres of quality wine to make one litre of cognac. Once perceived as an old man's drink, cognac has been repositioned as stylish sup - in Russia and China by
the newly rich, and in the US and UK through hip hop. In 2007, Hennessy was rap's third most frequently name-checked brand, after Bentley and Rolls-Royce. Hennessy may be an unlikely habitué of working men's clubs, but he's an even unlikelier rap fan.

"Some of it is amazing work - physically very challenging, some
clever play with words, even if a lot of it is very rude," he notes. "But certainly, Hennessy now has a much more youthful image."

Everywhere, it seems, except in its homeland. Ironically, explains the French face of an iconic French product, the French are hardly cognac connoisseurs. "People in France aren't ready to spend the money. They drink cheap whiskeys, cheap vodkas, whatever's cheap," he says. "It's true that so much of Hennessy's advertising plays on being French and its French heritage. But, you know, there's a reason why it's all in English..."

Nick Cave

THE WRITER

Text by Fiona Sturges

Portrait by Gavin Evans

"Ambitions?" says Nick Cave, raising a dubious eyebrow. "Oh no,
definitely not. I've never had any of those." The Australian musician is reflecting, in his thoughtful, sardonic way, on the course of his career, from rock'n'roll bad boy to renaissance man. "I think one idea that I had early on was that all the songs and all the writing were part of a bigger picture," he says. "An attempt to create a universe that is sort of Cavean, and where all the characters are part of a community. I guess that community expands and deepens, but it's a very particular type of world."

Particular, maybe, but no longer rarefied. Since John Peel favourites the Birthday Party took shape over 30 years ago, led by Cave, his output has grown to encompass the worlds of music, film and literature. He is one of our most distinctive, if adopted, cultural figures, a reluctant icon for whom the notion of fame holds little appeal and who nevertheless possesses many of its supposed accoutrements - a one-time heroin habit, a beautiful wife, ex-model Susie Bick, an impeccable wardrobe and a son, Jethro, who has lately become a model himself. Cave remains infallibly cool - no mean feat for a 50-something man with dyed hair and a handlebar moustache.

"It's definitely taken some time to get to grips with what I do, to
recognise my place and be confident with it," he reflects. "There's always a little bit of embarrassment when you put this music or writing or whatever out there."

This seam of uncertainty exists in spite of the fact that pretty much everything Cave does is greeted with unfailing respect. His albums are held in lofty regard, his live performances reveal a magnetic showman and his film scripts, such as that for award-winning thriller The Proposition, have been widely lauded.

More recently, there has been a novel, his second in 20 years.The Death of Bunny Munro tells of a priapic hand-cream salesman who, following the suicide of his wife, seeks refuge in female flesh, while wilfully ignoring the needs of his son Bunny Jr. It is, says Cave, "an adventure into the imagination" and was "hugely enjoyable to write, certainly compared to writing songs, which is like giving birth to a watermelon through the tiniest fucking aperture. With the book, there was no gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands."

The book is only part of the story, however. In a unique merging of mediums (and a canny step in the face of a faltering publishing industry), The Death of Bunny Munro has been released, unabridged, on iTunes, read by Cave and featuring a score by Cave and his long-term musical collaborator Warren Ellis, as well as in a CD and DVD box set and as an iPhone app. Cave has also been touring the book in theatres as a full-blown performance, complete with visuals and backing band, handily timed to coincide with the re-release of a series of Birthday Party albums and the release of White Lunar, a new collection of his film music with Ellis.

Whether this new approach will change the way we read fiction remains to be seen, but it has clearly galvanised Cave. As he points out, his incarnation as a writer of the darkest prose is really an extension of what he's been doing for decades. "I've dedicated myself for years to the art of writing, in one form or another," he says. "I'm preoccupied by all the same things." Sex, death, damnation? For Cave, it's all in a day's work.

JAMES FRANCO

THE POSTER BOY

PORTRAIT BY JENNIFER LIVINGSTONE

If you have paid even the most fleeting attention to men's fragrance advertising of late, you will have seen that the usual sea of voiceless handsome faces has been parted to make way for a wave of up-and- coming actors. It's like the fragrance industry had an epiphany and suddenly understood that interesting men are impressed by other interesting men. In short, a pretty face on its own doesn't cut it any more: men want values for money. Gucci's attempt to provide this comes in the shape of Californian actor James Franco, who it has recruited as the face of its Gucci by Gucci Pour Homme fragrance. It's a fairly inspired call. Franco recently graduated from UCLA, having returned to his studies after an almost 10-year hiatus that began when he dropped out in his freshman year to pursue acting and landed a part in Paul Feig's cult US comedy series Freaks and Geeks. He puts the unusual amount of time he's spent in education down to "moving to LA and having my eyes opened to the fact that people actually pursue acting as a career," and to "having a break with Freaks and Geeks that was an ongoing commitment, after doing some really bad jobs. Like Pacific Blue, which was a cross between a cop show and Baywatch. On bikes." Furthermore, despite the fact that he has four major movies coming out over the next year, he is taking a break from the big screen to go back to school again, this time to Columbia to study writing under Michael Cunningham of The Hours fame. "I think the book world works in a similar way to the film world," he says, when asked if he thinks anyone will take his writing seriously. "Success too often comes down to what you can publicise, what you can get on Good Morning America. I think Nicole Ritchie has a book out and I don't want people to think that I'm trying to pull that one. At least if I study, when the critics come gunning for me I can say I've put myself through an education and done what every writer does." Perhaps the integrity he displays through his obvious love for the craft of acting will help, too. After graduating from Freaks and Geeks straight into playing Robert De Niro's son in City by the Sea - he would go daily to watch De Niro work, despite their having only three scenes together - and landing a long-running role as Harry Osborn in Sam Raimi's Spiderman fran- chise, he recently took a huge career risk by accepting a role as a gay hustler opposite Sean Penn in Milk, Gus Van Sant's biopic of Harvey Milk, America's first openly gay elected official. "Gus has been a hero of mine since before I was even acting, when he did Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho," Franco says, "so doing Milk with two of my heroes - going to San Francisco to shoot with the real people from Harvey Milk's community and getting involved in that really authentic energy - was one of the most special jobs of my life."

Isaac Lock