Queenie Legrand

Queenie and Roux have been best friends since school, and they were room mates at college.

Queenie’s family is loaded, she was born into a winemaker dynasty. Her parents own vineyards and breed horses- the latter more as a passion than a business. Maybe old money and connections would have spoilt Queenie if she had grown up living the life of a pampered rich girl.

But the family lived deep in the country and they set their kids to work. Queenie mucked out stables, played in the dirt and helped with the vintage like any of their employee’s kids, and she worked hard. She loved the horses and caring for them, and working for the family vintner business was a matter of course.

Queenie is a practical and straightforward down-to-earth girl, but she can change into sophisticated upper class lady in a heartbeat. Decorum and social graces were equally important to her parents, and Queenie is grateful for it. Sophistication is part of her business-personality, as she calls it.

She has a degree in oenology and viticulture, but she mostly works as a wine broker and marketing representative for the family business. Queeny hosts wine tastings for private buyers and sommeliers, deals with wine merchants and works with the family marketing agency.

One of the downstairs rooms has been transformed into a tasting room. Ludivine’s interior design of the room has gotten her new clients more than once. All four of the friends benefit from the fact that all of them basically address the same kind of clientele. Private clients, hotels, companies- people who have the means and an interest in interior design, vintage wine or architectural services are often identical or know each other, and recommendations have been a steady source of new clientele.

Queenie’s private personality is very much that of a horsewoman. Practical, assertive, calm and pretty indifferent to dirt when she’s outdoors. She gets up very early every morning to ride her Lusitano gelding Raziel, and she loves the outdoors exercise. Queenie has a dry sense of humor, and she’s a really good poker player.

She has a secret, though: She doesn’t like wine. She doesn’t like the taste of it, and she only takes a sip when her work requires the show. She’d much rather have a beer. But her family would probably consider that treason, so don’t tell.