Page 114 of Gone With the Wine

“Hemlock? As in…poison?”

“Yep.”

“I’m still not sure she wasn’t trying to poison her science teacher,” Rosa says with a grin.

“People were only sniffing it!” I say with a laugh.

“Remember the time you were going to Evan Rivera’s place to do homework?” Gianni asks me. “And we all followed you to make sure you were okay?”

“Aaah! You stood outside the house yelling! I was mortified!”

Everyone is laughing at the memory. “How about the time you and Vitto dared Leo to moon cars passing by on the road?” I say to him.

“Oh, Jesus.” Leo swipes a hand over his face.

“You did it,” Rosa reminds him, grinning.

“People were lucky to see my perfect ass.”

We all crack up laughing again. “How old were you? I think your ass was pretty scrawny,” Vitto says. “You probably traumatized people.”

“How about that time Rosa punched Harvey Clark,” Gianni says.

Jake’s head whips around to stare at Rosa. “What?”

“He was picking on me,” Gianni continues. “He was a mean kid, he liked to bully people. She came to my rescue and hit him right in the chops. He never bothered me again.”

Jake grins. “I love that.”

I get up to fetch another bottle of wine. Vitto follows me to the kitchen. “Tell me more about Argentina,” he says, setting his empty glass on the counter. “The wines you were making.”

I fill his glass, then mine, and lean on the counter. “Castillo Lorenzo is in the Luján de Cuyo region of Mendoza. The wines are very terroir-driven.” I give him a saucy smile. “There are four secrets of the Andes.”

“Are they top secret? Or can you tell me?”

I laugh. “The first is the dry weather and sunlight.” I don’t have to explain to him how that helps concentrate colors, aromas, and flavors. “The second is the soils. They’re actually very poor, but well drained. The third is water and irrigation. They don’t get much rain there so they have to irrigate. But the melting snow from the Andes is amazing.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“And fourth is the altitude.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.”

I nod. “The different elevations make a whole range of weather. Perfect conditions for malbec.”

He nods. He knows exactly what I’m talking about.

“So it’s exciting working with grapes that have that kind of concentrated flavors and balanced acidity.”

“All malbec? No, wait. Your award is for cabernet franc.”

“Yes!” I’m still excited about that. “But we’re mostly known for the malbec. The unique terroir makes it really powerful and robust.”

“It’s different focusing on bringing out the attributes of the region rather than a varietal-first approach.”

“Yes!” Passion for wine, also the glasses of wine I’ve consumed and having someone like-minded to talk to loosen my tongue, and Vitto and I get it into it.

“Congratulations again on that award nomination,” he says a while later with a sincere smile. “It really is impressive. I hope you win.”

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