Page 84 of Blush
“I think we need some time apart.”
“Asher, don’t push her away. Let’s focus on saving the winery, okay?”
“How?” His eyes were hidden behind those ridiculous sunglasses, but the break in his voice betrayed the extent of his worry.
“I’m not sure, exactly. But we’ve both, in one way or another, been controlled—or, in my case, sidelined—by Dad our entire lives. For once, we need to push back. And we’re going to start by talking to Mateo.”
They resumed walking, Asher muttering something under his breath. Outside the barn, Javier piled equipment on the back of a truck. Leah called out, asking if Mateo was inside.
“He’s in the reds,” Javier said, pointing to the farthest outskirts of the vineyard.
Leah and Asher continued walking under the high morning sun. As bad as things were at the moment, it was hard to lose hope surrounded by the lush new life, the sugar-rich grapes. Veraison—the process of the grapes turning colors—never failed to amaze her; the Malbec was changing from green to red, the white grapes from dark green to golden yellow.
She spotted Mateo among the Malbec vines.
“Hey there,” she said.
He looked up at the two of them and stopped what he was doing. The sun had burnished his complexion, making the chiseled angles of his face even more striking. She wondered what was going on between him and Sadie. She’d been waiting since the night of book club for another clue, or even for Sadie to confide in her. But nothing.
“Oh wow; this Merlot is still really green,” she said, looking at the fruit. Beside her, Asher shifted impatiently.
“It’s old,” Mateo said. “The older plants go through veraison more slowly.”
Leah knew that. She’d been thinking about it—and the fact that the older plants produced fewer fruit but the fruit they did produce was higher quality. Maybe she should take something from that. And so should her mother.
This was no time to give up.
“Mateo, I don’t mean to interrupt your work, but I have some questions I’m hoping you can help me with. Chris said if we wanted to produce rosé this year we have enough reds. Do you agree?”
“Oh, come on, Leah,” Asher said. Mateo looked at him, hesitating.
“Don’t pay attention to him,” Leah said with a wave.
“We have the grapes. The question is how your father allocates the use of the reds and the tank space.”
“When does that have to be decided?” Leah said.
“Before Labor Day.”
August was the calm before the harvest storm. It was a time of waiting, letting the vines do their work. It was also the window before decisions about production would be made, a window that would be closing quickly. In a month, her father would start pulling fruit to test sugar and pH to see when it was time to begin harvest. Leonard would be deciding what fruit was suitable for what wines.
As hard as she’d tried to leave the winery behind her, to start a new life in New York City, the rhythm of the vineyard was like musclememory. It was a part of her. There was little Mateo could tell her that she didn’t already know. She wasn’t sure what she was searching for out in the field today.
“Mateo,” she said, “I’m going to ask my father to earmark some of the reds for rosé. I don’t know if he’ll listen to me, but I’m going to try. I asked you once before, but now I need to know even more urgently: Is there anything else you would recommend?”
“There’s a more efficient way to do the netting,” Mateo said.
Putting protective netting around the grapes was a labor-intensive process that took weeks. Once the fruit hit a certain sugar level, it attracted predators. The vineyard was on a major migratory path for songbirds. Leah had seen blocks of starlings descend, and it was biblical. One year, her parents lost an entire Cabernet Franc crop to deer. Vivian had recounted seeing a wild turkey swallow an entire grape cluster, gulping it down like a pelican.
“Oh? What is it?”
“Instead of covering the entire tree and needing to be installed every August and then removed for harvest, there’s a perennial netting that only covers the fruit. We wouldn’t have to remove it. You just undo the ties and pull it down and it doesn’t bother anything and you can hedge the crop—you can do anything.”
“Why hasn’t my father switched to this yet?” She glanced at Asher.
“It’s too expensive,” Asher said.
“Well, the initial investment is expensive,” Mateo said. “But in the long run you save a lot of time and money. It’s becoming industry standard.”
