received a shipment he’d sent. Nothing to set the world on fire, but still. Didn’t you know about this?”
“Nope. Not a word. What makes you so sure Leland didn’t sell the letter already?”
“It’s in his study in one of those hollow books where you hide things.
“Family didn’t mean much to Leland.” I removed the napkin and examined my finger intently. “I guess no one knew that better than his children.” I looked up at him. “But, yes, I’d love some help finding a buyer. Maybe someone in that Blue Ridge Consortium.”
“Uh.” His eyes crinkled and he looked puzzled. For the first time I noticed deep marionette lines on either side of his mouth that belied the boyish features. “Why do you mention them?”
I shrugged and turned on the faucet under the bar, running my finger under cold water. “I found a letter from Nate Midas with Leland’s papers. He was asking for money. I don’t know why Leland got one of those solicitations, under the circumstances. But a ten-thousand-dollar donation? I guess you need real money to be part of that group. If they’re interested in preserving historic sites, maybe one of them would be interested in a historic letter.”
He lined up corks from the bottles he’d opened like a kid playing with soldiers. “I was thinking more of contacting the folks at Monticello. Or Sotheby’s.” He swiped at all of the corks with the side of his fist dumping them into the palm of his other hand. “I’d better clean this up and see what Dominique needs. And you’d better get over to the barrel room.”
“Sure.”
He walked through the arched doorway that led to the wine library and the offices. I left for the barrel room in the dreamlike twilight. It was too early for the fireflies but the crickets were singing in full voice. Somewhere beyond the courtyard two bullfrogs called back and forth to each other.
Had Joe clammed up when I mentioned the Blue Ridge Consortium or was I imagining it? If the group bought land to turn it into parkland—preserving the wild and historic places in the region—was it possible the person who approached Leland about selling was representing the consortium? Fitz said whoever it was had offered a lowball price and Leland refused to sell. Had the buyer been one of the people Leland stiffed for money?
Maybe this was about revenge.
During the past two years when I’d worked at the Perfume Museum in Grasse, I’d honed my sense of smell, learning to distinguish a number of essences without knowing beforehand what they were, a useful talent in wine making as well. Perfume has three notes—top, middle, and bass—which refer to their volatility, or the speed with which they diffuse into the air. When a bottle of perfume is opened, the first fleeting scents are the top or headnotes, which disappear almost instantly. Next are the middle notes, which are the heart of a perfume, until finally what lingers are the forceful bass notes. My life seemed as layered and complex as the most exotic scent right now.
The bass note, or what stayed with me, was the need to hang on to the vineyard, whatever it took to do it. The middle notes, or the heart notes, were pretty clear, too. I had to find out what really happened to Leland—and Fitz. What eluded me were the top notes, the headnotes. There were too many of them and they were too ephemeral—the unknown person who wanted to buy the vineyard and whether Eli was involved in that, Fitz’s murder, Dominique’s money woes, and now the news that Quinn might have been involved in embezzlement and fraud before he came to us.
What I needed to do, before I could understand the headnotes, was to stay with the heart. I needed to probe it and understand its essence, which somehow seemed to have its origin in Leland’s death.
Chapter 15
When I arrived in the barrel room, Quinn was already talking to a small group of people, including a heavyset woman wearing enough bracelets to rival the percussion section of a small orchestra and a broad-brimmed hat that threw everyone around her into shadow. She was visiting from England.
“No, ma’am,” he was saying. “In the United States we name our wines by varietal, not region. It’s different than Europe. A wine in this country can be labeled with a particular varietal designation—like Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir, for example—as long as seventy-five percent of the wine is made from that grape.”
“Give me a good Bordeaux any day,” she said. “I’m a bit of a purist.”
“Actually,” Quinn said politely, “most of the great Bordeaux are blends of more than one kind of grape. It gives the wines more structure and complexity.”
“You don’t say.”
The barrel room, dramatically illuminated by electrified candles in wrought iron wall sconces and recessed can lights glittering like tiny stars, was becoming more crowded. Someone had placed the hurricane lamps we’d used at the outdoor dinner on the tables where Angela and I had arranged the wineglasses. The flickering light from the real candlelight made the huge room seem warmer and more intimate. I preferred it like this, moody and romantic, rather than the heavy industrial lighting we needed for working purposes.
Quinn introduced me as one of the owners but it was clear he was in charge. He stood behind a large old barrel on which my mother had stenciled the vineyard’s twining vine logo and used the top as a table for his notes and bottles of wine as everyone gathered around him. On the wall behind him hung another one of her cross- stitched prints, our logo and a quote from Plato—“No thing more excellent nor more valuable than wine was ever granted mankind by God.”
I stared at the print and thought of her as Quinn began talking, raising his voice so he could be heard over the hum of the fans and the gentle gurgling of the glycol-and-water solution circulating inside the refrigeration jackets on the stainless-steel containers. For someone who’d only been here a few months, he’d done his homework about our history.
“We’ll start with our newest Chardonnay,” he said, moving to the tables behind and filling rows of glasses about a quarter full. “We just released it, so congratulations, everyone. You’re the first to try it. It’s been aged in French oak for about seven months, then bottle-aged for another year. My predecessor, Jacques Gilbert, used French-oak barrels exclusively, which are sweeter than American oak. We’re going to be mixing things up from now on and this year’s harvest will be aged in barrels purchased from a Missouri cooper. Come back in two years and see if you can tell the difference.”
I leaned over and said in his ear, “I didn’t know that.”
“That French oak is sweeter than American oak?”
“That you were switching to American oak.”
He smiled for the benefit of the crowd and murmured to me, “You do now. Let’s get these glasses filled, shall we?” He raised his voice and added, “We’re also planning to keep some Chardonnay exclusively in stainless steel. We’ll get a brighter fruit that way.”
Another news flash. Jacques would have had a coronary.
I helped him pour wine in silence, then we passed glasses through the crowd. “We always start tastings with the lightest wines,” he said. “This particular Chardonnay comes from some of our oldest vines. The older the vine the more complex the wine.” He raised his glass. “To your health, everyone.”
There was a murmured response and quiet clinking of glasses.
Quinn turned to me. “A good harvest.”
“A very good harvest.”
We drank in silence. The wine reminded me of Jacques. Elegant and smoky like the French oak he loved. Okay, some sweetness. What would Quinn’s American-oaked wine taste like? Big and brassy? Definitely no sweetness.
“So how old are the vines this wine comes from?” the English woman asked.
Quinn raised an eyebrow at me. “Uh, probably…eighteen to twenty years old. Or thereabouts.”
I nodded. “Probably.”
He leaned over. “I asked you for that information the other day. And where you bought the root stock.”
“You’ll get it,” I said. “As for information, in the future I wouldn’t mind getting briefed about your plans in
