Page 76 of Red Mountain Burning
Emilia didn’t dare speak, and an incredible silence ensued…too powerful to be awkward. The candles flickered between them. For a moment, she caught herself considering the possibility that they weren’t alone down there, almost like dead winemakers were surrounding the table, hoping their bottles might be next in line.
Finally, Otis broke into the quiet like he’d lit a match in the dark. “Though I would like to say I could choose to walk away and into the sunset with Joan, I’m not sure I’d survive. Last time I left for any length of time, I felt like I’d lost everything. I fear I’m bound to this place, for better or worse.” He waved a hand in the air. “I don’t mean to get gloomy. Let’s taste some wine.”
Emilia felt a deep connection with Otis at that moment. She knew exactly what he meant and felt his pain. “Something tells me you and Joan are just beginning your life together.”
“I hope you’re right.” He turned up one corner of his mouth, lightening the mood. “She wants me to wear an eye patch.”
Emilia covered her mouth, stifling a laugh. “Why in the world?”
“Something about my overactive left brain. If I wear an eye patch over my right eye, I can supposedly quiet the left brain for a while. You know Joan and all her wizardry.”
“I love her wizardry.”
“As do I, but there are limits. An eye patch, for God’s sake?” He shook his head and slid one of the two glasses past the flickering flame to Emilia. He lifted his own glass and held it out to her as a toast.
“This is the one from California when I picked in July. Not even Brooks has tried it, but I thought you’d appreciate it.”
No one had ever treated her so much like an adult, an equal. She lifted her glass and stared at the ruby-red wine with brown edges. It felt wonderful to hold a wine of such power. Once again, tears pricked her eyes. What a legendary wine. “Thank you for sharing.”
“That’s what wine is all about.” He stuck his nose into the glass.
Emilia did the same and nearly tumbled inside. It wasn’t about the faint notes of cigar box and raisins, though she did detect those scents at first sniff. She could sense the tartness, which she’d expected from this early picked vintage.
But all those thoughts seemed so unimportant…so…inconsequential. With her eyes closed, Emilia took a sip and leapt past all the flavors she’d studied and recognized and fell into another world. She was in California, and she could see Otis as a young man, still wearing his tweed cap. But this time, he was clean-shaven, and he beamed with the love of Rebecca filling his heart. She could see a younger Rebecca too, and Emilia thought about the two of them falling in love on a bus from San Francisco to Woodstock in the sixties. The pain she felt for him ran away as chill bumps fired on her arms. Her spine tingled, and she nearly lost her breath, and—
“What do you think?” His voice seemed distant, like he’d taken his own mental trip.
Coming back to reality, she looked at him. A tear dripped from her cheek.
They shared a smile, and she felt like she’d just seen his whole beautiful life in a glance. Did he know what she was experiencing?
Another silence followed. Very comfortable and knowing.
Something occurred to her. “I forgot to spit.”
Otis grinned. “I’ve been forgetting to spit for many, many years.” He pushed up and retrieved a steel spit bucket from a shelf. Setting it on the table between them, he said, “Just so we can stay sharp.”
They spent ten minutes discussing the wine. Otis recalled his methods and the specific vintage, one that the critics had loved. Emilia was excited that she’d been able to get past the initial thoughts of a wine and dive deeper as Brooks had been teaching her. That’s where the beauty was, well beyond the five senses. Somewhere deep into the ethereal was the truth in wine.
Otis opened up the wine from Red Mountain. “This,” he said, “we don’t spit. The trade calls thisThe Lost Vintage. Do you know of it?”
“Yes, sir.” Emilia knew exactly what it was. Everyone on the mountain knew about the day two years ago when Henry Davidson had broken in and dumped out Otis’s wine.
“Not much of this one left, but I think you deserve to taste it. You were a part of it, after all.”
“Thank you,” she said, wondering how she’d missed the wonders of wine while living here, like two ships passing in the night.
Otis took her glass, dumped the rest of her California vintage into the spit bucket, and poured her some of the new one. “It really was a wonderful year. Hotter than I would have liked, but I always say that. It was easy farming. By the time I reached the cellar, most of the wine had gone down the drain. We collected everything that was left and blended it together. Varieties from all over the property.”
Emilia lifted it to her nose. Such a different experience from the previous wine. This one was far from hedonistic, but it was much fruitier and tantalizing. It begged to be sipped. The cinnamon and cherry notes were dazzling.
She took a long sip with her eyes closed.
It was perfection. Nothing she could or cared to put into words other than, “So freaking delicious.”
Otis wasn’t paying attention. She looked past the flickering candle and saw his eyes closed, his body still, his fist wrapped around the stem.
Knowing he was paying reverence to the wine, she did the same, returning to it fully. As the juice danced on her palate, she felt like she was melting into the earth, becoming one with the land. Beyond the taste descriptors that only seemed to oversimplify things, she found that this wine tasted like Red Mountain. The marrow of it. She’d not had much experience tasting wines from around the world, but she knew, without a doubt, that she could have identified this wine from hundreds of others. This bottle had come from where she lived. From her home. The pride of that fact rose from the ground and up her legs.
She looked back at Otis, wanting to share all these erupting thoughts and feelings.
His eyes were still closed. This man had done it. He’d mastered his craft by taking himself out of it, by paying homage to his land and bottling the truest sense of it.
Emilia wondered if she’d ever get there. One thing was for sure, though. She wanted to try. She wanted to learn how to farm a wine with this much life, the absolute essence of it.
By the time they climbed back up the stairs, she was not only 100 percent positive that she was not returning to school, but she also knew beyond all doubt that she would work with wine the rest of her life.
