Page 128 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
She smiled sweetly at him and decided it might be fun to spend the afternoon sparring with Thomas.
The wine-tasting experience began with a tour—albeit brief because of the freezing weather—of the vineyards, where their guide spoke about viticulture and how soil acidity and mineral levels in different regions affect the vines.
He talked about the challenges and perks of growing vines in England, and Thomas had an opinion on almost every point. Kate could see people rolling their eyes, and she felt embarrassed for Thomas and for herself as his date, as if having been assigned to him made her a know-it-all by proxy.
There followed a warmer tour around the winery itself. They found themselves in a large room with a mixture of large steel canisters and wooden barrels, which felt sterile against the wildness outside. Thegleaming floor tiles and shiny steel tubes gave a strange science-fiction vibe to the ancient art of winemaking.
Thomas madeahmmmnoises and said “Yes, yes” in agreement with the vintner as he talked. Kate noticed a space forming around them.
The guide explained the wine-making process, and Thomas helpfully added one or two tips of his own. The guide smiled and his left eye twitched. Thomas had been to several wineries in France and Italy, and he felt it was important to regale the group with the differences he’d found between them.
“Why don’t we let the nice man tell us aboutthiswinery?” said Kate quietly.
“Knowledge should be shared,” said Thomas. “I’m taking nothing away from this good man’s expertise.” He gestured to the vintner, who nodded and smiled graciously. “I’m just sharing what I know to enhance the experience.”
He then went on to cast doubt over whether an English wine could really match those made in a more Mediterranean climate. The vintner’s mouth thinned to a fine line, and Kate wondered if he was thinking about shoving Thomas into one of the steel barrels.
The winemaker led them down into a long, thin, brightly lit cellar with an arched ceiling and wine racks stretching its length. He gratefully passed the baton to the sommelier and left, shaking his head. Kate was glad for the winemaker that he was surrounded by alcohol; he looked like a man who needed a drink.
A long wooden bench ran down the center of the cellar and the group positioned themselves around it, though Kate noticed they left a fair gap around her and Thomas. Although she had barely spoken, it seemed Kate would be given as wide a berth as her date.
The sommelier walked reverentially up and down past the wine racks, pulling out bottles here and there and placing them carefully onthe bench. There were rows of wineglasses on the bench and ten metal buckets on the stone floor, and Kate guessed these were for spitting out the wines tasted; she hoped the spitting out was optional.
The bottles were opened and an explanation given for each before they were poured. Kate followed the instructions for optimum appreciation; she swirled the wine around the glass and watched to see whether it lapped the sides thickly or swished without a trace and how fast the droplets rolled down the glass.
“It’s all about the viscosity,” said Thomas. “This is how we tell if a wine has legs or not.”
The sommelier smiled graciously.
“Very good,” he said. “I see we have a connoisseur in our midst.”
Kate cringed. Thomas beamed.
“I dabble,” he said. “I travel a lot with work, meet a lot of important people. It pays to know your Sauvignon from your Malbec.”
Next was smelling the wine. Kate put her nose into the glass. It smelled like wine. Others in the group had a finer-tuned nose than hers. They threw out words likelavenderandblack currantsand the sommelier smiled, pleased.
“Good,” he said. “Blexford Manor grows lavender commercially nearby this estate, and the scent affects the vines. The same with the black currants; the hedgerows are full of them, and it all has an effect.”
“I’m getting the sharp scent of buttercups in a beer garden,” said Thomas. “And a hint of Victorian petticoat.”
Kate laughed but saw that Thomas had his eyes closed, his nose thrust back into the glass again. She could see couples mouthingVictorian petticoatto one another and sniggering. She felt a bit sorry for Thomas. She sniffed at the wine again. It still smelled like wine.
They moved on to the actual tasting and Kate was confident thather sense of taste would be better than her sense of smell. As instructed, she sucked the wine in and let it sit on her tongue before swirling it around her mouth. She had swallowed her mouthful before she realized Thomas was chivalrously holding the bucket for her to spit into.
“Oh,” she said, looking to the sommelier. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said. “It doesn’t feel natural to be spitting out a good wine, does it? Toothpaste is for spitting, wine is for swallowing.”
There was a ripple of laughter in the cellar as several others confessed to having swallowed their wine too.
“If you’re not driving,” said the sommelier, “then fill your boots. It is Christmas, after all.”
Another taste (followed by another swallow) and the sommelier asked for a response to what they’d tasted. A few people, including Kate, said berries, blackberries in particular. Some said apples; one person came up with baked plums, which delighted the sommelier as the estate had both an apple and a plum orchard.
“I’m sensing a floral petulance at the back of my tongue,” Thomas announced. “Yes. I’ve come across it before in Italy. This is a rich wine; I’d drink it with steak or venison. That sour note of crushed dandelion leaves stops it from being too gaudy.”
Kate drained her glass and prayed for drunkenness. The sommelier opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again, unable to summon a fitting response.
