Page 118 of Blush
“Little Leah!” she said in the same lyrical accent that had so delighted Leah as a girl. “Hearing from you... life is just full of surprises.”
Vivian stepped forward to embrace her. “I never stopped thinking about you,” she said.
“Nor I you,” Delphine said, still with a smile that hinted at mischief. “Read any good books lately?”
Leah and Vivian shared a look.
“Actually, we both have,” Leah said. “And we’d love to talk to you about it later.” She checked her phone. Sadie still hadn’t returned from her trip to JFK to meet Maria Eugenia’s flight. She couldn’t start the ceremony without them. More important, she couldn’t finish without them: Leah planned to have everyone take seats after the Harvest Circle ceremony. She would give a speech about offering them an exclusive chance to preorder a case of the rosé they would make from that night’s starter yeast, and conduct a Q&A about harvest and winemaking. Sadie would go around with her digital credit card reader and process any orders they might get.
She checked her phone; Sadie texted that they were still twenty minutes away because of traffic on the Long Island Expressway.
“Let’s get these bottles poured,” Leah said to her mother and Peternelle, who was one step ahead as always and had a full tray of Cabernet Franc. The air filled with the sound of corks popping, the fizz of sparkling white filling flutes, and the buoyant laughter as people greeted one another.
“A toast,” Leah said, climbing up to stand on a chair and raising her glass. “To friends, to harvest, to the next great vintage of Hollander Estates wine that will be in no small part possible because of all of you here tonight.”
Everyone raised their glasses with big smiles, unaware of how literally she meant her words.
Fifty-nine
They formed a circle under a blanket of darkness, the only light coming from the star-filled sky, the full moon, and the flickering candles. The evening had cooled from the low eighties to the seventies, and a breeze blew in off the water.
The ring of women around the veranda was two-deep, and in the center, a table with a large glass jug filled with freshly pressed Chardonnay juice. It was the same carboy her father had been using every year since she was little, as the tiny chips around the rim and scuffs along the sides reminded her. Leah stepped forward, looking at the happy, expectant faces surrounding her. Only her mother looked tense.
“Promising a vintage of rosé is just going to make it that much more humiliating when we announce the closing,” Vivian told Leah in the days leading up to the harvest. She was always so worried about surface appearances, she missed opportunities to make fundamental changes. There was no room for that kind of thinking anymore.
And it was up to Leah to prove that.
“I’m happy to see so many familiar faces here,” she said. “Thank you for joining us to celebrate the most special time of year at the vineyard, the harvest. I’m always reminded at harvest that a fundamental element of wine is terroir, or taste of a place.” Leah had spoken the wordscountless times over the years during her classes. But they had never meant more to her.
She’d read somewhere that a person could change everything about herself except her place of origin. And she’d seen this truth about the human condition play out in the book club novels: the heroines of each story managed to reinvent themselves, but they were always driven by their childhood experiences. Billy Ikehorn Orsini, no matter how rich and famous she became, was always a shy, overweight girl inside. Lucky Santangelo, no matter how powerful, was still the girl who lost her mother. And Leah, no matter how happy or successful in her life in Manhattan, was still the girl who had stood in that very spot, watching her glamorous mother with her friends, dreaming of the day when she would be a part of the winery herself.
She took a deep breath. “Hollander’s very first vintage of rosé will have a terroir created in part by the places that mean the most to all of us. And since your contributions tonight will literally help create this vintage, we’re offering exclusive presales of the Hollander rosé at the conclusion of the ceremony.” The women nodded, a few murmurs in the crowd. “Now, before we get started I want to say that the tradition we’re sharing tonight was started by our special guest, Maria Eugenia Argueta. Maria, along with her husband, Javier, began our practice of all contributing something to the starter yeast. And because of that, I’d like her to do the honors of adding the first item to the grape juice.”
Maria Eugenia was no taller than five feet, with deep-set black eyes that were still bright and sharp. Her salt-and-pepper hair was thick and wavy, tied back in a loose knot. She looked reluctant to step forward. Of course—the woman had just flown in from another country. Leah hadn’t meant to put her on the spot; she just wanted to give credit where credit was due.
Slowly, Maria Eugenia moved to stand beside Leah. Camera phone flashes went off, and Bridget climbed onto a bench to start shooting.
“Tonight, I give something from the garden outside my husband’shouse here, the home where we started our family.” She placed a smooth white stone into the pot.
She returned to her place in the circle, and Vivian stepped forward. She wasnotreluctant to be the focus of attention. Her flawlessly tailored dress moved along with her like liquid, the gold necklace at her throat glinting in the candlelight. Surrounded by people on the veranda, her vast life’s work on display everywhere Leah could possibly turn to look, Vivian was in her element. She looked every bit the matriarch, the Earth Mother as declared on the cover ofTown & Countryall those years earlier. She was finally back center stage at her winery, where she belonged.
“My husband and I moved out here nearly fifty years ago when this land was a potato farm,” she said. “His family were vintners back in Argentina. Coming to the North Fork, I hoped we would build something that our children could continue. Something that could be shared for generations. Tonight, you’ve all become part of the future of Hollander Estates. And I thank you so much for being here.”
The crowd applauded, and Vivian’s lower lip trembled. Taking a breath, she said, “The first fruit we planted was our grape crop. But I had a real yearning for apple trees, and so we planted those next, knowing they would take years to bear fruit. And this apple I’m holding is the fruit of that tree.”
Sadie helped her steady the apple to cut off a slice, and Vivian dropped it into the grape juice.
One by one, their guests stepped forward and shared their offerings. Sadie contributed a leaf from outside her dorm: “Bringing my two worlds together.” Delphine brought a crust of bread from one of the restaurants she owned with her husband. Leah added a piece of rind from the English Wensleydale cheese she’d first spotted the day she told Steven she wasn’t returning to New York City. The first day she admitted to herself that her heart had never left those green fields.
When the circle was complete, the contents of the glass jug resembled a bizarre sort of white sangria, the grape juice inside nowmixed with flowers and fruit, small stones and twigs. The most interesting part would come over the next twenty-four hours, when fermentation would start. The juice would begin to look fizzy, with fine, tiny bubbles. Her father had taught her that this was not carbonation but “effervescence.” After a few days they would remove all the things they’d added to the juice, strain it using a colander and cheesecloth, and then take a cup of that fermenting juice and add it to steel tanks. But for now, they just had a colorful concoction that held the promise of what was to come.
Vivian stepped forward one more time, clanging her glass until the buzz of the crowd quieted down.
“I want to thank you again for your contributions here tonight. A wise friend once told me, when women gather, there is power.” She turned to look at Delphine, then back to the wider crowd. “And I’ve never felt that more strongly than I do standing here with all of you.”
The women broke into applause, and then the circle closed in, its members gathering around Vivian and Leah, pulling wallets out of their handbags, happily snapping photos of the glass jug, and asking, “Is there a limit to how many cases we can order?”
With her adrenaline pumping, Leah waved Sadie forward to organize a line and start processing the sales. Suddenly, in the shadows of the veranda, she spotted Mateo and Javier. Of course—they couldn’t wait to see Maria Eugenia. Leah beckoned them over, welcoming them. Mateo took quick, long strides to reach his mother, who laughed with delight at the sight of her husband and son. She hugged them both for a long minute, then turned excitedly to Vivian.
