Page 16 of My Fake Italian Marriage

“Escorting you to the cellar.”

Drat. There went any hope of avoiding him today. “Okay, but first I need a shower.”

A breakfast tray sat ready in her room. Creamy cappuccino and a basket of pastries, all still hot. Carbs. At this rate she’d have to up her morning runs to ten miles.

She showered quickly, pulled her hair into a messy bun, swapped her glasses for contact lenses, and eyed the strappy sundress she’d packed before settling on plain black trousers and a blouse patterned with orange and green flowers. As much as she’d prefer to dress for the heat, today was for work and she needed to look the part.

And work she did, burying herself in piles of correspondence, order forms and tax paperwork. Grudgingly, she had to admit she couldn’t have done it without Luca. He was much more reliable than a translation app, and knew more about the business than he’d let on. Maybe he could be persuaded to take over the business side of the vineyard from his father after all?

There was less regulatory paperwork than she expected, though.

“I thought it would require a great deal of bureaucracy to maintain the Wine of Origin classification required for the local Brunellos?” She’d spent a couple of hours on the internet last night, researching the regulations for the local wines to receive DOC or DOCG certification.

Luca dropped his gaze. “My father says he doesn’t have time for all that nonsense. And we don’t make the Brunello wine. Or the Super Tuscans. They take too long to mature.”

A Brunello required two years of ageing to achieve DOCG status, she recalled. But the best wines were aged for four or five years. The Rosso di Montalcino, made from the same Sangiovese grapes but matured for only one year, was a much easier wine to make money from, even if it didn’t attract the same high market prices. From a business standpoint it made no difference to her whether this vineyard received awards or Wine of Origin accreditation, as long as it made a profit.

Which it didn’t.

Luca’s tone and expression suggested he didn’t share his father’s opinions, but she didn’t question him further. She didn’t have time for family politics or his opinions on wine, so she focused back on the business audit.

Once again, Pierina delivered them a hot lunch, this time a thick tomato soup accompanied by bruschetta from the oven.

“You are a goddess,” Luca told the older woman, kissing her cheek. Since he’d spoken in English, Pierina clearly didn’t understand him, but she patted his arm indulgently as if he were a child and not towering over her.

Cleo stretched out her stiff back and rolled her neck, pushing away from the desk. The break was welcome, and once again she allowed herself to be persuaded to sample the wine Luca offered. A Barolo from the Piedmont region this time. “Don’t you ever drink your own wines?” she teased, surprised when he averted his gaze, as if embarrassed.

After they’d eaten, Silvio gave them a tour of the winery. Though the closest she’d been to a wine farm in years was the brief tour Sarah had given her of the Castel Sant’Angelo winery she and Tommaso had inherited from Sarah’s estranged father, Cleo immediately noticed a few obvious differences.

They passed through filtering and processing rooms, cellars and store rooms, all clinical, high-tech stainless steel, with none of the traditional wooden barrels that Tommaso used to age his wine. The Fioravanti winery was also clearly not set up to welcome visitors.

“No tasting room?” she asked.

“We don’t sell direct to the public,” Silvio answered.

Cleo frowned. Tommaso and Sarah did good business from the passing tourist trade.

They ended the tour at the loading bays, where the vats could be rolled onto the back of trucks and transported away for packaging. “You don’t do your own bottling?”

She caught Luca’s fleeting look of embarrassment though he quickly suppressed it.

“What aren’t you telling me?” She arched an eyebrow as a reminder that he’d agreed to be honest with her.

Was that a blush? “Fioravanti Vineyard does not bottle its wine. These days, we send all the wine to a packaging plant to make box wines.”

If she hadn’t known before that Luca was a snob, she did now. “And what’s wrong with box wines? The packaging is environmentally friendly; there’s a higher ratio of wine to packaging than with bottles; the production costs are lower, and most box wines are as good as their bottled equivalents.”

Her arguments had long ago won over her father, who had been a bottle purist, but Luca’s expression was only one degree away from a sneer. “Yes, most box wines are as good as their bottled equivalents, but not all wines are equal.”

What did that mean? She glanced at Silvio, but since their conversation had taken place in rapid English, he merely shrugged.

Luca grabbed her hand. “If you want the full tour experience, then you should taste our wine.”

He pulled her back towards the last of the storage rooms, where the wine was stored in smaller stainless-steel vats before being sent away for packaging and distribution. He half-filled a glass from one of the vats and held it out to her. “This is the wine that is scheduled to be packaged and sold within the next month.”

She breathed in the bouquet, trying to look like she knew what she was doing, then took a cautious sip. And pulled a face. She might not be a wine connoisseur, but she’d drunk enough wine in her life to be able to tell good wine from average wine. And the Fioravanti wine wasn’t just average. It was the type of cheap wine she’d drunk in her uni days, when she’d lived on a tight budget and couldn’t afford better quality. Austere, with a slightly acidic aftertaste.

“Exactly,” Luca said. “This wine is not yet ready for sale. It needs to mature. But in two weeks we go to the trade show, where we’ll sign contracts with all our major distributors to sell this wine as is.”

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