Ellen Crosby - The Chardonnay Charade

“I’ll manage.”

The wall phone in the lab rang. Quinn grabbed it. “Montgomery Estate Vineyard.”

“Come on,” I said to Mick. “We’ll take my car.”

“Do you two always get on like that?” Mick asked as we walked outside.

I could have asked, “Like what?” but there was no point trying to con someone as perceptive as he was.

“No,” I said. “We’re both upset about Hector being hospitalized. And then there’s Georgia’s death. That pesticide should have been locked up. Maybe if it had been, she’d still be alive. So we’re getting on each other’s nerves more than usual just now.”

We reached the Mini. I’d left the top down because of the glorious weather. As I set my cane on the sun-warmed backseat he said quietly, “Well, the viewing is set for tomorrow evening and her funeral will be on Friday morning. Once the police find her killer, then maybe Ross will have some peace. And so will everyone else.”

As we got in the car, my mobile phone rang. Quinn, calling me.

I flipped it open. “Miss me already?”

“Like a toothache after it’s gone,” he replied. “Listen, Mary Sunshine, I’ve got some news. That call was the EPA. They’re coming out to pay us a little courtesy call next week. And the guy I talked to sounded like he’s planning on playing hardball.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“What do you think I told him?” he retorted. “Your wish is my command. He wants to see all our paperwork, the whole megillah. We got a week to get ready.”

“We’ll be ready.”

“Like we have a choice? Have a nice tour.” He hung up.

Mick was watching me. “Everything all right?”

“Just fine,” I said, and put the car in gear. “The EPA is going to drop by next week. Come on. I’ll take you to see the vines. At least for now, it’s still business as usual around here.”

It is a truism among winemakers that good wine is made in the vineyard—as opposed to the winery—which means that all the additives in the world won’t make a silk-purse wine out of sow’s-ear grapes if we’ve botched things up in the fields. I planned to take Mick through the south vineyard because of its spectacular view of the peaceful, layered Blue Ridge Mountains and because we’d managed to escape any damage from the freezing temperatures among these vines. Here, at least, we still had the promise of a good harvest.

I cut through the parking lot to the south service road and veered off-road at the first opportunity, so we were driving alongside the large orchard.

“Are you going to be all right?” Mick asked. He’d laid his arm across the back of my seat, without touching my shoulder.

“We’ll be fine,” I said, aware of his arm and the pleasant, masculine cologne he wore. “You know, if you’re serious about setting up a vineyard, you really ought to be talking to the people at Virginia Tech or the agricultural extension office. They’re the experts.”

“Oh, I’ve rung them,” he said. “But I wanted to talk to you, too.”

“Why me?”

“Because we’re alike, you and I. I heard how you took over this vineyard after your father died and what you’re doing to make a go of it,” he said. “I also heard about what you went through after your accident.”

I could feel the color drain from my face. “Ross told you about that ?”

“Lucie.” His fingers brushed my shoulder. “He didn’t violate doctor-patient confidentiality. I didn’t mean that at all. But he did tell me about you.”

I pulled over and stopped the car by a pale pink clematis that twined through the split-rail fence. I felt, just then, like the Wizard of Oz when Toto pulled back the curtain and the old man stood there in front of Dorothy and the gang, exposed, vulnerable—and feeling like a fool.

“My medical history,” I said coldly, “has absolutely nothing to do with running a vineyard.”

“On the contrary,” he said, “it has everything to do with it.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re so determined to beat the odds.”

“No offense,” I said, “but I do know a thing or two about making wine. Unlike you.”

“None taken,” he replied. “And I didn’t mean to upset you. It was the farthest thing from my mind. I’m terribly sorry.”

We sat in silence for a while until Mick said, “Those apple trees look quite old.”

I appreciated the change of subject, even if it had been anything but subtle. “There have been apple trees on this land since my family settled here after the French and Indian War,” I said. “When Lord Fairfax received a land grant from the King of England, he made each of his tenants agree to plant either apple or peach trees as a condition of their tenure.”

“Sounds like the English,” he said. “Look, if you’re not still angry with me, do you think we could take a look at your grapes?”

“I’m not angry,” I relented. “But I don’t like talking about what happened to me. It’s in the past. It’s over. I’ve dealt with it. Now I just want to move on.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll keep it all business from now on. You have my word.”

“Thank you.” I noticed he’d removed his arm, along with the easygoing manner.

“Do you sell apples as well as grapes?” The question was crisp and formal.

Maybe he wasn’t used to anybody talking back to him. Well, tough.

“Yes. We have two orchards.” I matched his tone. “Here we’ve got all the classic varieties—Winesap, Granny Smith, Macintosh. We let people come and pick them in the fall, then use what’s not picked out to make cider. In the other orchard we’ve got more exotic varieties. Those we sell to the local grocery stores.”

“What about your grapes? What do you grow?” He’d pulled a small pad with a slim pen attached to it out of his pocket.

“Right now only vitis vinifera. My mother and Jacques, our first winemaker, were French and they wanted to plant the so-called ‘noble grapes.’ Our whites are Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc. Reds are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Pinot Noir.”

He wrote swiftly. “What about the new fields? What’s going in there?”

“We just ordered the rootstock.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “Norton, which is a native Virginia grape. Also Viognier, Malbec, Seyval, Syrah, Petit Verdot, and Cabernet Franc. The last two are blending grapes.”

He noted those as well, then said, “I’m surprised you’re going to grow blending grapes, rather than only straight varietals.”

I expected a remark like that from a neophyte. Maybe Quinn was right about how much Mick knew about the wine business—or how little.

“Growing blending grapes gives you more options when you produce wine,” I explained. “In America a wine can still be called a particular varietal—like Cabernet Sauvignon—as long as it contains at least seventy-five percent of that grape. We’re more liberal than the Europeans. They require eighty-five percent of the primary grape.”

He nodded like he might have known this, so I continued. “Because we can blend up to twenty-five percent of one or more grapes and still have the varietal, we can experiment until we get a better wine. Something that’s more complex and interesting. Basically, the whole can be better than the sum of its parts.”

I started the car again. “Let’s go over to the established fields so you can see how far along each varietal is. The whites are the first to develop, which is why we harvest them first—but I’m sure you know this.”

“Yes.” He closed the notepad and stuck it in his shirt pocket.

We motored between blocks of vines as I pointed out the various grapes and gave him a quick history. A light wind blew steadily, rustling the leaves and the garnet-colored bailing ties we used to secure the vines to the wires. The late-morning sunlight filtered through the mostly open canopy, gilding the grapes and transforming the young leaves so they seemed almost transparent.