by Janet Dailey
The heady bouquet of fermenting wine filled the air as she walked determinedly on the tree-lined path to the winery. Alisa had no idea at all where she could find Zachary or where his office was. Shortly after reaching the clearing, she realized that she didn't have to be concerned about it. She remained motionless for a moment in the shadow of the trees, staring at a Zachary completely shirtless, his torso gleaming with perspiration until he resembled a bronze statue. She tried to shake away the unnerving feeling, telling herself of the many men she'd seen dressed in much less at swimming pools and beaches. But Zachary seemed surrounded by an earthy virility that was disturbingly compelling.
Finally she forced her gaze to include the man at Zachary's side. With the barest acknowledgment of relief, Alisa recognized Paul. She felt sure Paul would preclude any forced intimacy that Zachary might have attempted. Armed now with fresh confidence to face her husband's all-encompassing vitality, Alisa walked forward with poised, sure strides.
"Well, well," said Zachary, as he turned his head in her direction at the crunching of her canvas shoes on the gravelled road. "Look who's finally entering the parlour of the spider."
"Hello, Zachary, Paul," Alisa said calmly, halting beside them. "Nora went into town to see her grandson so I volunteered to bring your lunch."
"Alisa," Paul acknowledged with a wide smile and a nod. "You're looking very well, as usual."
"There seems to be a fresh glow on her cheeks," Zachary's gaze danced over her face. "Maybe it's just that I'm accustomed to seeing you so immaculately dressed that I've forgotten how enchanting you look with your hair flying every which way, like that morning in Las Vegas when we were married."
"Trust him to remember that," Alisa thought in irritation, but forbearing to say it aloud: "I wish I'd known you were here. I could have had Mrs. March get you some lunch, too, Paul."
"I had a very late breakfast." His blue eyes glowed at her warmly.
"Where would you like me to—" The rest of Alisa's sentence was broken off by the sound of spinning tyres racing up the hill road. All three turned to watch the bright red sports car brake to a halt beside them in a swirling dust-blown haze. Alisa's lips compressed tightly as she recognized Renée behind the wheel. The convertible top was down, so instead of climbing out, Renée stood up and perched herself on top of the back seat.
"Isn't this convenient," she exclaimed. Her dark eyes rolled admiringly from Zachary and Paul to burn brightly at Alisa. "I came to let you know that Papa has set the date for our party. It will be a week from this Saturday. You all can consider it a formal invitation."
"A party?" Alisa questioned.
"Papa always has a party to celebrate a successful harvest. It's very small and informal and loads of fun. Isn't that right, Zach?" She turned her full charming smile on him.
"It's a little windy with the top down, isn't it?" Zachary said with that enigmatical smile playing with the corners of his mouth.
"You know how I like the feel of the wind running through my hair. It reminds me of … well, you know what it reminds me of," Renée finished coyly.
"Where did you want me to put your lunch, Zachary?" Alisa asked sharply.
"Paul, show her where my office is," he directed before turning back to Renée with an arm stretched out against the car to brace him. "How was your harvest?"
With rigidly squared shoulders, Alisa accepted Paul's guiding hand. Zachary had dismissed her rather smoothly, she thought with glowering anger. Shooing her off so he could go ahead and play. Her throat tightened as she heard Renée's husky laugh trailing after her.
"Doesn't she know where your office is?" If Renée hadn't meant Alisa to hear that remark, she could have lowered her voice by several degrees. But Alisa knew she was meant to hear it so that the point could be driven home more sharply that she was the outsider and not Renée.
Paul led her through a large double door, down a twisting corridor amid stacks of large barrels to a small hallway. There he opened a door into a large, but sparsely furnished office consisting of one desk and chair and a large table surrounded by stiff wooden chairs.
"This is Zachary's office which occasionally doubles as a tasting room," Paul announced. "You can put the tray on his desk. He'll be in shortly, I'm sure."
Alisa wasn't that sure, but she put the tray down on the desk as he had directed. She glanced idly around the room, allowing her gaze to trail out the door to where the barrels they had just passed were still visible.
"What are those barrels for?" she asked.
"They're used for wine in various stages of ageing," Paul replied, stepping with her to the doorway for a better view. "All the casks you see are made out of French oak. Would you like me to show you around the winery?"
The making of wine always seemed so mysterious to Alisa that she agreed readily. Besides, she wasn't exactly eager to return outside where Renée and Zachary were evidently still in conference.
"Then I suggest we begin at the beginning with the grapes," Paul smiled, pausing at the doorway for Alisa to precede him.
Again they went through the twisting corridor, only instead of ending up at the double door to the outside, somewhere they had taken a turn and were entering another building. They walked to the front of the building where grapes were being unloaded into a large machine.
"This is the stemmer/crusher, a Garolla type used by nearly all the California vineyards. It put the grape-stompers out of business," he added with a gleam lighting his twinkling blue eyes. "The grapes are fed into the machine either by lugs or in this case, by hopper so that our large gondolas can be emptied all at once. Paddles revolve inside the cylinder, popping off the stems of the grape and breaking their skins at the same time. On the other side of the machine, the stems are blown out. Here we're working with white grapes," he pointed to the green-gold globes of fruit that were tumbling into the machine. "These will go from the crusher to a press where their juice is squeezed from them before fermentation begins."
Paul had already led Alisa on to examine the press, nodding and dodging workmen as they worked their way on.
"Red grapes ferment first so that the desired colour and other characteristics of red wines can be extracted from their skins." He was leading her on again to stand amidst a group of enormously tall tanks. "Here's where the fermentation takes place. The redwood tanks on this side of the building are for red wines. As you can see, or perhaps you can't," Paul laughed as Alisa attempted to stand on tiptoe and was several feet away from the top, "the top of these tanks are open. But oxygen is a deadly enemy for white wines, so their fermenting tanks are closed."
"What are those things at the base of the tanks?" Alisa asked.
"Those are cooling devices to control the temperature of the fermentation. Occasionally, you'll see men inserting a thermometer to make sure that the fermentation is not taking place at too rapid a pace. Fermentation is the conversion of the sugar contained in the grape into roughly equal parts of alcohol and carbon dioxide. There are vents on the closed white wine tanks to allow the carbon dioxide to escape. Nature's way of allowing grapes to ferment is for the various strains of yeast that grow on the grape skins in the vineyards to develop. But that's rather unpredictable, so we've selected yeast strains that are kept in the laboratories from one harvest, or vintage, to the next. 'Vintage wine' is really a misnomer, since vintage refers to the grapes gathered in a given year. Some years are better than others, which has brought about the use of the description of a vintage year. If you want to watch the fermentation process, we can go up on the catwalk overhead and look into the red wine tanks," Paul offered.
Alisa nodded quickly, growing more intrigued with each moment. She followed Paul along to the stairs, grateful for his steadying hand as they made the steep climb. Walking practically amid the rafters of the building, Alisa was thrilled with her new vantage point. She could look right down into the tanks to see the frothing white foam seething on top of the juice while inhaling the heady scent of fermenting g
rapes.
"It takes from one to two weeks before the major part of the fermentation is over. In the case of rosé wine they're allowed to ferment with their skins on for only a few hours rather than several days. This is to prevent them from acquiring too much colour from the grape skins," Paul continued. "They're drawn off into other casks, leaving the skin sediment behind. When the fermentation process quiets down, the new wine is moved to regular storage tanks or casks." After allowing her to pause and watch the process, he led her on once again, taking her down the steps to the main floor, then to another building. Here were more enormous tanks, some made of wood and others were shining, gleaming stainless steel. "Collectively these bulk containers are known as cooperage and come in various sizes and materials ranging from wood to stainless steel to concrete. Each winemaker has his own particular reason for using one instead of another."
There was a sense of timelessness about this room, Alisa discovered as they wandered slowly in the shadows of the cooperage forest. Here it seemed that time stood still. All was quiet within the walls, waiting with expectant silence. It was a peaceful hush that held the promise of fulfillment.
"So this is where you've carried my wife off too," Zachary's voice echoed loudly with its mocking tones into the silence.
Paul laughed easily–something he wouldn't have been able to do a few short months ago, Alisa realized.
"Hardly, Zach," he answered. "Just revealing to her all the mysteries of wine-making."
"In that case, there's a call for you from San Francisco. You can take it in my office." Zachary's long strides quickly brought him abreast of them.
"I got Alisa as far as the cooperage. You can take her on from there," Paul replied. His blond-brown head turned to Alisa, smiling at her fondly while his eyes roved over her regretfully. "Zach can explain everything much more ably than I can, anyway."
"You underrate yourself, Paul," Alisa said softly, wishing there was a way she could tell him that she didn't want to be left alone with her husband, especially in this deserted building.
"Still playing around with him, huh, Alisa?" Zachary stated once Paul was out of sight. Like a fish on a hook?"
"All we did was go through the winery. What could be more innocent than that?" she retaliated.
"I understand he's been down to the house several times recently," he persisted.
"On the patio in full view of anyone who wanted to watch." She glared at him coldly. "Can the same be said for all your visits from Renée?"
"Always fighting every inch of the way, aren't you?" Zachary smiled with almost disinterested amusement.
"The best defense is a good offence, right?"
"Where you're concerned, yes," Alisa replied. She turned her back to him and stared firmly at the huge wooden tanks. "Tell me, how long do the wines stay, in these containers?"
"Why are you trying to change the subject?" he laughed. "Afraid?"
"Yes."
"I didn't think you would be honest enough to admit it. Are you afraid of me … or you?" He seemed closer to her than before, even though she had heard no sound of footsteps.
"What an absurd question!" Alisa walked away with a disgusted shrug of her shoulders. "I'd like to see the rest of the winery. If you're not interested in showing it to me, I'll go up to the office and wait for Paul."
She turned to see his reaction to her ultimatum. He was watching with amused thoughtfulness. It was difficult to meet his look, but she did so defiantly.
"Are you really interested in the winery?" he asked.
After all, it is my husband's business," she retorted with all the sarcasm she could put into the words.
"That's never concerned you before, so I hardly think it's your reason now. Therefore I must assume you are interested," indolently disregarding her challenge.
"Now, forgive me if I repeat some of the things Paul has already told you." Zachary was immediately all business, speaking in clear, concise language that captured Alisa's interest despite her antagonism. "The wines are held here in cooperage for various lengths of time that are solely dependent on what the end product is to be. Wines that are to be drunk in the full bloom of their youth are bottled after a few months. Other wines that are going to be held for a longer period of ageing are racked or moved from one container to other successively smaller casks. This could mean a time period of over a year to three years." With a firm grip on Alisa's arm, he guided her to the rear of the cooperage building down a flight of stairs to a cellar. "There are two reasons for changing wine containers; one is to make the wine clearer with each change and the other is to intensify the changes brought on by ageing. You've already seen where we store some of the bigger casks in the building containing my office. We store a few more down here." A sweeping hand spread out before her to show more stacks of slightly smaller barrels.
"At the far side," leading her along as he spoke, "is where we stack the cases of already bottled wine, referred to as binning. It used to be that individual bottles were stacked, but it's been found that putting them in cases means there are fewer handlings and better protection from the light. Here again they age for a few weeks, months, or years, depending on the winemaker's wishes." His eyes dwelled on her attentive features. "Today wine isn't made strictly for the rich. It's for everyone. With the many different varieties of wine on the market today, there's certain to be a wine that pleases anyone's taste buds. The expensive imported wines are still around to be used as a social symbol for the rich, but more ordinary people in the United States are discovering the pleasure of a glass of inexpensive wine with their meals."
"Where do you do the bottling?" Alisa asked.
"In another small building behind the office. I can't take you through there today since it's too small. I hope to enlarge it next year," Zachary replied with a polite but incredibly distant smile. "There are variations in the making of dessert and sparkling wines, but I'm sure you've seen the basic process today, enough to confuse you without boggling your mind with the solera process for sherries. Now I'll take you back upstairs and point the way to the house."
"Meaning I've trespassed on your preserve for as long as you'll allow me," Alisa retorted sharply, jerking away from the hand that sought to help her up the steps.
"Meaning I haven't eaten my lunch, I'm hungry, and I have a great deal of work to do!" This time there was the fire of anger in his eyes. "And I'm in no mood to bicker with you!"
"The message has been received, sir!" Her eyes glittered coldly under her cynical mask of subservience. "It's a pity I'm not as easy to handle as Renée."
"It certainly is." A fatigued look of boredom crossed his tanned face as he glanced at her briefly.
With a flash of temper, Alisa raced up the steps to the door. Halting long enough at the top for Zachary to point the way, she hurried down the long aisle to another door that led to the outside. Zachary didn't follow her, evidently taking another exit that would lead him to his office. She took several deep breaths in the clear air, determined to check her anger so that no one else would see her loss of composure.
"Hello there! Tour all finished?" Paul called out from where he stood beside his car.
"Yes, yes, it is," Alisa replied with forced lightness. "Where are you off to?"
"Nowhere in particular. I was just going to make a few calls on some distributors before going into San Francisco. Is there something you wanted?" he replied as Alisa made her way calmly to his side.
"Nothing special," she breathed in deeply, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of Zachary's office. "I was just going to offer you something cold to drink since you've already had lunch."
"I can spare the time," he smiled. "Do you want to ride down, or shall we walk?"
"Let's ride. My feet have done enough walking through the winery." Alisa laughed, letting her gaze trail over his pleasantly attractive face with the sandy blond hair and blue eyes. She realized she was making a petty attempt at revenge for Zachary's frequently stated desire that she
have little to do with Paul, but she didn't care. She wanted to get under Zachary's skin and irritate him the way he irritated her. Also there were a few things she wanted to find out herself, and Paul would be the perfect person to supply the answers.
Once they were settled on the patio with a pitcher filled with lemonade and ice, Alisa kept the conversation on the winery and the different things she had seen. She surprised herself at the way she could manipulate Paul and the situation. She hadn't realized she could be quite so resourceful. Slowly she led the subject around to Renée and the approaching party.
"What do you know about Renée and Zachary?" Alisa asked, adding hastily at Paul's startled expression, "before we were married, of course."
"They were together a lot," Paul replied after a pause to enable him to choose his words carefully. "I think almost everyone expected them to marry. Especially Renée, which is probably the reason you don't see much of her."
"Why do you suppose Zachary didn't marry her?" Alisa frowned slightly. "I guess women are always curious about who their husbands knew before them. But it just seems like their marriage would have suited him perfectly."
"True. Mr. Gautier made no bones about wanting Zach to take over his vineyards," Paul agreed, slowly warming to the subject in spite of his reluctance to discuss it with Alisa. "It's not as if he was trying to palm an ugly daughter off on Zach either. Renée is a very beautiful woman, a little too spoiled in my opinion, but beautiful."
"I would have thought it was everything Zach would have wanted. I'm sure Mr. Gautier would have given him the money to modernize this vineyard." Alisa was getting nervous. Again the terrible doubt came up as to the reason Zachary married her. If he could have got all he wanted from the Gautiers, then why did he marry her and insist that it was the money?
"I'm sure he would," shrugged Paul. "Still, Zachary is an obstinate man, who very much wants to be in total control of his own destiny. These last couple of years the Stuart Vineyard has been able to make enough of a profit to make its own improvements. Renée is a pretty demanding woman. I imagine Zach decided to enjoy her company without entangling himself with marriage for profit."