Blind Tasting

by A. C. Houston

He smiles, remembering to look straight ahead. "Why not."

  "I see a trash receptacle for your bag," she tells him confidentially.

  He sees it, too, but lets her guide him to it.

  "And there's another great little inn near Calistoga. The cottages are set back in an olive grove and they give you a bottle of complimentary champagne." The blonde in the blue beret has discovered Rob and has one hip thrust toward him while she tells him about romantic getaway destinations in the wine country.

  But Rob’s mind is on Dawn, unhappy that she's wandered back into the winery with that vintner from Two Ravens. "Oh yeah?" he replies to the blonde, not knowing what it was she just told him.

  He notices Cory and suddenly looks Blue Beret in the eyes, the first real eye contact he's given her. It dazzles her for a second, until he says, "Excuse me, please."

  Rob approaches Cory and touches him on the arm, mindful of their ruse. "What's your plan?"

  "If it's okay with you guys, I'm going to do dinner up in Geyserville."

  Seeing Rob's startled expression, Julie says, "My idea. I can give him a ride so don't worry about the logistics."

  "Sure, Co-, no problem." Rob remembers they've not used Cory's name here. He's just the Taster.

  Cory suddenly feels guilt about his dog. If he takes Snoots to Geyserville it means several more hours of wearing the harness, of not being fed. "Rob, can you take Snoots back to my place? He needs some down time, off-duty."

  "You sure you're okay without him?" Rob knows there is no white cane prop in the Mazda for Cory.

  Julie gives Cory a confident smile. "I can be your stand-in guide, no? Let me just say good-bye to Denis and Joe."

  After she leaves, Cory speaks quietly to Rob. "Is this insane?"

  "It's your call, Core." Rob gives him a light nudge. "She's definitely hot. And, you did great today."

  "So did you, Rob. You're amazing and you know what I'm referring to. Will you make sure Dawn gets home okay?"

  "I'm on it."

  "Can you lead me over to Joe Trella? To thank him."

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Trella Barrel Room. Toby refills Dawn's wine glass. They're sitting at a rustic, wooden bar in the more intimate confines of the barrel room. Beyond the bar is a cavernous region that extends back, descending into deep man-made caves that were built into the side of the hill decades earlier.

  Rows upon rows of large barrels, all oak from Bordeaux, are stacked two high. These are the casks that contain the wines of Trella, the dark fermenting juices of success and fortune.

  Toby turns sideways on his bar stool to face Dawn more directly. "With your background you'd probably make a damn good vintner. There's a lot of chemistry."

  She smiles. She's feeling more relaxed than she's felt in months. Cory, and Snoots, pulled off the tasting today with flying colors, and she's been drinking excellent wine this afternoon, and eating incredibly delicious food. Like the ricotta-stuffed, roasted red pepper, whose remnants are on the little plate in front of her.

  She knows she has Toby's full attention and continues to flirt with him. "It's all chemistry. But, that's like saying everything is made of atoms. There's the science of chemistry and then there's...the magic of chemistry."

  He stares at her in deepening fascination. "So what's the draw to the wine world for a scientist like you? What's Blind Tasting? A hobby?"

  "An investment. Obviously I like wine."

  Rob comes up to them, holding Snoots by his harness. "So, our guy is doing dinner in Geyserville with one of the wine judges. We're taking Snoots. You ready?"

  She swings around on her stool to regard him. It's immediately clear he is not in the same state of mind that she is. She hates to leave this cozy little corner of the wine world just now.

  "I'm really enjoying this glass of cabernet syrah at the moment. Trella's 2004 Spinto from their Oakville vineyard." She eyes Toby. "Did I get that right?"

  Toby nods and positions himself slightly closer and more possessively to her.

  Rob pets Snoots possessively, assertively. "Snootsy needs to get fed and kick back."

  Toby looks at Snoots. "First day on the job for him?"

  Rob cocks his head sideways, eyes just slightly narrowed as he looks at Toby. "He's not used to crowds yet when he's on duty."

  Snoots nuzzles Dawn, wagging his tail. He'd like her to come, keep the pack together.

  Toby looks at Rob with an even gaze. He's got twenty years on this kid and he's going to pull rank. "Is he on duty now?"

  "No." Rob turns back to Dawn, softening his gaze. "So, you want to go after you finish your wine?"

  She looks into his beckoning green eyes, then looks away. She can't go there.

  "I can give you a ride," Toby says, "if you feel like staying. Joe has a late harvest riesling he was talking about opening. After the crowd leaves."

  She considers this. "That would be a long drive for you."

  "Not really. I've got a Ferrari." Toby arches an eyebrow at her. "And a radar detector."

  She tosses her head back and laughs. "That sounds downright dangerous."

  She really wants to stay. And there's Rob, waiting. Sweet-natured, handsome Rob whose hands she admired on the ride up today. She doesn't want to think about that. Instead, she gives him a guilty look. "Would you mind awfully if I stayed? I owe you one."

  His engaging eyes look away from her. She tries to catch his glance again, but he is avoiding eye contact with her now. He looks down at Snoots. "Let's go, boy."

  Snoots turns and trots ahead of Rob, tail high, still in his seeing-eye harness.

  Dawn watches them leave, athletic Rob in his black polo shirt and Snoots' black-and-tan shaggy coat. For a moment, she feels a pang of loss, a sudden panicked need to follow them.

  She turns back toward the bar and sees Toby's dark eyes watching her. An older man. And very manly. He looks comfortable here, it's his world. She smiles at him. It's not her angelic smile, though, it's her jousting smile.

  "The dog is nice," Toby asserts. "I wasn't trying to diss him. I used to have a pair of spaniels, Brittanys. They'd get a scent and be gone for hours." He refills her glass.

  She's feeling a buzz from the wine and gazes more directly into his eyes. "Dogs have amazing noses. Our scent world to them would be flat and featureless, with just a big blob of smell here or there. You know, seaweed at low tide, then nothing for miles, burning tires, then nothing for miles, men's cologne, nothing for miles."

  He smiles at her. "Sounds bleak."

  She nods. "But the world dogs can smell is more like 3-D in living color, full of intertwining strands and coils of scents. A million paths to explore, to surf. Their Internet."

  Toby leans closer to her, defining an intimate, exclusive space between them. "My Brittanys loved to track prey; squirrel, rabbit, even skunk. They'd roll where a skunk had sprayed. Isn't that irritating, even to dogs? My guys seemed to love it."

  Dawn muses on this while resting her elbow a bit closer to his. "They would hate a direct hit in their eyes. It's a deterrent, after all, loaded with thiols and their acetate derivatives. But some of the compounds are probably more volatile than others."

  "You make chemistry sound so damn sexy."

  She laughs, the jousting smile has a touch of wickedness now. "Got a pen?"

  He reaches into the breast pocket of his chambray shirt and hands her one, watching her, mesmerized.

  She takes the napkin next to her plate and begins to sketch an organic molecule. She draws a methyl group, two hydrogen atoms and a mercaptomethyl surrounding a pair of double-bonded carbon atoms.

  She orients the sketch toward Toby. "Something like this, (E)-two-butane-1-thiol, is probably the real kicker for the irritating reaction in the eyes and skin."

  He admires the sketch. And Dawn.

  "And something like this" -- she draws a second sketch lower on the napkin, a double benzene ring with nitrogen and a mercaptomethyl hanging off it -- "two-quinoline-methane-thiol, is no
t nearly as volatile and wouldn't produce such a strong reaction, just an interesting odor. Your dogs could be excited by it, want to roll in it."

  Toby's hand touches hers on the napkin. She doesn't move her hand away. He looks into her eyes, enjoying this dance.

  "What about the shape of a wine tannin? Can you draw that?"

  She smiles seductively at him, flips the napkin over and begins another sketch. Their knees are touching under the bar as Toby admires her new molecular handiwork.

  Rob pulls into a gas station in St. Helena and fills up his tank. It's after seven, but the mid-July sky is quite light still.

  Snoots is happy to be riding in the front seat now without the constraining harness. He and Rob seem to be on a toot, and that's just fine.

  Rob feels restless. It's why he headed north through Napa instead of heading home.

  He buys a bottle of water at the gas station and a candy bar and looks at his iPhone. There's a lake nearby that he could check out. Snoots would enjoy a little free roaming around after his big day. It's a short drive from here.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Geyserville. Julie relishes the ambience as she drives her late-model BMW through the small settlement. There is a tractor store across the street from the restaurant, and the little stretch of commerce along the road fits well with the surrounding bucolic agricultural setting.

  She parks the car and guides Cory's arm as they cross the road, walking toward Salud. The air has cooled a little in the evening light, and she enjoys the warmth from his sleeve against her hand. His arm suggests strength beneath the cotton fabric of his shirt.

  Cory sees the massive wooden door of the restaurant entrance through his dark glasses. Instinctively, he anticipates holding it open for Julie, then remembers just in time that he can't see the door. He waits for her to open it.

  They enter a large room which has the air of an old-fashioned, western-style saloon. Half a dozen people are sitting at the bar. Several turn their heads in casual interest at the pair who have just arrived, a good-looking redhead on the arm of a blind man.

  Julie leads Cory through the bar to an archway that opens into a dining room of Spanish decor. Her eyes search for the maitre d' at the same moment that Todd French, who is seated across the room with a group, sees her.

  He gets up from his table and crosses the room briskly to greet her, hand extended.

  "Julie Laroche, is it not?"

  She smiles politely, trying to place his face. "Have we met?"

  "Todd French. You gave my Rhapsody cabernet cuvée a gold medal at the Bay Area Artisan Wine Competition."

  "Oh right, the Redwood City cuvée. Let me introduce you to...the Taster of Blind Tasting." She realizes she doesn't have another name for him, and it might be awkward to ask him just now.

  Todd looks at Cory with growing interest and takes his hand, pumping it. "The blog? No way! I didn't get the irony in your title until now. That's actually good."

  Cory feels himself descending deeper into the pit.

  Julie thinks Todd's remark is tasteless and is looking urgently for the maitre d’.'

  Todd beckons them with his arm. "Come join us. Thurston Bradley is here from The Wine Hound with a couple of lifestyle writers from the Bay Area."

  When Julie says nothing, he adds, "We'll be sampling a 2005 Clos l'Eglise Pomerol that Thurston brought."

  Cory remains miserably passive, concerned that if he takes the initiative here he'll do something unblind, he'll look at Todd or gesture at something. He's in dangerous waters.

  Julie glances at him and can't read him at all. She tells Todd, "That would be far too generous of you to share it. Anyway, we want to explore Rockpile vintages tonight."

  "Oh, we'll order some good wines from the menu. Come on!"

  Thurston Bradley, a suave forty-something dressed in an Italian silk sweater, has risen from the table and is coming their way. He bestows a kiss on Julie's cheek, shakes Cory's hand, and shepherds them both to the table of the winerati.

  Lake Hennessey, Napa County. Rob ambles along a deserted stretch of shoreline, with Snoots, who is now off-leash. They had shared the bottle of water with Snoots lapping some of it from a styrofoam cup.

  Rob pauses for a moment to skip a stone across the surface of the water and Snoots stops to spritz a bush with urine, he's marking this new territory as his own.

  The sky has deepened into reds and golds along the horizon and deep purple to the east, a beautiful, soft night. Many stars are out, and Rob's keen eyes pick out several constellations he's known since childhood.

  Unhappily he thinks about Dawn again. He pictures her in his mind: slender, pale-skinned, her intelligent, expressive face framed by her beautiful dark hair.

  Then he pictures how she looked with her glass of wine at the bar, flirting with a winemaker who was old enough to be her father, almost. He hurls another stone across the lake's surface, but it splashes loudly without skipping.

  Dawn is scary-smart, but she's easily caught off-balance, vulnerable in unexpected ways. Rob realizes that he has no idea how to pursue her. She's not like Kelly at work.

  He feels a genuine fondness for Kelly; they've enjoyed a few lust-filled weekends together, but it's not love.

  Rob knows that Kelly likes to hang out with professional race car drivers at places like Long Beach and Laguna Seca. She's definitely a babe and, as the shop's concierge, she ensures that the owners of two-hundred-thousand-dollar machines feel they are being properly tended to by J. Hamilton Motorworks. Besides picking up and delivering cars to the homes of affluent clients, Kelly is the one who usually drives the Ferraris and Lamborghinis and Porsches and Mercedes out of the service bay into the glossy-floored waiting area.

  Rob smiles to recall such times; guys never seem to mind signing the paperwork when Kelly hands them the clipboard in her form-fitting shirts and tight jeans.

  He doesn't doubt the chemistry he feels with Dawn, it was there between them the first night he met her. But her world is so different from his, she's a molecular biologist, a scientist. He's just a mechanic. And, she can throw up a shield around her emotional core in a second.

  That winemaker had been knocking back a lot of wine, he probably isn't sober enough at this point to drive anywhere, much less down 101. And he has a Ferrari. Shit.

  Instantly, Rob decides to drive back to Trella, in case Dawn is still there. He won't let her get in the car with that guy. He promised Cory he'd see that she got home. In one piece.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Salud. The table of the winerati has numerous opened, and partially consumed, bottles of red and white wines. Multiple wine glasses are crowded in front of the large plates of nouvelle-Sonoma cuisine that have been placed in front of each diner. Cory and Julie are seated across from each other, with Todd French between them at the end of the table.

  Bonnie Witt, one of the Bay Area lifestyle writers, is avidly tweeting on her smart phone next to Cory. She's an almost anorexic twenty-eight-year-old, who wears her black hair in a pixie cut. Her turquoise chandelier earrings swing as she tweets.

  She looks up for a moment to announce, "Trudy from the Wine Gazette says Two Ravens got panned at the Trella tasting today."

  Todd puts down the glass of petite sirah he's been sampling and pulls an iPhone out of the inner breast pocket of his sports jacket and consults his Twitter following that is local to Napa.

  He raises an eyebrow as he scans the latest tweets. "Toby isn't going to like this. La Bianca is now wondering whether Two Ravens got over-hyped recently? Ouch."

  Cory fumes at these words. They're a personal affront to his reviews of Toby's wine. It's true he didn't care for the Two Raven's choice today at the blind tasting, but how can anyone think the inky full-mouthed 2007 Fire Lake zinfandel is over-hyped? Digital gossip is still just gossip.

  Julie shakes her head emphatically. "Two Ravens did not get panned. Toby Rovati's wine is still in the cask, My guess is that it will develop its balance
over the next few months."

  Privately, she wonders why the Taster didn't react more positively to it, given his precise analyses of the other wines today. Something for them to talk about later If they ever get a chance.

  She takes another bite of braised rabbit with caramelized fennel over bucatini and fresh tomato ragout. Whatever else, the Taster certainly has steered her to an excellent taverna this evening.

  Will Rover, an intense, twenty-six-year-old metrosexual, throws a question at Cory. "What's your take on the barrel products from the Sonoma coast producers?"

  "That's a region of Sonoma I haven't really been following yet. We're still ramping up with the blog, we're...understaffed."

  Cory shifts uncomfortably in his chair and remembers to reach carefully for the glass of zinfandel in front of him.

  "So that's why we haven't run into you at wineries.” Bonnie holds up her iPhone and snaps a picture of Cory. “I guess you have a driver?" she asks, as she puts the phone down, and picks up her fork to nibble a bite of the parsnip-parmesan ravioli in walnut-chive reduction on the large square plate in front of her.

  Cory feels the walls closing in. He shakes his head, trying to maintain his composure. His left foot is jiggling excessively under the table.

  "The wines are delivered to me. I like to do my tastings in private, without the pressure of having the winemaker right there."

  "But how can you do barrel tastings then?" Will presses him.

  "I'm trying to find close approximations to benchmark wines that have received high scores from the major wine critics. So I tend to focus on wines in the bottle." Wondering if he sounds like a bumpkin in front of these wine professionals, he adds anyway, "Even though today was not the best one I've sampled, I think Two Ravens makes excellent wine."

  "Meet-up at Cava Cava in progress," Bonnie announces, consulting the FourSquare social media app on her iPhone. "Trudy's there now with Hagan and Lenora. They're drinking white riojas tonight."

  Thurston Bradley holds up the very expensive Pomerol he's brought. His gray eyes match his sweater and convey the suggestion of a decadent but refined life of pursuing hedonistic pleasures.