1
SAFFRON
The October heat in the attic above the Hope Family Winery made sweat trickle down my spine, but I kept sorting through the accumulated boxes and trunks that had been gathering dust for years. I decided to tackle this project just to keep myself busy; otherwise, the stress of the conversation I’d overheard yesterday would eat me alive.
The worst part was that there wasn’t anyone I could talk to about it. Dad would deny it. Mom would too, if she even knew, and my older sister, Felicity, and her husband had their own winery in Napa Valley, and she was eight months pregnant. I couldn’t burden her with what I’d heard.
The attic stretched the entire length of the main winery building, filled with three generations of accumulation. Wooden crates of ancient bottles and filing cabinets stuffed with correspondence dating back to Prohibition lined the walls, beside trunks of clothing that might have belonged to my great-grandmother or maybe even her mother. I walked over to the single window and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.
I wiped away the dust that coated the glass and looked out at our oldest Cabernet block—vines my grandfather had planted decades ago—now gnarled and thick as a man’s forearm.
I reached into my pocket for my phone and checked the time. The three hours I’d been up here felt more like six, but there was no point in stopping now, when I had too much time on my hands and too many thoughts swirling through my head. I returned to the same area where I’d started sorting things I unpacked into piles of “keep,” “donate,” and “trash.” So far, the trash pile was winning. Old catalogs from wine equipment suppliers long out of business had been stored in the same boxes as moldy leather ledgers with ink too faded to read. The next box I opened contained a set of brass pipe fittings that might have been for an old bottling line or maybe they were plumbing fixtures. Trash. Definitely.
I was about to open another when a trunk that was shoved far under the eaves caught my eye. The metal corners and leather straps made it look like it belonged on a stagecoach. Inside, wrapped in yellowed tissue paper, were stacks of photographs. Not the color snapshots from the eighties I’d been finding or the Polaroids from the seventies, but black-and-whites mounted on cardboard.
A woman I didn’t recognize stood beside old wooden fermentation tanks so unlike the stainless steel we’d been using for as long as I could remember. She wore a dress that screamed nineteen-fifties with its cinched waist and full skirt, had dark hair pinned in victory rolls, and a smile that seemed to leap off the photograph.
Beside her stood another woman, this one with striking features that seemed almost familiar.
I flipped the picture over. In faded blue ink, someone had written:Marilyn Hope and Concepción Avila, Christmas Blessing Wine Success, December 1955.
Marilyn, my father’s grandmother, died when my dad was fifteen. I’d never heard of Concepción, but the surname was familiar. Could she be related to the Avilas I knew?
Beneath the photographs lay a leather journal with a brown cover so worn that it was as soft as suede. I opened it with the same care I would use to handle a bird’s nest, afraid it might crumble in my hands. Handwriting filled the pages in fountain-pen ink that had faded to sepia. I turned to the beginning and saw it had belonged to Marilyn.
The first entry made me sit back on my heels.
The Christmas Blessing Wine is complete. What we have created together is something that could not be accomplished alone. C brings the wisdom of her Spanish ancestors—techniques passed down for three hundred years. I bring what California has taught us, what this soil whispers to those who listen.
As I kept going, my excitement building with each entry. But as I read more, frustration crept in. The notes were full of cryptic references and half-told secrets.
Temperature must rise with the moon…C knows the timing…blessed on St. Lucy’s day with the herbs from her garden…the proportion she guards…seven turns, then twelve, then five…but only when…
Throughout the journal, there were similar references to “C’s method” without explaining what it was.
Then I found it—a page that made me pause.
Varietals: Gamay, Syrah, Zinfandel
Method: Carbonic maceration (the French method, as Jules showed us)
Whole clusters only. No crushing. The berries must ferment from within.
I knew the process of carbonic maceration well. We’d experimented with it on small batches of Zinfandel a few yearsback. The intracellular fermentation that happened inside intact berries resulted in reduced tannins and a bright fruit-forward profile. Best of all, it only took six to eight weeks from harvest to bottle.
Except, so much was missing—varietal percentages, target temperatures, and timing of the various stages.
I was about to keep searching when I noticed two pages stuck together. I separated them as carefully as I could, then read the faded ink.
We have agreed—each of us keeps our portion. What we created can never be made again. Perhaps someday our children and grandchildren will find a way to reunite our efforts.
They’d split the formula. Deliberately. Marilyn kept her part; Concepción kept hers. Neither family could make the wine without the other.
I’d heard of the “Christmas Blessing Wine”—said to have sold out in hours, with those who’d tasted it swearing it was extraordinary. Now, I understood why it had never been recreated—the formula had been split between two families who’d stopped working together. But why?
The historical significance alone was incredible. A wine that rare, if we could reproduce it, would be irresistible to collectors.
The challenges were significant, though. Handpicking only. Mechanical harvesters would crush the clusters. Sealed tanks with CO2 injection would be needed for the anaerobic environment. But most critical was the formula itself—whatever proportions and techniques Concepción had kept in her half of the recipe.
