“Hmm.”
“Stop thinking.”
“How do you know I’m thinking?”I brush my lips against her forehead. I love the freedom to touch her and kiss her any time I want.
“I can hear the gears turning in your head.” She slides a thigh over mine. “Go to sleep, baby. Don’t think about tomorrow. Live in the now.”
I like it when she calls mebaby, which is not often. But I’m not sure if I like how she seems to not only see but also understand my turmoil.
The next afternoon, after a lazy breakfast of pastries I picked up from theboulangerie, we walk through the narrow streets of Pommard to Le Cellier Armand Heitz. From the outside, thecaveaulooks like any stone building in the village, but when the heavy wooden door swings open, cool air rushes out like a sigh from centuries past.
Inside, the vaulted cellar is dim.
I inhale the dampness of limestone and old oak, tinged with the faint sweetness of fermentation. Barrels line the walls, their chalk markings whispering of vintages that are still dreams in the making.
Our guide, the vintner, dips a slender pipette, a wine thief, into a barrel, and pours a small measure into Tara’s glass. She swirls it, watches the liquid cling to the sides.
“Pommard Premier Cru Clos des Poutures,” he says reverently. “From a monopole parcel we’ve tendedsince the seventeenth century. Black cherry, violets, a little truffle if you wait.”
She inhales, and I watch her chest rise. Her lips part as if the bouquet itself has surprised her. “It’s like dusk in a garden after rain.”
She takes a sip. Her eyes flutter shut. I watch her as I drink from my own glass, letting the flavors roll over my tongue.
The wine is rich yet taut, dark fruit at the front—blackberry, cherry—wrapped in a subtle edge of spice. Then the earthiness reveals itself—a whisper of forest floor, a trace of cedar and mushroom. The tannins are firm but not harsh, like silk pulled tight across the tongue. It lingers, a finish that carries smoke and a faintly floral nuance, as though violets were pressed into the barrel staves.
Her eyes open slowly, glowing. “It tastes alive.”
“Burgundy at its best is not merely wine,” I say, unable to look away from her. She’s bewitched me, there is no other explanation. “It’s conversation, memory,andpatience.”
The vintner smiles, as though we’ve passed some test. “Wine should never be rushed. It’s a story in the making, and each sip adds another sentence to it.”
She’s slightly tipsy after the wine tasting as we walk back home.
She’s giggling, talking too much. She’s like no woman I’ve ever been with. She makes me feel youngand naïve myself, wanting to breathe in the fresh air as she does, and live life to the fullest.
We take a nap after we come home and wake up to a lunch ofpate en crouteand a mesclun salad she puts together with what’s available in the garden and the fridge.It’s so easy to be with her, I think again as we drink a Montrachet from my cellar, which I picked out with her.
When I had taken her down to the wine cellar, with undisguised enthusiasm, she perused the wines gathered over decades, bottles from my grandfather’s time mingled with my own choices.
“This”—I ran my hand along the racks—“is my true indulgence.”
She whistled low as she looked around. “I thought art was.”
“Art is for the soul. Wine is for the body. Together, they balance. Non?”
“Yes.”
I kissed her there. Made love to her on the table, hungrily, thirstily.
I want her to the point of madness—and not only for sex but for conversation and companionship.
After a late lunch, the sun shines warm as we walk to the river that borders my land. It runs shallow but clear, catching the light in glittering ripples.
“We must,” she announces suddenly.
“Must what?”
She doesn’t answer, just strips naked without hesitation, laughing as she wades in.
