“What an eye,” I can’t help but reply.
He doesn’t understand my sarcasm. “You know something about wine?”
“I only have a degree in agriculture and a concentration in enology,” I reply. “Nothing serious.”
“Ah, from school!” he exclaims in a voice tinged with reproach. “Wine isn’t learned from books. You have to travel and I—if I say so myself—I’ve seen the world. I’ll have a lot to teach you. Come with me to the cellar.”
I lead the way while he babbles on about what an expert he is at tasting, and I pray that God makes me momentarily deaf.
“Here we are,” I say, opening the heavy wood and wrought iron door.
“Huh,” Ferdy moans, scanning the room through the dim light, with the lanterns barely illuminating the rows of bottles. “That’s all?”
“There are hundreds of wines,” I reply with bewilderment. “All rare labels.” I approach one of the racks and remove a bottle worth over a thousand euros. “This Amarone della Valpolicella is practically impossible to find. And this Barolo Riserva too.”
“Yes, but where are the champagnes?”
“Champagne?” I ask.
“What kind of collection has no champagne?”
I cross the cellar, unnerved by his attitude.
“And among the French bottles, here we have very fine DRC Romanée-Conti. The count highly appreciated the Sauternes Château d’Yquem.” But the labels I mention, which would normally send any connoisseur into a fit of rapture, have no effect on him.
“No Dom Pérignon? No Cristal?”
I could get into it with him, but I prefer to mock him instead. “I can let you taste a wine from a case that cost the count almost half a million at a Sotheby’s auction. He won an all-out bidding war against a Saudi emir.”
At the mention of the words “half a million” and “Saudi emir,” Ferdy’s antennae perk up. “Interesting.”
“Wait here. I’ll fetch it from the vault.”
Ferdy almost faints at the wordvault. Obviously there is no vault nor, much less, is there a case of wine bought at auction. I go into thepantry, take the very cheap carton of wine that Mamma uses for cooking, and pour it into an empty bottle.
I put my index finger between my lips and imitate the noise of a powerful cork pop, then I leave the pantry with the open bottle in one hand and a cork in the other, which I pretend to smell.
“Is that it?” he asks me eagerly.
“Yes,” I say, placing it theatrically on a barrel. “It is a Crétin Casse Couilles from 1868 that belonged to Emperor Napoleon III, one of six bottles found in the basement of the Louvre. Do you see how the label is worn?” If it’s worn, it’s because this bottle has been washed, filled, emptied, and washed again dozens of times. “Perfect hygrometric storage conditions.”
“A wine for royalty. Now you’re talking,” he gloats, without even realizing I’ve just called him acrétin casse coullies, a pain-in-the-ass idiot.
I make a production out of pouring it for him. “It has a complex bouquet. Few palates can truly appreciate it ...”
But Ferdy, who is excited at the idea of tasting a wine that belonged to the royal family, snatches it from my hand. “Give me the glass.”
“If you allow me, I’ll pour myself just a taste, to check that the organoleptic structure has not been altered.” I bring a second glass to my lips and pretend to savor it in a considered manner. “Forest notes of juniper berries and pine, woody but fragrant aroma,” I say, completely at random. “Full bodied, slightly sweet, with a tannic finish.” If he were truly an expert, he would debunk me here, since I’m talking about tannins in a white wine, as opposed to a red.
Ferdy takes a sip, then two. “Excellent,” he comments. “The juniper is lush, aromatic. And then, the tannins, so ... powerful.”
“Indeed,” I agree, laughing to myself. What an imbecile.
A heated uproar upstairs draws our attention, and we go back up.
In the hall, Mamma, Donatella, and Graziana are arguing.
“It’s out of the question,” says Donatella in her typical icy tone.
