“What you have done with Pietra Alta…my dear, is amazing,” Mr. Pignola says with stars in his eyes. He’s obviously smitten with my wife.
She shrugs shyly, and for a moment I see a little girl—genuinely stunned that someone is complimenting her. She isn’t used to this. Something uncomfortably close to guilt stirs in my chest, at not being the man who makes her used to praise.
I am a husband by contract. This is not my job!
Alessia inclines her head. “Santino, I’ve done nothing special…just following in Matteo’s footsteps.”
She calls him by his first name. I don’t even have permission to do that.Interesting.
“Oh, come now, don’t be so modest. You’re responsible for the Cabernet Franc parcel on the upper slope,” he continues. “The one with the unusually restrained extraction in the last vintage.”
Her eyes light up—not with pride, but recognition. “We adjusted early,” she gushes. “The skins were thicker than anticipated, and the nights stayed cooler than forecast. I didn’t want to push it.”
Mr. Pignola nods slowly. “And the acidity held?”
“It did.” She’s almost giddy when she says that. “But…barely. We harvested in the night through to first light.”
The conversation shifts—no effort, no prompting—from marketing to method. From surface to structure.
Chiara tries to re-enter, mentioning international perception, critics, and positioning. The words sound polishedandempty.
Mr. Pignola is no longer listening to her.
He turns fully toward Alessia. “It’s a difficult balance, isn’t it, when you’re growing vine. People forget that restraint is often the hardest choice.”
Alessia’s face transforms from somber and polite to open and inviting.
“It’s easier to impress than to endure,” she says, laughing.
Unbidden, a thought enters my mind:what does she look like when she makes love?
I have thought of Alessia sexually—after all, she’s my wife—but I haven’t dwelled on it, not at all. I’ve been busy. But now….
“Alessia is of the vines,” Matteo says proudly and indulgently, like a father. “I know no other winemaker who knows and feels theterroirand her vines as she does.”
Her vines.
Matteo watches her with open approval.
Mr. Pignola asks another question, then another. Alessia answers without hedging, without performing. She doesn’t look at me once.
Chiara stands beside me, beautiful and immaculate and suddenly…irrelevant.
I take another sip of my Brunello and realize I’ve misjudged the room. Misjudged the women in it. Misjudged my wife most of all.
Chiara is excellent at making people want things.
Alessia helps them understand why they want what they want and how she gives it to them through her abilities as avignaiola.
Mr. Pignola finally turns to me. “You married well, Nico.” Then, to Alessia, “I look forward to tasting your next vintage.”
As they drift away—Matteo and Alessia pull back into another cluster of serious conversations—I’m left standing beside Chiara, the music softening, the Arno glinting below.
For the first time tonight, I don’t feel flattered by the woman on my arm.
I am embarrassed.
And that, more than anything else, unsettles me.
