I set the spoon down and clasp my face between my hands.
I am, aren’t I, in love with Nico?
I don’t even know him, and here I am like a stupid teenager, falling in love with a man who all of Tuscany knows thinks I am too plain to be interesting to him.
Despair coats my insides. I’m setting myself up to get hurt.
I pick up the spoon and stir slowly.
The ragù is going to need time, at least a good hour before it’s ready, I think absently.
And how long does it take to fall in love? I don’t know. Because I don’t know when I fell for him, or even why.
We eat outside under the pergola.
He does smell incredible—a mixture of some expensive cologne and my rosemary and lavender shampoo.
“You have a lovely home, Alessia.” He opens the bottle of wine I have put next to our place settings.
I decided to go for a 2020 IGT.
Nico pours a small taste for himself and swirls. The wine dances, its ruby core has some garnet at the rim. It’s dense but not opaque.
He pours me a taste, and I pick up the glass, aerate it.
He smells the wine. “Opens with blackcurrant and ripe black cherry. How much Cab Sav is there in it?”
“Seventy-five percent.”
He nods and smells again. “Dried sour cherry. Blood orange peel.” He pauses. “A faint…iron note.”
“Very good,” I comment.
“Obviously, it has some Sangiovese.”
“Twenty percent.”
He smiles, enjoying the game. “And five percent Cab Franc?”
“Yes.”
He sniffs the wine again. “That’s where the herbal tension comes from. Bay leaf. Crushed rosemary. A whisper of graphite.”
For a winemaker, a man who knows his wine is sexy as hell. I wonder if he’s doing it on purpose.
He tastes and groans satisfactorily. “The oak is…disciplined. Vanilla bean, clove, and toasted cedar. I’d say fifteen months in new French barrels?”
“Eighteen,” I correct.
He continues giving me tasting notes. I think it’s his way of saying he appreciates my hospitality and the wine that I made and served.
I did choose one of our impeccable wines. ThePrimordio, meaning the “original” because it’s made the way the French do it in Bordeaux, following the first principles.
“The tannins are fine-grained.” He sounds surprised at how good the wine is.
He’s the CEO of the company, and he’s not tasted this before? What a shame!
“Leather, tobacco…a hint of espresso. The balance, Alessia, is beautiful.”
