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Alana shifted on the bar stool, crossing one leg over the other. “It’s clean. Safe.”

“What do you mean safe?”

“It’s still drinking quite young, likely because of the colder weather.” She tied her hair up into a ponytail. “Have you played with any sweetness levels yet?”

“I have a late harvest from ’twenty-four.”

“I’ll want to taste that.” She reached for the 2023 bottle and read the label. “I do think you could have played around with some residual sugar here though. This could have aged beautifully.”

“Like a Kabinett?”

She nodded. “Exactly.” It was a style of semi-sweet style Riesling popular in Germany. While dry Riesling was popular in the Finger Lakes, Alana found that some of the most outstanding aged wines were the ones that halted during fermentation to keep the sweetness from that residual sugar. She’d played around with the style herself when she was making wine, and now she was curious how they tasted. “I have a couple from ’seventeen and ’nineteen in the cellar. We’ll have to see how they’re tasting.”

The corner of Leo’s mouth curled so subtly she almost missed it. “Sure, we’ll see.”

She felt the persistent hammering in her chest again, keenly aware of the way her body heated at this man’s half smile. She berated herself and picked up her next glass. No, I will not prove Freya right. Her sister thought she was reckless. Even if Freya made it clear that she doesn’t have a thing for Leo, Alana wouldn’t let herself go down that road.

They swirled their next glasses, sniffing in silence. The aromatics were even more powerful on this one, bursting with stone fruit and sweeter citrus, like lemonade. “Hello fruit,” Alana exclaimed.

Leo hummed. “Warmer vintage. ’Twenty-four was a beauty.”

She smiled. “Tell me about it.”

He leaned against the counter, eyes out the back window toward the lake, his face glowing from the sunshine that had shifted from morning to a bright, hot afternoon. “Warmer sunny days, but the nights weren’t muggy. Perfectly cool. The growing season was long. It felt like a gift after ’twenty-three, and people around here were thankful to finally have a good vintage. I felt guilty telling other winemakers that my yield was the same both years.” He blew out a breath, eyeing her. “Did you ever feel that way?”

She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Nope. Never.”

“Seriously? You never questioned how this vineyard is able to produce the same yield every year? No matter the weather or the⁠—”

“Nope,” she interrupted him. “We’re just lucky, I guess.”

His face twisted into a frown. She shrugged.

“Okay, the ’twenty-five.” He reached for his last glass, his hand bumping into the bottle that Alana had moved. It tipped over and landed on the floor.

“Shit.” Leo crouched down to try and save what he could, only to pop back up. He looked bewildered.

Despite the loud clanging of the bottle, Bear remained unfazed as he snoozed on her foot. Alana checked out her fingernails. She really needed to paint them; they looked atrocious.

“Are you seeing this?”

She shrugged. “Seeing what?”

He pointed to the floor, unable to speak.

Alana sighed and stood up, carefully removing her foot to not wake up Bear, then rounded the corner.

The bottle of wine was on its side, the glass intact. And instead of the wine pouring out the neck, it remained inside the bottle, lying flat inside its belly and not spilling all over the floor.

“Huh, look at that.”

He huffed a breath. “That has got to be the luckiest fall I’ve ever seen.”

You haven’t seen lucky yet. “Yeah,” she played along. “That’s pretty wild.”

He carefully extracted the bottle from the floor, placing it back on the counter. They tasted through the ’twenty-five, talking through the different notes and his winemaking methods. It was clear Leo knew what he was doing, and despite his insistence for her to critique his winemaking, she didn’t have much to say. The wine was exquisite, and she wondered if she would become obsolete next to his expertise.

He cleared his throat. “Shall we move on to the Cayuga?”