CABERNET ZIN (Cabernet Zin Wine Country) (31 page)

A brief pause and Zack touched along her ribs. Her smooth skin warm and silky as he brought his fingers to the soft arc of her breast that rested against him. His finger slipped into the margin of her supple nipple then circled the margin until her skin tightened and puckered into little bumps as his finger moved around the slopes of her nipple and its firm peak. He kissed her widening lips. Their tongues pressed together. Zack moaned as Claire’s fingers wrapped around his firmness and pulled him toward her.

Claire awoke in Zack’s arms sometime before dawn. She nudged him awake and they watched the sun warm the world. The bright rays first stroked the tip of the mountain at the edge of the southern horizon with a bright pink blush. The rest of the sky changed from the pale washed out colors of a thirty year old photograph into a vibrant crisp blue that went forever and beyond and disappeared into the heavens.

Zack’s phone rang in the jumbled pile of his still crumpled pants outside the blankets. He accepted the call from a number he didn’t recognize and put the phone to his ear.

The voice asked, “Is this Zack Steel?”

“Yes.”

“This is Roban Oerder from
Wine Appraisal Journal
,” the voice paused. “I talked with Martin Ginter and he said I should talk to you about this wine I just tasted.”

Zack recognized Roban among the premier global wine experts and the publisher of that high-end wine consumer journal. Zack bought that journal occasionally at the local independent book store back in Detroit. Every winery vied for top honors on the lists Roban carefully tallied. A single terse note for that year’s tastings could ensure massive success to those near the upper reaches. The wayward bottling that tripped to the bottom of the list often caused winery owners to send those bottles and barrels off to the vinegar shops knowing they could never sell that vintage. Zack said carefully, “I hope it was ok –?”

Claire slipped against his warmth. He could feel the softness of her breasts against his back, her blushing nipples like crisp rose petals. Her hand pressed against his chest over his heart, as if her finger tips felt for the vibration of his voice among his heartbeats. The instep of her foot trolled up his calf – too slowly, he felt himself thicken, then forced himself to focus.

“Zack. I’m not sure how to explain this. Normally I have words for everything – I feel like I have used them all up already.” Zack’s heart sank. Martin must have sent an early bottle of the blends he had worked on. Which one? Claire ran her hand down his stomach approaching his belt-line. The famous wine reviewer smacked his lips and his tongue as if still sipping a glass of the wine while he talked. “Licorice and leather, cherry like hot sex – which I can’t print of course – and a finish that never seems to end. A sustain on this wine like an eighties rock guitar.”

Zack stumbled with, “So you think it’s good?”

“Good?! I don’t call if the wine is bad. What’s the point? No way to fix it. It’s just awkward. Like the one I had the other day where I could taste all the stems. Practically fermented stems by a famous winery. No, yours is amazing.  You have any more blends you’ve done? I’d almost like to come down and see the wine you started with to make this blend. Nothing I do normally, not even the top five percent of the rating chart.”

Claire’s nails dug into Zack after hearing the reviewer continue.

“Hold on –” The voice on the phone put Zack on mute, “I just had my assistant get to work booking my photographer for the day after tomorrow. You’ll be available?” Zack could hear a woman’s voice in the background. “So she’ll be down there probably after five. I’d like to see you and the wine but this work up here is just too insane, everyone thinks it’s a life of leisure but it gets to be a slog. I do it so I have a chance to find the incredible wines - to find wines like yours. Uncovering something like this makes all the rest of the work worth it. I’ll send my photographer over. She works out of LA so she’s not far from you. I’ll need to discuss with her, but I’m starting to get an idea what the cover needs to look like.”

“
Cover?
” Zack said. Claire’s arm squeezed tight, pressing them together, he could not think well with the scent of Claire and the curves of her warm body against him.

“Certainly. Where else would I place a story on the first nine hundred and ninety-nine rated wine in my magazine in – what – the last ten years? I’ve only ever had three triple-nine wines my whole career, and I’m not as young as you sound. Remember, my rating scale only goes to a thousand. I’ve barely had three nine-nine-fives in the last two years; weather just hasn’t been up to it in Napa and France was a wash the last few years. How many years have you been making wine? And are all your grapes from the Temecula Valley?”

“I’m barely more than a hobbyist. I started drinking wines only a few years ago.”

“Amazing! I may have some friends of mine invite you over this season to consult on their blends. That’s what Martin Ginter said to me. You started with good wines and blended them into the magic I taste here. If you can get my friends half way to this wine they will sell out.”

“We have a good wine maker that handled the grapes and everything for the base wines so I can’t get all the credit.”

“Inspired blending takes art.” His voice cut away. “Oops, I have to go, my assistant is waving at me that I’m late for my next appointment. I warned Martin that the winery might start getting calls today. My weekly Internet newsletter to my extreme fans already published at midnight and I featured your wine. The actual magazine will come out in several weeks and then you’ll see more activity. You’ll want to dig out your tuxedo for the awards ceremony when the magazine in unveiled to the press – it helps my magazine sales for the annual best wines edition. One of the helpful assistants will call you with details. Thanks Zack. Again, fantastic wine.”

Zack’s phone switched off. He sat up and stared at the mountain to the south that flamed its characteristic golden hue while his mind tried recovering.

“Zack, look at the winery,” Claire said, holding the blankets against her chest.

Zack turned his head. The winery appeared as active as a bee hive. Worker’s cars arrived and swung into the parking lot and people walked fast toward the winery crush pad doors currently propped open. The fork truck moved pallets of bottled wine out to the pad for pickup by the shipping company. A truck pulled away loaded down, its tires flexing from the weight, and another pulled into position to load. A third truck came up the dusty drive with its yellowed headlights scanning like a shark seeking prey.

Zack kissed Claire, “I love you.” He stood and roughly dressed. “You want to help? I know we’ll need the extra hands on the bottling and labeling line, if not everywhere else.”

Claire smiled, wrapping the red and black gingham blanket around herself as she stood, “I’ll pick up here and meet you by the crush pad.” She kissed him a moment too long and yet somehow too short. “Now go.”

Zack’s phone rang before he reached the base of the hill on his way toward the winery. He told Martin he was already on the winery grounds. Other rings started hitting his phone from the investors calling to congratulate or asking where he was since they needed help with the machinery and the urgent shipments.

Whistles and cheers greeted Zack as he came into the winery operations. Rutger punched Zack’s shoulder, “That’s for waking us all up early this morning.” Then he held his hand out, “Thank you, thank you! For your blend getting favorable reviews. That means everything for us now.” Zack shook his hand and strode into the maelstrom to make sense of their good fortune. Samantha gave him a lingering hug, “Zack, thanks.”

The work became a blurry dream. Zack only shared glances with Claire twice. The shipping trucks stopped arriving, finally for the weary crew, after dark. Zack’s house and a couple of the other local investors hosted others that came to help. Sleeping bags, blankets, and a packed bathroom roster soon filled with showers. Zack lost track of the next few days. When they thought they got ahead of the demand wave the wave only grew.

“I don’t know where this thing will crest,” Martin said to Zack as they watched the fork truck load a delivery van. The journal had published Zack on the cover and they added a second shift of workers to meet the growing demand.

“How are sales going? Are we going to get out from under this year’s capital call?”

Martin smiled at Zack, “These are all prepaid sales at regular prices. A few of us have been wondering if we should raise the price now as the stock gets low.”

Zack said, “Sell it straight. If we run out then we run out. That is only fair to our customers.” He looked about to see the inventory, “Are we getting sales of our other wines and vintages?”

“Not the first day. But now we are selling a range of products along with your blend,” Martin pulled a sheet of paper he had folded out of his jeans pocket, “This is the report from two hours ago. I had to change the scale to a log-graph to straighten the numbers out – it spikes so much. This line is our accumulated earnings less forecast costs this year.”

“Wow. Look at that!”

“Zack, that is all from your blend and the
Wine Appraisal Journal
rating getting the word out.”

“When do you think we will be out of wine?”

“That’s my next fear. Strange transition from the fear of never selling any of our wine to what will we do when we run out?”

“While I hope we sell out of everything, we have a lot of wine.”

“You better go through the barrel inventory again, knock on them to see if they are full or empty barrels. We ran out of places to put the empty barrel racks and I can’t tell by looking in the barrel cave right now what is what without scanning the bar codes or knocking on them. Frank might know because he’s been placing things with the fork truck today but I’m not sure. It’s chaos. But there is less inventory in there than it appears.”

“A good kind of chaos.” Zack glanced again at the forecast year-end earnings on Martin’s paper. “I’ll try making sense of our inventory.”

“Thanks again, Zack.”

Philip Gangli tugged on Zack’s sleeve. “Hey, I saw Martin’s forecasts earlier. Amazing numbers.”

Zack said, “Great when the numbers make the business. Are you sticking around with this investment?”

Philip beamed, “Of course! Zack’s Blend has brought all the investors together, including me. To see everyone pitching in together to meet the customer demand. It’s all quite magical. We only have you to thank. I’ve already told Martin I’m backing off on the drama. Such wine! I hope we keep a few bottles so we can grade against it next year.”

“Thanks Philip. I’m sure Martin locked away a case for benchmarking –”

“– Yes. I have a case put away in the barrel cave locker –”

“– In the end though, we can only work with what the sun and climate give us.”

“Careful shepherding is still needed. I’m glad you’re involved with us.”

-:-:-:-O-:-:-:-

Zack stood in the doorway of his little worn house wearing his rented tuxedo. Claire walked out of the short hallway hugged as tight in a vibrant blue dress as Zack’s arms twitched to press against her. He had the need to grab her and hold her forever. She pushed a pearl earring into her ear. He knew she did that thousands of times and probably never thought about it but that little movement drew his attention, beauty in an unimportant little sequence of actions. He suggested, “I think we should stay here. Amanda has the kids out to a movie after they stop at the restaurant. So we have the place to ourselves for a couple of hours.”

Claire stopped, her irises flexed, taking him in, “You clean up nice.” Claire’s fingers fumbled at her earring clasp and the tiny bit of coiled wire bounded off her shoulder onto the wood floor. Zack’s eyes tore away from her face and followed the hopping bit of metal. He bent down and scooped it out of the air in mid jump. He held his hand to Claire and she pulled the clasp from his palm, “You’d get lucky if we stayed. But I want to see what this party is all about.”

“The Temecula Valley Wine Association puts this ball on every year. I’ve heard it’s pretty stiff and boring but Martin said he’s learned a few things about how the other wineries are doing. Strategies the others are considering next season. This way everyone can work together relative to the global wine market while still keeping friendly local competition alive.” His heart ached looking at her. “I don’t know if I can take my eyes off you to actually learn anything.”

“Good.” Claire finished with her earring, “I want you all to myself too. But we should be going.” She pulled Zack into a kiss. Nothing hot enough to melt her waxy lipstick against his, but warm enough he had to calm his need for her. He pushed the door wide and they took his car to the conference center at the nearby Valley Casino.

The floor of the casino, carpeted everywhere with a mosaic of southwestern geometric artwork, flashed a circus of lights. Bells rang and chimes sounded above the tick-tick-tick of slot machines fed with a stream of coins. Disorienting music filled the background spaces between the general commotion. Zack pulled Claire behind him through the aisles and glimpsed her beauty as they crossed the cavernous room, reflected in every chrome strip, every lighted mirror, and even in glazed gamblers’ eyes. Zack stepped through the open conference center portals and found the A-frame sign indicating the Wine Association.