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words she, without a care, manually hoisted one of her boobs into a more
comfortable position. Surgically altered or not, thought Elliot, they were great
tits.
    â€œPeople draw pleasure from different
things. I, for one, don’t like a wine that gives too much of itself, I —”
    â€œSo there is no Cab in the wine you
make,” Robin concluded.
    â€œCorrect,” said Elliot, to make life
easier.
    â€œIs it like a Chardonnay?”
    â€œNo. It’s a red table wine. It’s made
from many different grapes, nine different varieties, none of them Chardonnay or
Cabernet Sauvignon.”
    â€œWhat do you call it?” Veronica said,
and laughed inexplicably.
    â€œIt’s called 303 Locura Canyon
Road.”
    â€œWhy?” wondered Eva.
    â€œBecause that’s where it comes from and
what it should taste like.”
    â€œWhy so many grapes?” asked Robin.
    â€œIt’s . . . I don’t
like to say ‘emulate’ but — well, it’s in the tradition
of a Châteauneuf-du-Pape.”
    â€œI think I’ve heard of that,” said
Veronica.
    â€œThe most intriguing wine I ever tasted
was a Châteauneuf,” said Elliot. “We don’t want to mimic it, it would be
impossible, but Châteauneuf is our inspiration.” Elliot saw that he was losing
Robin and Veronica. “Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a wine they make in the hot part of
France from a bunch of different grapes, some of which we also grow here in
California.” Yeah, he was only talking to Eva now. “We also use a bit of the
old-vine black mix, mostly Zin and Carignan and Cinsault, that was on the estate
when we bought it.” (This presence of the Zinfandel in his wine was bothering
Elliot of late. Tiny portion though it was — probably less than one percent — he
felt it might be imparting a note that he could identify only as “aluminum
syrup.”) “People mistakenly think, because it’s a blend of grapes, that it’s
some sort of concoction , but you grow different
grapes on different sites to best represent the land and the conditions. It’s a
meadow, not a lawn.”
    â€œThat was absolutely THE BEST wine you
ever tasted?” said Robin, who Elliot now saw was drunk.
    â€œWell,
no . . . what’s ‘best’? The best wines anyone ever tastes
are Burgundy Grand Cru, Musigny, or Les Clos. You don’t compare every play to Hamlet  . . . that’s not
the . . .” Finally Elliot thought he had it. “The most beautiful
lover you ever had isn’t necessarily the one you think about all the time.”
    This appeared to give Robin pause.
Either that or she was becoming dizzy.
    â€œWhat did you say it was called again,
Château something something?” Veronica’s pen was poised above a notepad on which
she had yet to write a word.
    â€œChâteauneuf-du-Pape. It was an old
bottle — a 1961 Isabelle d’Orange. It should have been long finished when I
drank it, too old, but no.”
    â€œOrange County?” wondered Veronica.
    â€œWhy didn’t you bring some of that
‘intriguing’ wine along, instead of two wines you say are failures?” asked
Eva.
    â€œThe one I drank was the only bottle I
have ever seen. Nineteen sixty-one was the last year the vineyard existed. They
never made much. And the family was always at odds with the syndicate. I’ve
tried tracking any down that might have been lying around
but . . . to no avail.” Elliot heard himself starting to
sound precious.
    â€œWhy was it such a memorable lover?”
Veronica asked.
    Good question.
    â€œOh, I’m not sure.” Elliot had worried
for a time that it wasn’t the wine at all but the context, the confidence and
contentment he’d felt drinking it with Lucy on that perfect day in the South of
France. Then, hearing one day, about a not very good