you."
She nodded, glancing behind me at the winery, as if assessing its worth. "Please, call me Vivienne. And it's a pleasure to be here. I've heard good things about your small run Petite Sirah."
"I'll be sure to set a case aside for you," I promised, knowing full well who she'd heard it from. While Gene "Seesaw" Shultz might have his doubts about our long-term solvency, he knew how to push an investment. He'd supplied many of the names on our guest list of the wine loving elite in Sonoma.
"This is my son, David," Vivienne said, gesturing to the younger man.
He nodded awkwardly, as if just "my son, David" was a label he was well used to wearing. I shook his hand, which was slightly sweaty despite the cool spring air.
"And this is my mother, Alison Price."
Alison gave me a gloved hand that had a surprisingly firm grip. Like her daughter, she was tall, though her hair was a duller brown shot with a generous amount of white. Her face looked naturally lined and Botox-free, though her spine was straight and strong. If I had to guess, I put the baby boomer around seventy, though there was nothing frail looking about the senior citizen.
"How do you do?" she asked, clearly not caring what the answer to that question was as she quickly turned her attention away from me and toward her grandson. "David, please get my bag from the trunk."
His scowl deepened, but he ducked back toward the car to obey.
I quickly introduced Ava to the women and told Vivienne, "Ava's on your table. If you need anything, she'll see to it."
Vivienne nodded. "I'm looking forward to this Spanish theme of yours. I've just been back from Europe, so I'm intrigued to see your take on it."
While it was phrased as a statement, it almost came off as a dare. One I planned to take on, guns blazing. "I'm sure you'll enjoy it." I shot her a smile that I hoped was a lot more confident than I felt.
If she noted any of the nerves coursing through me, she didn't mention them, instead gesturing back down the driveway the way she'd come. "My husband, Chas, was held up at work, so he'll be coming later in the Lamborghini. I'm sure he'll be here in time for the picnic, even if he happens to miss the tasting."
I nodded, mentally making a note to treat anyone arriving in a Lamborghini as Price-Pennington royalty. "We'll be sure to direct him to your table when he arrives."
Ava and I ushered the party into the tasting bar, where my bar manager and wine steward, Jean Luc, was preparing his stand-up enologist act. Though, as I'd learned when I'd hired him on last year, Jean Luc preferred the term sommelier to wine steward. In fact, I'd quickly learned that Jean Luc preferred the French term for anything to the English. While pretension practically dripped from his thick accent, customers ate it up with silver spoons, today being no exception as I saw Mrs. Price actually crack a genuine smile as he complimented her flower studded hat. My hired day help poured samples for the other guests, and Jean Luc laid on the charm, talking up the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay we had in glass to Vivienne.
I left Ava in the tasting bar to help Jean Luc and slipped outside to stand at the top end of the avenue and say a mental prayer for success, on the lookout for more cars. One by one they arrived, playing out much as the meeting with Vivienne had. Guests had never been here but were curious to see how the little winery with a growing reputation would pull it off today. The more people who arrived, the more I felt like I was on the job interview of a lifetime. This one meal could make or break our word of mouth.
I wasn't sure if all the guests had arrived, but I had run a rough car count, which came out to at least thirty influential people, all squeezed into the tasting bar, mingling and murmuring amongst themselves. The atmosphere in that little bar was heady, as if the very air had an alcohol content. The wine jargon flowed whenever the crowd of like-minded enthusiasts took a short break from sniffing and sipping. They pulled all the faces you'd expect to see at tastings—pouting and puffing their cheeks, breathing in through the nose over a mouthful of my Chardonnay, squeezed between