“I would love to sample more, of course, but I also want to educate my friends on your varieties and learn what sets them apart from other wines here in Italy.”

Luc extended a hand to encourage them to sit while he used a simple intercom to request help from his employees. Before Meg could scoot her chair in, three employees walked into the room and started setting up wineglass after glass. Luc pulled bottles from his collection while others were brought from the room above. A tray of crackers, cheese, olives, and a few things Meg couldn’t identify was placed on their table.

“The weather in o-four was perfection. We had hoped the next year would do just as well, but as it was, the rain the next season gave us a small yield.” While Luc explained weather conditions, he poured a tiny amount of wine into three glasses.

Instead of picking up the glass and following Michael and Val’s lead, Meg turned her attention to Luc. “I’d love to fake my way through a tasting, Luc . . . but that seems a shame. Please tell me what I’m looking and smelling for.”

“My pleasure, signorina.” Luc talked about color, and thickness of the wine. She expected the man to dip his nose deep in the glass, but instead he simply hovered the glass under his nose and drew in the scent. Luc spoke of what to be aware of when smelling wine . . . the bad things in any event. “But you won’t find any of that here,” he said. “Now . . . can you smell the oak?” Meg wasn’t sure if it was oak she drew into her nose or not. “We age this vintage in our oldest barrels.”

“You reuse them?” Meg asked.

“Yes. Many times over. New barrels have an entirely different scent.”

By the time they were ready to sip, Meg was actually anxious to taste the oak-smelling, not too thick, red but not purple wine.

She and Michael both swallowed the pleasing taste, where Val used the spittoon provided for them.

They tasted a few different blends and varieties, each time nibbling on crackers in between. Finally, the question that was burning for all of them was asked.

“What makes this wine unique to this region, Luc?” Michael asked.

“I would love to take all the credit, but the truth is too well known to fake. The unique flavor comes from sagrantino. The grape grows in this region almost exclusively.”

“Do all your blends have this grape in it?” Val asked.

“Not all, but during this year of production, we did use more of it.”

It was time for Meg to ask the obvious questions. “So we won’t find wine that tastes like this in let’s say . . . the Campania region?”

Luc offered a placating smile. “It’s not possible, signorina. Some wines might come close, but they will not match. Not to the educated in any event. For someone like yourself, who doesn’t yet know the subtle differences, you may never tell the change in regions.”

“I’ll bet Michael could tell the difference,” she said.

Luc turned his eyes to Michael. “Shall we test your palate?”

“I’m up to the challenge.”

Luc tilted his head and spoke in hushed tones to one of his servers, who disappeared only to return with several bottles hidden in sleeves.

Val and Meg sat back and watched as glasses were removed and new ones took their place.

Michael swirled, swished, sipped, and spit without any words. He wrote his answer to the region and placed it facedown in front of the anonymous bottle before moving on to the next.

“He certainly looks like he knows what he’s doing,” Val whispered in her ear.

Meg shrugged. She could tell the difference in some whiskeys, so it stood to reason that Michael could tell the difference with wine.

Michael hesitated on the last bottle, sipped it twice, letting the vintage down his throat instead of spitting it out. “Nice try,” he said to Luc.

“Let’s see how you did.” Luc uncovered the first bottle, tilted it toward Michael. “Veneto region.” He turned over Michael’s answer and smiled. “One for one.”

The second bottle was Toscana, the third was one of Luc’s, the forth from Campania, the fifth Sicilia. “And the last one?” Luc asked with a strange look of pride.

“Napa.” Michael laughed.

“I think we can safely say that Michael knows his wine regions,” Meg told Val.

With the confirmation of Michael’s taste buds, it was truly time to doubt Alonzo’s wine.

Luc drew them from the private tasting room and encouraged them to stay for dinner. Considering all the time they’d been given, it would have been an insult to run off.

They stayed for dinner, drank more wine, and when they finally left, Michael and Val had placed large orders of Luc’s collection to be sent back to the States.

“Now what?” Meg asked as they drove back to the hotel.

“We drive south tomorrow.”

“To Alonzo’s winery?” Meg wasn’t sure that was a good idea.

“Adjacent properties. Learn what we can from his neighbors,” Val suggested.

Worry swam over Val’s eyes. Meg placed a hand on his leg as he drove. He kissed her fingers before placing her hand back.

Why was Alonzo passing off someone else’s wine as his own?

Meg’s thoughts went to Gabi. Something told her that her friend wouldn’t be wearing a wedding dress anytime soon. From the look on Val’s face, if half of their thoughts were true, he’d toss Gabi in an ivory tower before he’d let a lying man wed his sister.

The ceremony had been brief. Gabi wanted to think it went quickly because often the good things in life passed quickly. Between the sun, the sea, and the enormity of the commitment she was making, her head swam. When the captain told Alonzo to kiss the bride, her husband wrapped her in his arms and engulfed her.