Too Close to the Sun

by Dempsey, Diana

  Gabby knew Vittorio would keep his former lover and his pregnant wife far, far apart. She knew she would not see his parents. She knew that his hospitality would not extend beyond the perimeters of the winery. Yet all that was appropriate, and just as well.

  Minutes later, she turned onto a country road that twined through the mountains and valleys that separated the historic rival cities of Florence and Siena. Dark green cypresses on both sides of the narrow asphalt pierced the perfect blue sky. Ahead lay Castelnuovo Berardenga, the sunbaked land that gave birth to so many of Chianti's premier wines. As the Fiat chugged up one slope and hastened down another, she caught a glimpse of an old church, a grove of olive trees, a small vineyard. Centuries-old villas hid behind low stone walls, their residents the descendants of Siena's rich banking and wool families. She drove past one village, then another—barely more than a few farmhouses grouped together, sharing a trattoria, maybe an ufficio postale. Here and there a door was open, revealing a cool dark interior. An old woman wearing a kerchief swept a stoop; an old man eyed her passing car as he puffed on his pipe. It was all as heart-stoppingly beautiful as she remembered, and as timeless.

  Her heart thudded as she turned onto the private lane she knew so well, every bend and dip, every puff of dust from its age-old surface. As she ascended a gentle slope, trees eventually gave way to vineyards, well tended as ever and heavy with the sangiovese grapes the region was famous for. Ahead atop the hill, where it had stood since the Crusades, perched the Mantucci family winery, Castello di Corvo. Shimmering in the sun as if plucked from a fairy tale, it rose from the ground in wheat-colored stone, with the ravens it was named for swooping and cawing above its crenellated battlements.

  Gabby brought the Fiat to a halt on a dirt-packed courtyard in front of the winery. She stood to stretch her legs and collect herself, the sun baking her shoulders, the midday quiet broken by distant church bells. Then a motion caught her eye, and she turned to see Vittorio rushing toward her, smiling, both hands outstretched in greeting.

  *

  Tuesday morning, as Max trotted past the foyer table on his way from the kitchen to the pool, he noticed in the pile of mail that Mrs. Finchley had brought in that the latest issue of Wine World had arrived. There it lay among bills and glossy magazines and junk-mail flyers.

  He stared at it, then stubbed out his cigarette on the table's ashtray. A cold sweat broke out on his back. With nervous fingers, he picked it up and continued outside, his bare feet padding on the hardwood.

  He shed his white terry-cloth robe in a heap on the grass and took up a poolside position on a chaise longue. Then he picked up Wine World, a weekly newsprint periodical the size and shape of the New York Post. That was where the similarities ended. Max doubted the Post had ever seen fit to print words like viticulture or meniscus or viscosity, many of which he only half understood himself.

  Joseph Wagner's chatty column was easy to find. Max took a deep breath, then scanned it quickly looking for the word Suncrest.

  Damn. There it was, in bold type. Two whole paragraphs followed.

  He took a second, deeper breath, and started reading.

  What's truth and what's fiction? Depends on who you ask. Suncrest Vineyards owner and general manager Max Winsted denies that the esteemed winery founded by his father rebottled its 2003 sauvignon blanc. But other insiders say otherwise, as do an assortment of usually reliable Napa Valley folks in the know.

  What makes this story an even greater mystery is that apparently the decanting wasn't due to a problem with the wine but a change of heart with regard to the bottle. Seems that Mr. Winsted's taste for all things French lingered even after his return to California from cette belle patrie.

  Problem is that as appealing as I, too, find this vintage's heavy French bottle, the wine itself leaves a bit to be desired, particularly at thirty bucks a pop retail. And I'm not the only one turning up my nose. Sources tell me that sales are sluggish, a real turnaround for a winery whose offerings typically fly off the shelves. . . .

  Fuming, Max threw the paper aside, where soon the breeze carried the pages all around the pool and pergola area, some on the grass, some against the low mesh fence that separated the residence from the vineyards, some even into the pool itself.

  That's where the whole damn thing deserves to be! Man, it would be none too soon that he unloaded this albatross his mother kept insisting on calling a legacy. And bidding adieu to traitor employees like Gabby DeLuca, who clearly was the "insider" Wagner referred to. She'd threatened to spill the beans, and by God, she had. And the bitch probably considered herself loyal.

  Max shook his head in disgust. Women. But thinking of women made him think of his mother, and that made him smile. The signature he'd wrested out of her would make a thirty-million-dollar payoff possible. He relaxed his head against the chaise and closed his eyes, enjoying the hot sun as it beat against his skin. Did he play her like Menuhin played a Stradivarius or what? His performance in Paris had been nothing shy of sublime.

  Someone loomed over him, cutting off the sun. "Good morning, Max. I take it you've read Joseph Wagner's column?"

  Max's eyes fluttered open. It was Henley, sounding and looking mildly amused.

  Arrogant prick.

  Max levered himself into a sitting position, wishing the strewn pages of Wine World didn't make it look like the column had sparked a hissy fit. "I glanced at it," he said.

  Henley helped himself to an adjoining chaise, on which he sat his trim, tall, well-dressed body. "Sorry to disturb you at home, but there's something we need to discuss." He glanced at his watch—pointedly, it seemed to Max. "I wasn't sure when you'd find time to make it down to the winery."

  Another dig. Max wouldn't miss this Henley guy once their business was concluded. But until that happy day, he had to be nice. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

  "Well, as you know, we've been going through the due-diligence process."

  "And how has that been progressing?"

  "Just fine. But new facts have emerged that have a bearing on the acquisition price that we discussed."

  Max sat up straighter on the chaise. "We didn't just discuss a price. We agreed to one."

  "True. But that price is contingent upon certain assumptions I made about Suncrest's financial health. And some of those are proving to be unfounded."

  Max didn't like the sound of that. He narrowed his eyes at Henley. "A deal's a deal."

  "So it is. Max, don't get me wrong." Henley chuckled and raised his hands in the air. "I very much want to acquire Suncrest; that hasn't changed. But given what we've learned through the due-diligence process, it's obvious that I can't do it at the price we discussed. Let me tell you why. . . ."

  And Henley embarked on a dissertation about how the sauvignon blanc wasn't selling and how by now everyone knew it was rebottled and how they might have to write the whole vintage off and who knew how much collateral damage would be done to sales of the cabernet sauvignon, which accounted for 80 percent of revenues.

  Max listened to all of this with his heart pounding and sweat starting to run from his armpits down into the too-tight waistband of his trunks. Just when he thought this damn deal was done, Henley was trying to retrade it! By how much? It sounded like mucho millions! How was Max supposed to get his mother to agree to that?

  Henley finally wrapped up. "As far as I'm concerned, we should just withdraw the sauvignon blanc from the market. Admit that it's ruined and write it off entirely."

  "That's ridiculous." Max rose from the chaise and stared at the pool. "It may not be totally perfect but it's still great wine."

  "That may well be, Max," Henley's voice said behind him. "I'm not the connoisseur you are."

  Max shook his head. Even when Henley delivered a compliment, it sounded patronizing.

  "But the fact remains that it's not selling," Henley went on. "And that it'll be years before it sells as well as it has in the past. And there's no doubt that sales of the cabernet will be aff
ected. And that accounts for—"

  "I know, I know. 80 percent of revenues."

  Henley came to stand next to him. Both of them stared at the pool, on whose cheerful blue surface floated two sodden pages of Wine World. Henley kept his voice low. "Max, if I go back and tell my partners all this, we may not have a deal at all. I have got to cut the price to make it happen."

  Screw you, Max thought. But the fact remained that he wanted a deal, too. And he wanted it now, and in cash. And that meant Henley was his man.

  He steeled himself. "How much?"

  "Ten percent. We can do it at 27 million."

  Max felt an enormous surge of relief. He'd been worried it might be a lot bigger than that. Ten percent he could finesse with his mother, especially if he waited for just the right moment to tell her about it. "Would we have to do a new term sheet?" he asked.

  "No, we'd just put the new number in the final documents."

  Max nodded, and Henley slapped his back. "Good doing business with you." Then he was gone.

  It wasn't until Max was back on the chaise that it occurred to him that he probably should have negotiated with Henley before kissing off three million bucks. But he'd felt such huge relief, he hadn't even thought about it.

  He frowned, suddenly wondering whether Henley might have been playing a little violin himself.

  *

  Gabby's alarm roused her at five o'clock in the afternoon. Waking in that tidy, familiar room—with its whitewashed walls, stone floor, lacy curtains billowing at the lone window—disconcerted her at first, threw her back in time to years before. It took her jet-lagged brain a moment or two to remember exactly why she was back in Castelnuovo, and what she hoped to achieve there.

  She stretched like a cat in the narrow single bed, its snow-white starched linens scratchy against her bare skin. The greeting part of her trip was over, and had been more comfortable than she'd expected. Vittorio had held lunch for her, as she'd known he would. Together they ate at the long refectory table in the winery's old kitchen, feasting on hearty ribollita vegetable soup and Tuscany's famous coal-charred steak, bistecca alla fiorentina. All was washed down, of course, with the winery's own Chianti. After such a meal, and so much travel, she'd been only too happy to take Vittorio's suggestion that she nap the rest of the afternoon. Now, fed and rested like a proper Tuscan, she was ready for espresso and business.

  She hoped Vittorio was, too.

  She bathed quickly in the aged tub, dressed in simple blouse and slacks, applied a light makeup, then forced herself from this sheltered oasis down the stairs to the main part of the winery. She found Vittorio in his office, at his desk, his dark head bent over an enormous ledger.

  She took the chance to spy on him from his half-open door. The office had the white walls and stone floor of her room upstairs, and looked as if it didn't change much as it passed from one generation to the next. It boasted several pieces of heavy dark furniture and a huge, faded woven rug, thin from centuries of use. Dust mites danced energetically in the shaft of sunlight that fell across Vittorio's shoulders. He seemed all concentration as his right hand rapidly made entries on the ledger's huge lined pages. He looked Roman and aristocratic, and no one could doubt how seriously he took the responsibility of running his family's business. In a flash of insight, Gabby recognized just how much tradition he came from and what it must mean to him. And the chasm it had created between him and the American girl who'd once been his love.

  Finally he raised his eyes, saw her, started, and smiled. "You slept well?"

  "Like a baby."

  He rose from his chair. "Let me call for coffee."

  They settled on a sofa with their espressos on a low table in front of them. Ever polite, Vittorio waited for Gabby to speak.

  She set her tiny white cup down in its saucer. "I have a proposition for you, Vittorio. One I believe could be very beneficial to both our families."

  "A business proposition, you said on the phone." He smiled. "Gabriella, don't tell me you're giving up winemaking to get behind a desk?"

  "No, never. In fact, it's because I want to keep making wine the way I always have that I'm coming to you with this."

  He frowned. "I don't understand."

  She took a deep breath. "The owners of Suncrest Vineyards, the Winsted family, want to sell the winery. They've received an offer from a San Francisco investment firm. And though I'm sure the investors mean well," she was careful to add, "I know a little about how they work. I have an idea what they're planning to do. And I'm very concerned that they'll take Suncrest in the wrong direction, turn it into a big corporation that makes mediocre wine. And use the Suncrest brand name to do it."

  Vittorio's eyes didn't waver from her face. "I know you would not like to work for such a winery."

  "No, I wouldn't. And neither would my father."

  "But Gabriella, if this sale comes to pass and things go as you fear, why don't you simply take a job at another winery? Surely in Napa Valley there are many smaller, more traditional wineries that would suit you."

  Of course she'd thought of that. But it wasn't as if winemaker jobs at elite wineries grew on trees. And anyway, what about her father? "I hope it doesn't come to that, Vittorio. Right now what I'm trying to do is keep Suncrest the way it's always been. And that's where you come in."

  He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I still don't understand. What can I do?"

  She gathered herself. Guilt seared through her, and fear, and a horrible foreboding. Yet it was for this moment that she had traveled six thousand miles. "You can consider buying Suncrest yourself," she heard herself say. "Have Castello di Corvo make an offer."

  Silence. Vittorio's dark eyes widened in obvious shock. Outside the castle's thick stone walls ravens cawed, their shrill cries as familiar to this sundrenched hilltop as grapevines. Gabby stared at Vittorio, willing him to take her proposition seriously.

  Vittorio jerked his thumb at his own chest. "Me make an offer? For Suncrest?"

  "Why not? I know you've been exploring possible acquisitions in Napa Valley." It was ironic. When Gabby had first heard that, she'd been infuriated. She'd felt as if Vittorio were invading her own private territory. But by this point, she'd like nothing better than to see him lay claim to Suncrest. "It's a highly desirable property. That's why these investors want it. It's in the Rutherford Bench, which is the best part of the valley. Property there almost never comes available. You couldn't do better," she added, convinced that was true despite all the damage Max had done in recent months.

  Vittorio frowned, rose from the couch, and walked to a large window cut into the thick stone wall. She watched the afternoon sun play on his even features, accentuate the lines in his brow as he furrowed it in thought.

  Eventually he spoke. "I agree with you that Suncrest is very valuable, Gabriella." He turned his head to meet her eyes. "I have been keeping track of it."

  He didn't need to say why. She cleared her throat. "Then you understand what a rare opportunity this could be for Castello di Corvo."

  He shook his head. "The problem is, it is a much bigger acquisition than we could handle. We're looking at wineries in the ten-million-dollar range. Do you know what the offer price is that this buyout firm has made?"

  "No." Will certainly hadn't made her privy to that kind of information.

  "I would guess it's at least three times the size we're looking at." He rubbed his chin. "Do you have any idea when the Winsted family plans to respond to this offer?"

  She grimaced. "They already have. They've already accepted it."

  He threw out his hands. "Then Gabriella—"

  "But it's not a done deal yet." She shot up from the sofa and approached him. "The Winsteds have signed a term sheet but not the final documents. Those aren't even written up." At least they weren't when I left California. "Isn't it true that nothing's set in stone until those final documents are signed?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "So it's not too late."

  "But
it may very well be, Gabriella." There was frustration in his voice. "I'm sure the Winsted family has agreed not to talk to other potential buyers. A 'no-shop clause,' it's called. The investors don't want them to get a better offer."

  Gabby knew that a no-shop clause or not, Max Winsted would jump at the chance to improve his take. "But the Winsteds don't have to know that you know about this other offer. As far as they're concerned, you're just interested in buying Suncrest."

  He stared at her. "I don't remember you being this conniving.''

  "We have a saying in English, Vittorio. 'Desperate times call for desperate measures.'"

  "I don't know." He shook his head, leaned his weight on his hands, resting on the wide stone sill beneath the window. "Why do you even think we'd be any better at running Suncrest than these investors you're telling me about?"

  "Because the Mantuccis have run a family winery for centuries. You've survived war and strife and God knows what, Vittorio, and still you make wine the old-fashioned way. That you've survived this long proves that there's a niche for the kind of winery that takes care of its workers, that understands how important it is to preserve the land and the values for the next generation. It's not all about the money for you."

  "We're not so idealistic as all that, Gabriella," he said, then looked away and sighed.

  He thinks I'm crazy, that I've gone off the deep end. She twisted away from him, a sob rising in her throat. Maybe I have. This is lunatic. But don't I have to try? What do I have to lose?

  Actually, a great deal.

  She felt Vittorio's hand on her arm. His voice was soft. "Gabriella, you coming all this way to ask me this, it does have the smell of desperation."

  She hung her head and stared at the stone floor, uneven, warped by centuries. "I know."

  "You don't even own Suncrest. Why do you care so much?"

  "Because I've known it all my life, Vittorio, I grew up in those vineyards. They're home to me." By now a tear was tracing a slow track down her cheek. "Because apart from here, it's the most beautiful place I've ever seen. I want to protect it, for me and for my family. And for all those people who've been buying Suncrest wines all these years.