equal exposure to sun and wine and was barely disguised by a wispy beard. We were clearly on the early side because the only other people in the room were an elderly couple who had already advanced to the reds.
Jack and I bellied up to the bar where a chorus line of uncorked bottles gleamed at the ready. After we each paid a five-dollar fee, the pourer set down tasting glasses in front of us and reached automatically for the first bottle. “Would you like to begin with the Sauvignon Blanc?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” Jack said.
The pourer poured tiny amounts into our tasting glasses and recorked the bottle.
“Look at the wine in your glass up against the light,” I instructed Jack as I held up mine and examined it. He did the same. “Now, set it back down on the counter and introduce some air into it.” We both swirled the wine around. “Now, stick your nose in it and take a whiff.” Jack imitated me bending over and putting my nose in the glass. Then, I upended the entire tasting amount into my mouth and sloshed it around as if it were mouthwash, then swallowed. Jack followed suit. “That’s what I want to see you do with every one.”
Jack smiled, happy to have such a rigorous tasting regimen imposed on him. “Okay.”
We went down the line. The Sauvignon was steely: mineral and gunmetal on the palate, but bright and citrusy.
“Do you have any of the ’99 La Rinconada?” I asked, referring to Sanford’s maiden bottling of a new single-vineyard Pinot that had been getting glowing reviews.
“Yeah, but we’re not tasting it,” the pourer said.
“How much is it a bottle?”
“Fifty-five,” he replied.
I turned to Jack and said, “It’s supposed to be monster.”
“Get it,” Jack said cavalierly. He turned to the pourer. “Can we drink it here?”
“Sure can,” he said.
While I paid for the La Rinconada, Jack went out to the car to retrieve some chicken sandwiches he had picked up at the gas station in Montecito. The pourer uncorked the wine, stuck the cork halfway back in the bottle, and set it on the bar in front of me. I gathered it up with the two tasting glasses and walked outside, where I found Jack sitting at a weathered picnic bench under a spreading oak that dappled him with oblong splotches of shade. He was munching on a sandwich and looked pretty content sitting there all alone. I wanted to take a picture of him, but I didn’t have a camera. Then he saw me and shot his arm into the air. I hurried over with the wine.
I poured two ample glasses of the La Rinconada and handed one to Jack. The wine was a deep, almost opaque purple in the glass. Against the sunlight it turned carmine, but you still couldn’t see through it. On the nose it was full-throttle blackberry and leather and spice with hints of raspberry candy. The mouthfeel was explosive of highly extracted, but still young, Pinot Noir grapes draped in tannins.
“What do you think of it?” Jack asked, chewing the wine in his mouth.
“Lovely,” I said, pouring us a little more. “Big and gamy, almost irreverent for a Pinot. I like it. A perfect beginning to this weeklong adventure.”
We clinked glasses. Jack was relieved to see my spirits lifting. He handed me the other chicken sandwich and we ate them ravenously while continuing to revel in the La Rinconada. Over the vineyard, a turkey vulture wheeled in slow circles. Then, suddenly, as if it had been shot, it dive-bombed out of the sky and disappeared into the vines where it produced a violent struggle. Moments later, it ascended with a great clattering of furiously flapping wings, clutching a partially eviscerated rodent in its talons.
“I hope your marriage works, because that’s what divorce is like,” I observed, as the huge, black raptor winged away.
Jack laughed. Then, holding the glass to his mouth, asked: “What really happened to you at the tasting yesterday? It was way out of character for you.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just kind of
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