Dante packed the last few bottles into the approved container and stapled it shut with the portable nail gun.
He wiped his hands on the seat of his jeans and nodded.
Their entries into the International Wine Awards were waiting and ready to be picked up by the courier.
Two entries of four bottles each.
A small entry, but important. Not only for the Casellati winery, but for him personally. One of those entries was his blend. The wine he’d worked on for the last few years. The wine he hoped like crazy would put their small winery on the map.
It had taken years of cajoling his father, years of placating and compromising to gain his father’s complete trust in his winemaking ability to get to the point where Sam had agreed to let them enter the awards.
Dante loved his father, wholly and unequivocally, but his father was happy to stay small, to stay safe in their known range of varietals. He was perfectly happy puttering around the vineyard and vat shed mixing accepted blends.
Dante wanted to push the envelope, try things that hadn’t been done before, maybe even bring back some old, long-forgotten ideas of winemaking that had fallen from favour in the new world of commercial, large-volume production.
He wanted to add back the personal touch that made drinking a well-crafted bottle of wine bring people together.
If it couldn’t be mass produced, so what?
If it couldn’t be reproduced to the exact same flavours and balances? All the better. It created a truly unique taste experience.
It would satisfy that part of his soul that had a desperate need to create. A need to manifest what he’d envisioned by melding flavours previously frowned upon, using techniques that had fallen into obscurity.
Here, in one of these cases, was the wine that would tell him if he had a future in the cutthroat industry of wine.
“It is ready?”
His father’s voice brought him around. He couldn’t help the wide grin that accompanied his words.
“It sure is.”
Sam nodded and patted the boxes like they were old friends. The contest had been open for a few weeks now, and tomorrow was the cut-off date for entries to be sent by. They would arrive in Sydney the following day. The main tastings were being held in Sydney this year, the awards changing continents each year to be fair to the contestants who were widely spaced over the globe.
“This is good. I know I was not fully supportive for a long time, Dante. It is not because I thought your ideas were no good. It was because I thought the world was not yet ready for them.” He looked up at him. Dante stood rooted to the spot, shocked. “You have a gift not even Raphael possesses, you are artigiano di talento.”
A talented craftsman.
Dante couldn’t find the words to speak. His throat had closed up and refused to work.
He surged forward and embraced his father in a strong bear hug. He and his father didn’t always see eye to eye, particularly around the subject of winemaking, but to hear the old man say something like that … It felt amazing.
Sly humour wound through him. Salvatore Casellati thought Dante was more talented than Raph.
That in itself was huge. Raph was the one who had trained overseas and spent the last ten years learning new techniques and working for renowned winemakers.
“There now, boy.” His father patted him on the shoulder like he was a small child. It almost made Dante laugh. To his father he probably would always be a small child. “You win, you lose—no matter. You try. That is what is important. Your, what, naked wine they calling it these days? It is good. Very good. Tastes like Nonno used to make in Friuli.”
Warmth and pride flooded Dante. He’d been to Italy several times, the last over five years ago. His family’s ancestral stone-built home still stood in Cividale, now an upmarket B&B homestay that a cousin owned. A beautiful area, it was almost identical in climate to the Crossing. Another reason why the vines his father had brought over so long ago had flourished in the Crossing’s subalpine environment.
“Thank you, Pa.”
It was all he could think of to say.
Sam raised his hand and walked toward the wide, high doorway of the bottling room. A plume of dust wafted past the open door. “The courier is here. I change my mind. Make sure you win those awards.”
Dante laughed and shook his head.
“Sure thing, Pa. Piece of cake.”
He blew out a nervous breath.
Yeah. A total piece of cake.