Forty

Leah had preached the gospel of cheese for two decades, but it felt different doing so on her home turf. The indoor tasting room filled to capacity fifteen minutes before the official start time for her wine and cheese class. When she had posted a notice about the class across both the Bailey’s Blue and Hollander Estates social media platforms and mailing lists, enough reservations had poured in that she asked her father if she could use the veranda instead.

“We can’t disrupt the whole winery for this,” he’d said irritably.

Her mother told her the real problem was that they were closing the winery the day before to give the new buyer a tour, so they couldn’t disrupt the space two days in a row.

She could have sold double the tickets if he’d let her. Baby steps, she told herself. Even though she hadn’t been able to use the largest spot at the winery, the tasting room still let her seat three times as many people as she was able to teach at Bailey’s Blue.

Sadie helped her with the forty place settings; each spot had a small cheese board featuring Capri, Kunik, Stockinghall cheddar, and her favorite, Ewe’s Blue, and the four glasses of wines she’d selected for the pairing: Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, Merlot, and Malbec. In the center and at the end of each table, a basket of sliced crusty bread and bowls of dried cherries and chocolate-covered almonds.

Sadie had never shown any particular interest in cheese. She had always been a fussy eater, and there had been a time when Leah thought she might even become a vegan. But today, Sadie seemed as excited as Leah for the event. It was a relief because she’d been notably mopey at dinner the night before but wouldn’t admit that anything was wrong. And this was a departure from the positive changes Leah had seen in her daughter this summer.

She’d never thought of Sadie as being in a shell; she’d been too busy admiring her intellectual rigor and academic accomplishments to consider that maybe she was, in some ways, limited in her approach to life. When Sadie, at age fifteen, got an internship in the herpetology department of the Museum of Natural History, Leah had asked her what her sudden interest in frogs was. “I’m not interested in frogs,” Sadie had replied. “But it might make for a good short story one day.” Leah never thought to tell her maybe she should be working behind the counter of the cheese shop instead—not for her fiction but for her real-life experience. But now she could see a different Sadie emerging; a Sadie who didn’t mind a little sun on her face, getting her hands dirty.

If only her husband were capable of looking at the world a little differently.

In the few weeks since he’d visited, Steven made it clear that he had no interest in what was going on at the winery. Leah’s decision to remain there was an issue on which they’d agreed to disagree. It was less than ideal, but she hadn’t gotten through more than twenty years of marriage without a few of those. Besides, it was temporary. She knew she would have to go back to the city at some point, and in her mind that point was the end of the summer.

But as long as she was there, she was going to make the most of it.

Leah stepped to the front of the room and raised her glass of wine, waiting for the assembled group to notice and settle down. She started in with her welcome spiel, including the history of Hollander Estates. But she kept it brief, knowing from experience how eager people were to get to the good part: the drinking.

“Cheese and wine have so much in common. Both are made with the philosophy of terroir,” she said. “Terroir, loosely translated, means taste of a place. The wine that you are tasting today comes from grapes grown just a few steps away. Hollander wines are fermented with natural yeast that helps bring out the full terroir. Over the next hour, I look forward to exploring the tastes of this place. I’m Leah Hollander, and since I was born and raised here, I guess you could say this vineyard is my own personal terroir.”

The women smiled, and yes—the room was completely full of only women. Again, the lack of rosé rankled her. If she’d had some at her disposal, she’d have paired it with a nice Pawlet. Or even a sparkling rosé would be delightful with Castelrosso.

Focus, she told herself. You have all that you need for right now.

“Our first wine today is the Sauvignon Blanc. This grape loves seaside conditions, and that’s exactly what we have here.”

Nearly everyone reached for their glasses. People were always eager to drink. In some classes, the least ideal circumstance was when people arrived already half-drunk and the classes became more like a guided exercise in getting wasted. She didn’t get that sense from this particular crowd, but she wanted to keep things in check.

“Before you taste the wine, let’s first turn our attention to the Capri. Now, when it comes to pairing, there are two schools of thought: like with like, or ‘what grows together goes together.’ And then there’s the ‘opposites attract’ approach. For the Sauvignon Blanc, we’re going with the like-with-like: Capri, a pasteurized goat’s milk cheese from Massachusetts. Notice the color: very white and no rind. Goat’s milk is bright white, while cow’s milk is more golden. And you see that in the cheese.” She told the class to taste it, ideally first without the bread. “You’ll note that the flavor is tangy and acidic. And cheese, like wine, is living in the sense that the way the cheese tastes today is different than the way it tasted in the spring.”

She gave them the go-ahead to taste the Sauvignon Blanc and then suggested they try it along with the cheese. “You’ll note that the wine is also acidic. What flavor notes do you detect?”

People raised their hands: Grapefruit. Lime. Grass. She nodded, encouraging them to also smell the wine. “Some of the lightest-colored wines are the most aromatic. The great wine critic and writer Lettie Teague has said that eighty percent of a wine’s ‘flavor’ is actually its aroma. So it is not pretentious to sniff your wine. It’s actually a shame not to.”

She watched Sadie bring the glass to her nose with a smile, a smile that said, I’m learning something.

Leah, feeling in a groove, started to move on to the next pairing, then remembered to ask if anyone had any questions. A woman in the front row raised her hand.

“I’m just wondering: Could you pair this cheese with rosé? Or any of these cheeses? I mostly drink rosé in the summer, so . . .”

Leah swallowed hard. She felt like the press secretary for a president who’d just invaded a small defenseless country. How should she justify an obviously bad decision?

“You can absolutely pair the Capri with rosé. Hollander Estates is the North Fork’s oldest winery, so the varietals we grow and the wines we sell tend to be on the more traditional end of the spectrum.”

Another hand raised. She realized that at some point, a lone man had made his way into the room. He had slicked-back hair and watched her with sharp blue eyes.

Leah, trying not to look as confused as she felt, acted like he was just any other attendee. “Yes?”

“Is there any difference between wine produced out here and, say, wine produced in the venerable region of Bordeaux?”

He had a heavy French accent: it was the prospective buyer. What was he doing there? She knew he’d visited the day before, and she’d made herself scarce. No one told her he was returning today. But then, neither of her parents had said much of anything last night. Her mother didn’t even make it to dinner, taking to her room with a headache.

Leah took a gulp from the glass of Sauvignon Blanc she’d intended only for display purposes.

“We have more in common with Bordeaux than, say, Napa. Both here and in Bordeaux wine growers can’t take good weather for granted. They have to deal with rain during harvest just as we have the threat of hurricanes—obstacles we both overcome to make beautifully complex wine.”

Great. Now her father wasn’t the only one challenging her. She hoped that after she successfully lobbed his little missive back at him that he’d leave, but he stayed until the end of class. Mercifully, he stayed quiet for the rest of the hour. But as the last of the customers filed out of the room onto the veranda to continue enjoying their wine, he approached her.

“Henri de Villard,” he said, extending his hand. She shook it, and the look in his eyes unnerved her. It was as if he knew something she didn’t.

“Leah Hollander,” she said.

“You don’t look anything like your mother,” he said.

“Pardon me?”

“Excellent class,” he said. “I’m pleased I was able to make it. I do have one small request: for future events, please consult me first about the cheese and wine selections.”

Leah could not believe what she was hearing. Was this guy for real?

“I hate to break it to you, but I answer to my father, Mr. de Villard.”

“Baron,” he said. “That’s Baron de Villard. And I hate to break it to you, young lady: with the check I’m about to write, your father answers to me.”