Read Online Invitation to Provence by Elizabeth Adler - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Adler
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to roll them at the wrists and ankles and hitch them tight around her thin waist with a piece of string. Her dark hair was bound in a red kerchief, her pretty hands were stained purple with grape must, and her head swam drunkenly from the fumes as the grapes fermented in the great vats.
On cold, dark early-spring mornings she’d prowled the rows of vines with her father, drinking great gasps of air so cold and clean it was like the wine itself. The light of the moon illuminated the threads of a rare frost that her father told her could ruin the precious crop in mere hours, and she’d helped spray the young grapes to stop them from freezing.
It was Rafaella who had replanted the wild white roses that gave the château its name, at the end of each row of vines. The roses were important because they would be first to be attacked by pests, thus giving the Martens warning to protect the grapes. And she’d spent many long nights poring over orders and accounts with her father, who also taught her how to make a good deal with the bottlers, and had taken her with him to Portugal in search of a new source of cork.
Now, they said, there was nothing Rafaella Marten didn’t know about wine. Personally, she thought it was a good thing she still enjoyed drinking it because her apprenticeship had been long and hard. She was the only Marten heir, and when her father died, the full responsibility for the business—and its workers, who were the village people she had known all her life—had fallen on her shoulders.
Though on the surface she seemed frivolous and carefree, Rafaella ran her winery in a most professional and creative manner. She opened up new markets in Asia and the United States, finding acclaim for her “supple, sensual red wine with a hint of flowers in the bouquet and a velvet heft to it that tingles on the palette like the scent of fresh pine on a winter mountain day.” That’s the way the reviewer in the
New York Times
acclaimed it on its first launch. Not bad, Rafaella had thought with a satisfied smile, for what was essentially a jumped-up Côtes-du-Rhône. Admittedly, it was of the first order, but it was still no smart Bordeaux.
Rafaella also took good care of her workers and her village, always there in times of crisis and of celebration. As a girl, she had gone to school with the villagers’children and was known to them as Rafaella. She knew every family by name, always knew who was sick or who was leaving the village to work in the city and who had come back, tail between their legs, because after all, the allure of home was too strong.
In fact, it was the château and her love for it that had come between her and the man known to everyone as “the Lover.” Lucas Bronson was an arrogant, handsome nomad, a champion polo player, a world wanderer, always restless, eternally on the move in search of the next “main event” in life. Following the polo matches, Lucas switched countries and continents with as little thought as Rafaella put into planning a picnic. Of course she did not go with him because she had her work and her home to look after. Even love had not been able to tie down Lucas Bronson. And even after she left him, Rafaella believed—she still had to believe, otherwise she couldn’t bear it—that Lucas had really loved her.
Ten years ago Rafaella had officially “retired,” and ScottHarris had come to run her vineyards, though she still couldn’t resist keeping a finger in the pie, stirring the mix every now and again, just to see what would happen.
Scott was Australian. He’d grown up in the Barossa Valley and, like herself, he’d been in the wine business since he was a boy. Now she looked forward immensely to their weekly “business lunches” at the Café des Colombes. In fact, they were the highlight of her week—until the idea of the family reunion had taken over, that is. Now all she could think about, all she longed for, was that there might be a family again at the
On cold, dark early-spring mornings she’d prowled the rows of vines with her father, drinking great gasps of air so cold and clean it was like the wine itself. The light of the moon illuminated the threads of a rare frost that her father told her could ruin the precious crop in mere hours, and she’d helped spray the young grapes to stop them from freezing.
It was Rafaella who had replanted the wild white roses that gave the château its name, at the end of each row of vines. The roses were important because they would be first to be attacked by pests, thus giving the Martens warning to protect the grapes. And she’d spent many long nights poring over orders and accounts with her father, who also taught her how to make a good deal with the bottlers, and had taken her with him to Portugal in search of a new source of cork.
Now, they said, there was nothing Rafaella Marten didn’t know about wine. Personally, she thought it was a good thing she still enjoyed drinking it because her apprenticeship had been long and hard. She was the only Marten heir, and when her father died, the full responsibility for the business—and its workers, who were the village people she had known all her life—had fallen on her shoulders.
Though on the surface she seemed frivolous and carefree, Rafaella ran her winery in a most professional and creative manner. She opened up new markets in Asia and the United States, finding acclaim for her “supple, sensual red wine with a hint of flowers in the bouquet and a velvet heft to it that tingles on the palette like the scent of fresh pine on a winter mountain day.” That’s the way the reviewer in the
New York Times
acclaimed it on its first launch. Not bad, Rafaella had thought with a satisfied smile, for what was essentially a jumped-up Côtes-du-Rhône. Admittedly, it was of the first order, but it was still no smart Bordeaux.
Rafaella also took good care of her workers and her village, always there in times of crisis and of celebration. As a girl, she had gone to school with the villagers’children and was known to them as Rafaella. She knew every family by name, always knew who was sick or who was leaving the village to work in the city and who had come back, tail between their legs, because after all, the allure of home was too strong.
In fact, it was the château and her love for it that had come between her and the man known to everyone as “the Lover.” Lucas Bronson was an arrogant, handsome nomad, a champion polo player, a world wanderer, always restless, eternally on the move in search of the next “main event” in life. Following the polo matches, Lucas switched countries and continents with as little thought as Rafaella put into planning a picnic. Of course she did not go with him because she had her work and her home to look after. Even love had not been able to tie down Lucas Bronson. And even after she left him, Rafaella believed—she still had to believe, otherwise she couldn’t bear it—that Lucas had really loved her.
Ten years ago Rafaella had officially “retired,” and ScottHarris had come to run her vineyards, though she still couldn’t resist keeping a finger in the pie, stirring the mix every now and again, just to see what would happen.
Scott was Australian. He’d grown up in the Barossa Valley and, like herself, he’d been in the wine business since he was a boy. Now she looked forward immensely to their weekly “business lunches” at the Café des Colombes. In fact, they were the highlight of her week—until the idea of the family reunion had taken over, that is. Now all she could think about, all she longed for, was that there might be a family again at the
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