Read Online Tutti Italia: A Novel by Deena Jordan - Free Book Online

here.”  Rachel got off the bus and saw an old stone building
with a red tiled roof, covered in vines that had huge clusters of grapes hanging
everywhere.  It was exactly what she’d pictured a vineyard to be.  There were
miles and miles of grapes surrounding the building, and there was a larger
building a little ways in the distance.  “That must be where the distilleries
are.  I hope we get to see them up close.”  Jason looked at her with a blank
expression.  She laughed good-naturedly at him.  “Don’t tell me you’ve never
heard of distilleries.”  He held his hands up in protest and shook his head. 
“You are so missing out.  It’s how they make wine…well, any alcohol
really.  They’re these huge metal containers where they let the grapes ferment
and then they press the juice out of them.  Depending on what they want to
make, they may add a few other things, but essentially, then it flows down into
another huge metal container that gets stirred continuously until it gets
bottled up.”  Jason had an impressed look on his face.  Obviously this boy
didn’t read as extensively as Rachel did.  If he had, maybe he would have been
able to make sense of what she’d just said.  She made a mental note not to show
off her knowledge in front of him anymore, and make him feel bad.  She took the
lead on the tour, because learning about things was a passion of hers, and she
wanted to be right there in the thick of it.
    “This is where we have our little store,” the young woman
giving them the tour said.  “This is mostly what people see.  They don’t
understand all the hard work that goes into making wine because they’ve never
done it, and they don’t want to learn about it.  So we just show them where
they can buy the bottles.”  The woman left them to browse in the vine covered
building that the bus had stopped in front of.  Rachel could completely
understand what she was talking about.  She’d seen it herself.  An older man
with a very bushy mustache walked over to them.
    “Hello!  My name is Geovanni. I am the owner of the
vineyard.  Are you ready to taste our wines?”  A cheer rose from the crowd
gathered around him, and he took a tray of glasses and passed them out to everyone. 
“Make a line and I will pour while I talk, ok?”  No one had a problem with
that, and they did as they were told.  Geovanni went into great detail about
how this particular wine was made, and what gave it its distinct fruity taste. 
Everyone sipped from their glasses while he spoke.  He brought out a new bottle
of something different, and this time he didn’t have to tell them to make a
line, they were ahead of him, with glasses ready to be filled again.  This
pattern repeated itself a few more times, and then the woman who had given them
the tour came back with an empty tray that she used to collect the empty wine
glasses.  When she came back, she had another tray with small black squares on
it.  At least, that’s what it looked like to Rachel until she got closer.  They
were small black cups with something dark and shiny inside them.
    “This is our famous chocolate liquor.  We serve it in
chocolate shot glasses.  Go ahead and take your shot before your glass melts.” 
He didn’t have to tell Rachel twice.  She loved chocolate to the point where
she even considered it an extra food group.  She downed the shot, but she
scrunched her face up in distaste.  It tasted nothing like chocolate.  It was
straight liquor, and she didn’t like it.  She wished that she could take it
back.  It cleared up her sinuses quite well, however, because it smelled like
paint thinner.  She hurriedly ate the chocolate shot glass that it had come
in.  She smiled.  That was better.  Even though she wasn’t as partial to dark
chocolate, it took the taste of the liquor out of her mouth, and for that she
was grateful.
    “What did you think about all the wine we tried?”  She was
trying to make