Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (39 page)

Everyone laughed, and Rosa seized her opportunity. “In the meantime, would you show me the most beautiful places on your vineyard?”

Bea hesitated, glancing to her bedridden husband.

“Oh, go on, I’m fine,” said Sal. “Show her around. Who knows when you might get another chance?”

Bea agreed, so while Sal settled back to enjoy the children’s get well cards and Francesca carried the basket inside to the kitchen and put away the gifts of food and wine, Bea and Rosa strolled arm in arm along the cobblestone footpaths and gravel roads that wound through the Vanelli estate. Sal’s father had built the smaller farmhouse in 1862, Bea told her, and the larger detached wing was added in 1915 and included a spacious kitchen, a laundry room, and offices, with sleeping quarters for their workers on the second floor. Bea proudly showed off her lovely flower gardens in the courtyard and the shade garden lush with wild ginger, strawberries, and Dutchman’s-pipe she had planted amid groves of cypress, oak, and coast redwood trees. From the gardens they strolled past the barn and the stable, where Bea introduced her to Sal’s pride and joy, a team of four magnificent English shire horses, majestic and gentle. Farther away from the house and adjacent to the vineyard stood the winery, a long, low building built of the same sturdy redwood as the barn, with a gabled roof covered in curved terra-cotta roof tiles.

“It looks humble from the outside,” said Bea, sizing up the building fondly, “but the cellar is where the real work of the winery takes place, and its cellar is magnificent.”

“Dante says that the quality of a wine depends upon what happens on the grapevine,” said Rosa, following Bea inside.

“He’s quite right, up to a point,” said Bea, smiling. The first floor of the winery appeared to be a single large room supported by redwood columns, and all around them were stored the tools and accoutrements of winemaking—cast-iron grape crushers, redwood fermenters, oak presses, empty casks, and oak barrels
stacked on their sides, plugs firmly in place. “An excellent wine begins with an excellent grape, but in the wrong hands, perfect fruit can become absolutely undrinkable wine.”

Suddenly they heard footsteps behind them, and they turned to find a man climbing the cellar stairs. He looked to be in his late twenties, of Chinese heritage and handsome. He was a few inches taller than Rosa, with broad shoulders and a slim waist, and his rolled-up shirtsleeves exposed strong, well-developed arms. He grinned at Bea and gave Rosa a quick, curious smile and a nod of welcome. “Undrinkable wine?” he echoed. “Not from this winery, I promise you that.”

Smiling, Bea took the younger man’s arm and gave him a motherly pat on the shoulder. “And you’re a significant part of the reason why. Rose, this fine young fellow is our foreman, lead vintner, and all-around right-hand man, Daniel Kuo. His family has been growing grapes and making wine on this land longer than Sal’s has. Daniel, allow me to introduce you to Rose Ottesen, a neighbor and a friend. She and her husband work for the Cacchiones.”

They shook hands, and Daniel’s dark brows drew together in sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear about the hard times over at your place,” he said. “How’s Dante holding up?”

“As well as can be expected, from what I hear,” said Rosa. Although Lars had gone to see Dante several times, she had not. She thought she could better help the family by staying behind to take care of the household chores and mind the children so that Giuditta, Francesca, and Mabel would be free to visit him. Giuditta probably wouldn’t have passed on Dante’s complaints even in the unlikely event that the stoic rancher had made any. “It’s been difficult, and I don’t see it getting any easier anytime soon, but I think they’ll get through it all right.”

“Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for them.”

“Of course.”

“Daniel,” said Bea, “I was going to show Rose around the wine cellar. Would you do the honors instead?”

“I’d be glad to.” Daniel led the way down the stairs into the cool darkness of the wine cellar. It was much like the Cacchiones’, albeit smaller, and the wine barrels rested on shelves unencumbered by chicken wire and padlocks. Daniel pointed out the barrels that contained the family’s legally permissible two hundred gallons, and shook his head in frustration as he indicated the many more that were filled with water to keep the wood from drying out. Someday, he said, he hoped to fill them with new wine—someday, after Prohibition was repealed.

“You always say ‘when’ rather than ‘if,’” remarked Bea.

“I don’t believe Prohibition will last,” Daniel replied. “It can’t. It’s unreasonable, the wartime grain emergency is over, and it didn’t help the economy the way its proponents insisted it would.”

“If Sal and I had your faith, we wouldn’t be looking to sell the vineyard.”

“Time will prove me right.” Daniel’s voice took on a note of gentle urging. “Wait it out. You’ll see.”

Bea patted his arm and shook her head. “We’ve been struggling under Prohibition for more than six years, and we can’t wait it out any longer. I’m sorry, Daniel, but it’s time for Sal and me to move on.”

Daniel managed a rueful smile and nodded, and Rosa guessed they’d had the same discussion several times before.

When Daniel finished the tour of the cave, as he called it, he escorted the two women out into the vineyard, where he spoke passionately and in great detail about the varietals of grapes
that grew on the rugged slopes. With a sweeping gesture toward the Mayacamas, he lauded the Zinfandel vines that grew along the highest rows on the eastern slopes of the vineyard, some with stocks wider than the span of his hands, with roots so deep they drew rich flavors from minerals lingering far beneath the arid ground. The table grapes that grew on the opposite slopes absorbed their sweetness from the rainwater that soaked into the ground in winter and the sunshine that bathed them in spring, and when plucked and eaten at the peak of their ripeness, they were juicy and delicious and refreshing, better than candy. The particular geology of the V-shaped vineyard introduced intriguing characteristics unique to Vanelli wines, Daniel explained. The Cabernet Sauvignon grapes that grew on the eastern slopes received more sunlight than those that grew on the western ridges, which fell into the shadow of Sonoma Mountain by mid-afternoon. More sunshine encouraged the grapes to grow thicker skins with more tannins, which influenced the flavor of the wine. Sal and Daniel had spent years developing the perfect blend of grapes grown on the sunnier slopes and those cooled in the shade to create a magnificent wine they were proud to call their own. “Of course, Sal’s name is on the bottle, not mine,” Daniel concluded modestly. “And that’s how it should be.”

Rosa was so captivated by his tour—and so startled by Daniel’s unwitting use of her and Lars’s fond old phrase to describe the sweet grapes eaten fresh from the vine—that it took her a moment to detect a strange incongruity in his narration. “Aren’t Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon wine grapes?” she asked, looking from Daniel to Bea and back. “I thought you grew only table grapes and prunes here.”

Bea and Daniel exchanged a look. “It’s true that we still
grow wine grapes, and we still make wine,” admitted Bea, “but only four hundred gallons a year.”

“Two hundred for the Vanellis’ household and two hundred for mine,” added Daniel. “That’s within the bounds of the law.”

Rosa was afraid to ask if they too were bootleggers, but Bea answered her unspoken question. “We don’t sell our wine. We store it, and we’ve given some away, but we don’t sell it. If we did, we would’ve quit after what happened to Dante and Giuditta.”

Rosa was greatly relieved to hear it.

Daniel finished his tour, with Bea chiming in from time to time with amusing stories about their years on the vineyard. Then he bade the women good-bye so he could return to his work. Rosa thanked him and promised to carry his best wishes home to the Cacchiones. Daniel seemed remarkably knowledgeable about the cultivation of grapes and winemaking, and Rosa was touched to see how much he cared for the Vanellis and regretted their imminent departure. She hoped the new owners would recognize how valuable his knowledge and experience were and would allow him to keep his job, if he wanted it.

With Daniel Kuo staying on as foreman, she suddenly realized, the new owners could surely be as successful as the Vanellis had been—even if they were novice vintners who had never grown a grape.

“Bea,” she asked after Daniel left, “you said that Daniel’s family has grown grapes and made wine on this land even longer than the Vanellis have. Did his family work for the previous owners?”

“Indeed they did,” said Bea. “Daniel’s great-grandfather came to California for the Gold Rush and stayed on to help build the railroad. He had no family back in China depending
upon him to send money home, so he saved every penny in hopes of buying land, since he had been a farmer back in China.” She sighed and shook her head. “No one would sell to him, and this was years before the Alien Land Law would have made it illegal for him to own property hereabouts anyway. Eventually he took a job as a picker for Sal’s grandfather and worked his way up to foreman. Over the decades, most of his descendants left the Sonoma Valley to find work in San Francisco, but a few have always remained, including Daniel.”

As she spoke, Bea led Rosa up the western slopes to the prune orchard, where the blossoms of spring had given way to hard, green fruits slowly growing and ripening in the warm sunshine. Harvest would begin in August, and the Vanellis were counting on a bountiful crop to help them pay their debts and moving expenses. From Bea’s description, Rosa gathered that the cultivation of prunes wasn’t significantly different from that of apricots. A rancher who had grown one of the fruits successfully could certainly master the other.

As they reached the northern boundary of the ranch and turned around to head back to the house, the women fell into a contemplative silence. The Vanellis’ love for the land was evident, and Rosa considered it unfair and unfortunate that they felt compelled to leave. She could not imagine how new owners could possibly appreciate and cherish their vineyards and orchard as much as the Vanellis did—although she knew she herself would.

As they walked on, Rosa glimpsed another outbuilding through the prune trees, its weathered, sun-faded walls blending almost invisibly into the leafy wood that bordered the orchard. “What’s that over there?”

Bea glanced over her shoulder but didn’t pause. “Oh, that’s
just the old prune barn. We don’t use it anymore. I’ve been after Sal to tear it down before it collapses, but we never got around to it. It’s a nuisance and an eyesore.”

“Fortunately, you can’t see it from the house or the road.” Rosa supposed that made it easier to put off the chore of tearing it down—out of sight, out of mind. “When Giuditta told me how close your land is to Sonoma, I never guessed it would seem so remote, so secluded.”

“It is rather isolated, isn’t it?” Bea replied thoughtfully. “We’re far enough off the main road that we don’t get many tourists passing by. It’s quiet and peaceful, and we like it that way, but I suppose it would be too isolated for some folks.”

“Bea,” Rosa began, and then hesitated, reluctant to hasten the Vanellis’ departure from the land they cherished or to prosper from their misfortune. “Are you and Sal sure, I mean, are you absolutely certain that you want to sell?”

“Oh, Rose, if you only knew how many months we anguished over this decision, you wouldn’t need to ask.” Bea slowed her pace as they reached the edge of the vineyard and the charming farmhouse came into view. “Our minds are made up, and we know it’s for the best. We hope to move out as soon as the harvest is done.”

“I suppose that means you’d be glad to find a buyer soon.”

“Yes, indeed, although who in their right mind would want to buy a vineyard during Prohibition?” Bea laughed, and Rosa joined in weakly. “Fortunately, we’ve already received an offer, and even though it’s less than half of what we hoped for, we’re inclined to take it. Sal’s heart can’t take another season, and I’m not sure mine could either.”

Rosa stopped short. “Bea, you can’t take that offer.”

Bea halted too, regarding Rosa in puzzlement. “Well, I admit
it’s not ideal, but I’m not sure we’d get a better offer if we stayed through the winter, not in these uncertain times.” She resumed walking. “Sometimes you have to take what you can get.”

Rosa quickly fell in step beside her. “Bea, don’t do anything until I can bring Nils to see your land. I think he’ll love it as much as I do, and I know we can beat that other offer.”

Now it was Bea’s turn to stop short in astonishment. “You and Nils want to buy a vineyard?”

“And the orchard, and the house, and those magnificent horses, and whatever furniture you want to leave behind—everything.” Rosa read the uncertainty in the older woman’s eyes and knew she wondered how two hired hands could possibly have the means to buy a thriving forty-five-acre ranch and all that went along with it. “We both come from generations of farmers and ranchers so we know what we’re doing, and we can meet your asking price. Please tell me you won’t sell to anyone else until Nils has the chance to see the property.”

“Well, I can certainly promise you that. We weren’t planning to accept the other offer unless nothing else came along before the end of the harvest season.” Bea reached out and clasped Rosa’s hand in both of hers, beaming. “Bring Nils by as soon as you like, and bring your children too. I know the Cacchiones hold your family in the highest esteem. I can’t tell you how it would comfort us to know we’re entrusting our land to worthy stewards.”

They settled on Sunday afternoon for the next visit, and after agreeing to keep the matter between themselves and their husbands for the time being, they walked back to the house, their footsteps quickened by hope and anticipation.

For the rest of the day Rosa felt as if she might burst from
keeping her secret, and as soon as the children were tucked into bed, she took Lars by the hand and led him outside to the creek, where already the ocean fogs were rolling in. There she told him all about Vanelli Vineyards and Orchard and the unexpected outcome of her visit. The property was secluded and yet still accessible to schools, markets, church, new friends, and the train to San Francisco. There was a vineyard and winery for her and an orchard for him. The farmhouse seemed cozy and charming—from the outside, anyway—and the new kitchen and laundry room in the adjacent building sounded ideal. It was far enough away to throw any pursuers off their trail, but close enough that the move would not be too disruptive for the children. Most important, it offered them what they most wanted and needed—a home and land of their own—and they could afford it.