Page 47 of The Wrong Vintage
“I know,” I interrupt gently. “And I have no right to ask this, but…can we start again?”
Her expression twists with confusion. “Start what?”
“Our marriage.” I release a slow breath. “We’re married in name, but maybe we could actually be a couple.”
She pulls away from me, straightens. “You want to start our marriage?”
“Yes.” I give her a crooked smile, equal parts humility and hope. “I’d like to get to know you. Date you.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You want to date me?”
“Yes,” I admit, a little bashful.
Now, she smiles. “And what would that look like?”
I think she’s teasing me. Or flirting. Either way, it’s disarming.
“Dinner,” I suggest. “Walks through the vines. Talking. Maybe kissing in dark corners.”
She laughs—bright, unguarded, and real.
That’s when I know that I’m falling for my wife.
The women I’ve been with before were beautiful, intelligent, and accomplished. But none of them come close to Alessia’s authenticity. With her, I don’t search for hiddenmeanings or read between the lines. She says what she thinks—without fear, without pretense.
That kind of courage is rare.
I know because I don’t have it.
Even when I left the family business to build something of my own, it was a calculated risk. A safety net beneath me. Trust funds. Family money. I was never in danger of losing everything.
Alessia’s courage is silent and far more radical. She lives honestly every day. She doesn’t dress up because a photographer shows up. She doesn’t perform femininity to be palatable. She doesn’t cook elaborate meals to earn affection.
She is herself—completely, unapologetically—and if that doesn’t appeal to someone, she assumes, rightly, that it’s their problem.
11
ALESSIA
We sit at the table under the pergola, neither of us eager to be the first to suggest ending an evening we’re both enjoying.
The plates are empty, the wine bottle lighter, the night settled comfortably around us.
Cicadas have taken over the soundtrack of the estate.
The air cools as the winds roll in from the Tyrrhenian Sea, carrying salt and metal like stone warmed all day and only now allowed to breathe.
Bolgheri isn’t enclosed the way valleys are. It’s open—caught between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Colline Metallifere—shaped by what moves through it rather than what contains it. The hills act as a partial rain shadow, keeping Bolgheri drier than inland Tuscany.
Across the darkness, the silhouette of Elba rests on the horizon—the island where Napoleon was once exiled. The island is an example of how confinement and exposure can coexist. How Elba, an obscure landmass surrounded by water, came to be in the limelight for housing Napoleon’s incarceration.
“This breeze,” I say softly, more to myself than to Nico, “is why our cabernets don’t overripen. The sea keeps us honest.”
He gives me his full attention. It’s disconcerting and flattering that he cares to know what I think.
He nods. “At night, Bolgheri seems somehow closer to the water.”
Every day, the sea sends afternoon and evening breezes inland, which collide with a chain of low, mineral-rich hills that run roughly north–south behind Bolgheri, creating the diurnal temperature swings, warm days and cool nights, imperative for the making of good wine.
