Gruppo Vallese

Paola Vitali came up the track on the twenty-ninth of October in a grey car that was too low for our gravel, with a lawyer called Sacchi in the passenger seat and a wooden box of sample bottles in the boot that she did not bring in, which I thought about afterwards.

I had written to her myself. My letter, my dates, my room. I had said Thursday the twenty-ninth at eleven and I had said the tasting room, and she had written back within a day saying that she would be delighted and that she would be bringing counsel, which is a thing people say when they want you to be frightened in advance and have the good manners to give you the chance.

She is forty-one and about my height and she wore boots that had been up a hill before. That is the first thing I will…