Hans Schuller held out the bottle for Jim to inspect, a practiced gesture for the old vintner, body of the bottle cradled in one slender hand, the neck in the other.
"As you insisted, Mr. Crowell." Schuller's voice flowed like honey, pleasantly lubricated, as if from years of sampling his own grape. "My oldest, most valuable bottle. The rarest in the Napa Valley. In California." Thick black eyebrows rose above bright eyes and his voice deepened with drama. "It is the rarest in the entire world."
To Jim, it looked like the other wine bottles in the Schuller Winery.
Not wine--absinthe, the old guy had insisted. Sure. Why not?
In fact, it looked like any bottle in any winery in the valley. Concave bottom, long neck, cork, the glass a deep forest green under a thin dust layer. But no label.
The cellar felt cramped, stuffy, like a tomb, encased in high brick walls. The sugary smell of crushed grapes, edged with a sour bite of alcohol, spiced the cold air. Dust-moted light played on the bottle in Schuller's hands from a high, narrow window, a silver lance slicing between long rows of wooden bottle-filled racks in the otherwise dim room.
"There's no label." Jim reached out to touch the bottle and the old man drew it back an inch, an apologetic smile crinkling sun-coppered cheeks.
"The bottler of this vintage didn't want to advertise."
)
