Snapper’s Seduction (Wicked Winemakers Central Coast: Second Label #4)

Chapter 1 Saffron

SAFFRON

The October heat in the attic above the Hope Family Winery made sweat trickle down my spine, but I kept sorting through the accumulated boxes and trunks that had been gathering dust for years.

I decided to tackle this project just to keep myself busy; otherwise, the stress of the conversation I’d overheard yesterday would eat me alive.

The worst part was that there wasn’t anyone I could talk to about it. Dad would deny it. Mom would too, if she even knew, and my older sister, Felicity, and her husband had their own winery in Napa Valley, and she was eight months pregnant. I couldn’t burden her with what I’d heard.

The attic stretched the entire length of the main winery building, filled with three generations of accumulation.

Wooden crates of ancient bottles and filing cabinets stuffed with correspondence dating back to Prohibition lined the walls, beside trunks of clothing that might have belonged to my great-grandmother or maybe even her mother.

I walked over to the single window and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.

I wiped away the dust that coated the glass and looked out at our oldest Cabernet block—vines my grandfather had planted decades ago—now gnarled and thick as a man’s forearm.

I reached into my pocket for my phone and checked the time.

The three hours I’d been up here felt more like six, but there was no point in stopping now, when I had too much time on my hands and too many thoughts swirling through my head.

I returned to the same area where I’d started sorting things I unpacked into piles of “keep,” “donate,” and “trash.” So far, the trash pile was winning.

Old catalogs from wine equipment suppliers long out of business had been stored in the same boxes as moldy leather ledgers with ink too faded to read.

The next box I opened contained a set of brass pipe fittings that might have been for an old bottling line or maybe they were plumbing fixtures. Trash. Definitely.

I was about to open another when a trunk that was shoved far under the eaves caught my eye.

The metal corners and leather straps made it look like it belonged on a stagecoach.

Inside, wrapped in yellowed tissue paper, were stacks of photographs.

Not the color snapshots from the eighties I’d been finding or the Polaroids from the seventies, but black-and-whites mounted on cardboard.

A woman I didn’t recognize stood beside old wooden fermentation tanks so unlike the stainless steel we’d been using for as long as I could remember.

She wore a dress that screamed nineteen-fifties with its cinched waist and full skirt, had dark hair pinned in victory rolls, and a smile that seemed to leap off the photograph.

Beside her stood another woman, this one with striking features that seemed almost familiar.

I flipped the picture over. In faded blue ink, someone had written: Marilyn Hope and Concepción Avila, Christmas Blessing Wine Success, December 1955.

Marilyn, my father’s grandmother, died when my dad was fifteen. I’d never heard of Concepción, but the surname was familiar. Could she be related to the Avilas I knew?

Beneath the photographs lay a leather journal with a brown cover so worn that it was as soft as suede.

I opened it with the same care I would use to handle a bird’s nest, afraid it might crumble in my hands.

Handwriting filled the pages in fountain-pen ink that had faded to sepia.

I turned to the beginning and saw it had belonged to Marilyn.

The first entry made me sit back on my heels.

The Christmas Blessing Wine is complete. What we have created together is something that could not be accomplished alone. C brings the wisdom of her Spanish ancestors—techniques passed down for three hundred years. I bring what California has taught us, what this soil whispers to those who listen.

As I kept going, my excitement building with each entry. But as I read more, frustration crept in. The notes were full of cryptic references and half-told secrets.

Temperature must rise with the moon…C knows the timing…blessed on St. Lucy’s day with the herbs from her garden…the proportion she guards…seven turns, then twelve, then five…but only when…

Throughout the journal, there were similar references to “C’s method” without explaining what it was.

Then I found it—a page that made me pause.

Varietals: Gamay, Syrah, Zinfandel

Method: Carbonic maceration (the French method, as Jules showed us)

Whole clusters only. No crushing. The berries must ferment from within.

I knew the process of carbonic maceration well.

We’d experimented with it on small batches of Zinfandel a few years back.

The intracellular fermentation that happened inside intact berries resulted in reduced tannins and a bright fruit-forward profile.

Best of all, it only took six to eight weeks from harvest to bottle.

Except, so much was missing—varietal percentages, target temperatures, and timing of the various stages.

I was about to keep searching when I noticed two pages stuck together. I separated them as carefully as I could, then read the faded ink.

We have agreed—each of us keeps our portion. What we created can never be made again. Perhaps someday our children and grandchildren will find a way to reunite our efforts.

They’d split the formula. Deliberately. Marilyn kept her part; Concepción kept hers. Neither family could make the wine without the other.

I’d heard of the “Christmas Blessing Wine”—said to have sold out in hours, with those who’d tasted it swearing it was extraordinary. Now, I understood why it had never been recreated—the formula had been split between two families who’d stopped working together. But why?

The historical significance alone was incredible. A wine that rare, if we could reproduce it, would be irresistible to collectors.

The challenges were significant, though.

Handpicking only. Mechanical harvesters would crush the clusters.

Sealed tanks with CO2 injection would be needed for the anaerobic environment.

But most critical was the formula itself—whatever proportions and techniques Concepción had kept in her half of the recipe.

Rather than put everything back, I gathered the journal and photographs, cleaned up the mess I’d made, then descended the wooden steps that groaned under my feet.

Had it only been twenty-four hours since I stood outside my father’s study, eavesdropping on a conversation that stopped me cold?

“I understand the bank’s position.” His tone had been flat, defeated in a way I’d only heard once before. Three days ago. “But a few bad harvests in a row, then the late frost last spring, taking thirty percent of our tonnage, have put us in a position—”

I’d pressed myself against the wall, barely breathing.

“Ninety days.” A long pause. “Yes, I realize that puts us right at New Year’s Eve.” Another pause. “If we can’t bring the account current by then, you’ll begin foreclosure.” His voice caught. “I see. Yes. Thank you for calling directly, not sending a letter. I appreciate that courtesy.”

The next thing I’d heard was the phone hitting the desk as if he’d thrown it.

I was about to walk past when I heard the desk chair creak, then a sound that chilled my blood—my father, Lucas Hope, the man who’d taught me to be strong no matter what, was crying.

I’d backed away silently. Ninety days. That was how long we were from losing everything—our home, our heritage, our livelihood.

Like yesterday, I retreated upstairs.

I sat on my bed, with Marilyn’s journal, rereading what she’d written about the Christmas Blessing Wine. What seemed like an exciting historical discovery ten minutes ago had just become something more—our only hope, given the time frame.

I grabbed my phone and checked the harvest schedule. Three blocks were left unpicked—designated for a special late-season reserve we’d planned to bottle in spring. Wine that wouldn’t matter now if we lost everything in ninety days.

Only Zinfandel, Syrah, and Mourvedre still had grapes on the vine.

My heart sank. We didn’t have Gamay, and our Syrah block was tiny, barely a quarter acre.

However, the Avila’s Los Caballeros Vineyards had extensive Gamay plantings from Cru’s experimental program with Burgundian varietals, and their Syrah was legendary.

I grabbed my laptop and started calculating. To make enough wine to matter—to potentially save us from foreclosure—we’d need at least a thousand bottles. Maybe fifteen hundred if we could manage it.

One ton of grapes yielded roughly seven hundred and twenty bottles. For fifteen hundred bottles, I’d need just over two tons total. If the blend required equal parts of each varietal, that was about three-quarters of a ton of each grape.

We had the Zinfandel. We could harvest three-quarters of a ton easily from our reserve block.

But the Gamay and most of the Syrah? I’d need the Avilas’ help for that.

And that was just the grapes. Carbonic maceration required specialized tanks. Ours were all full of this year’s conventional fermentation. Los Cab had the capacity. They had empty tanks. The equipment. The space.

I turned back to one of the pages I’d marked and reread what my great-grandmother had written.

We have agreed—each of us keeps our portion.

If the wine was as remarkable as the stories suggested, if we could recreate even a fraction of its magic, we could auction it for premium prices.

Beaujolais Nouveau sold for thirty to fifty dollars a bottle at retail.

But a onetime recreation of a mythical wine?

With the Hope and Avila names behind it?