Chapter 7
ALESSIA
Green harvest ends the way it always does—without ceremony.
One day, you make the last cut. The next, the vines simply stand, relieved, as if they know the worst of the judgment has passed.
The buckets are stacked.
The shears are cleaned and oiled.
The crew moves differently—less urgency, more conversation.
Until vendemmia.
This year, I expect harvest to begin in about four weeks, sometime in mid-September, and stretch into late October if the weather holds.
Merlot will test us first—sugar climbing quickly, acidity dropping faster than I'd like if the heat lingers.
Cabernet Sauvignon will come in last, as it always does, patient and stubborn.
Cabernet Franc will sit between them, sensitive to night temperatures—the aromatic compounds are fragile if we misjudge the window.
Knowing when isn't instinct alone. It's also data. A whole hell of a lot of it.
Anyone who thinks a winemaker's job starts and ends with the vines is right—but we detour constantly to the lab.
I spend hours in Excel cross-tabs, tracking patterns across vintages, overlaying them with everything we know about each parcel of land on the estate.
Modern winemaking is granular to the point of obsession.
This is why Tenuta Pietra Alta outperforms the other estates.
Matteo says how I do it is the difference between farming by instinct and farming by understanding.
Papà calls it overthinking. He believes in gut. In tradition. In the idea that experience alone sharpens judgment—and to his credit, it once did.
But the climate has changed.
The margins are tighter.
The consequences hit you faster.
Gut without data is just memory pretending to be wisdom.
Matteo knows this. All the good winemakers do, all those who will survive in the future do.
This is why he pushed me toward the lab as hard as he pushed me into the fields.
This is why he insisted I learn to read spreadsheets with the same fluency as vine stress.
And this is why universities know my name—not because I'm an Alighieri, but because Pietra Alta is one of the few estates willing to share real data over time.
And whether Papà likes it or not, this—this—is the modern face of the House of Alighieri. I am.
Ultimately, vendemmia is not a date. It's a negotiation. And when it begins, it won't care how tired we are, or what else we thought we had planned. It will demand everything—again. And when it's over, I won't sleep, because that's when the next vigilance begins.
I will worry about yeast strains and nitrogen availability.
I'll track sugar depletion curves and monitor volatile acidity.
Harvest is the most visible part of the year.
But the cellar is where vintages are either saved—or lost.
For now, I can rest a little and spend time doing things I can't when I'm busy, like FaceTime with my sisters.
Alba is so busy that she's hardly ever in one place. One time, she FaceTimed from the jet and fell asleep mid-conversation.
Toni didn't come home this summer from university. She's interning at an architecture firm in Milan.
"So…how is married life?" Alba asks.
It's been three weeks since Florence.
Three weeks since Chiara cornered me.
Three weeks since Nico asked questions he still didn't know how to ask.
And in those three weeks, something has…shifted.
Not dramatically, but enough that I trust it.
"He's…ah…he's been texting me," I tell them as I put my feet up on the long wooden table under the pergola in my backyard that bleeds into the vines stretching out in disciplined green.
It's late afternoon. The sun has cooled, and the air smells of cut grass and rosemary. Cypress trees stand like sentinels beyond the lawn. This is the best place in the whole estate—and where I normally work. I hardly ever go into the cellar that I was in charge of having built two years ago.
I pour some Franciacorta, Italy’s answer to Champagne, into my glass.
I don’t make this—another competent Alighieri winemaker does, and does an impressive job.
After all, some evenings you just need a little sparkle in your wine, and in mid-August, when the heat is at its peak, it’s delicious to sit in the shade and enjoy the bounty of Tuscany.
"Sexting or texting?" Toni wants to know.
I laugh.
She's in her apartment in Milan, and she looks happy. She hasn't for a while, and I have worried about her, but lately it appears she's in a better place.
"No. But things like…how's the merlot?"
"Is that sex talk for winemakers?" Toni muses.
Alba snorts.
"We…ah…well, you know what happened at the reception at the Palazzo—"
"I still think you should've told Nico about how that bitch Chiara accosted you," Alba cuts in. "How dare she!"
"There is something so inelegant about a woman staking a claim on a man." Toni takes a long draw of beer. She's going through a rebellious phase and is not drinking wine.
"Exactly, men should claim women, not the other way around," Alba agrees. "In any case, I always feel that when women go after a man, it's some kind of hangover residue where they want things that are not good for them, like McDonald's French fries and mediocre men."
I listen to them and think about the short conversations Nico and I have been having almost every day.
It started simply when he sent me a photo from a wine shop in Paris.
Nico: Saw this shop carrying Pietra Alta and thought of you.
Me: The 2019 vintage. Very nice.
Nico: Very pricey! At a restaurant the other day, they were selling your Cab Franc for five hundred euros.
Me: And then they wonder why young people are not drinking enough wine. It's just too expensive.
The next day, he sent me an article about how wine prices are out of control worldwide.
"Well, at least he's texting.” Toni yawns and tilts her head one way then another. “I met Renzo in Milan the other day and—"
"Wait, you met Lorenzo Vitale?" I interrupt, curious.
Toni waves a hand. "Yes. He helped me get this internship. Didn’t I tell you?”
“No, you didn’t,” I say, suspicious as hell now.
"How do you even know him?" Alba is just as curious.
Renzo Vitale is one of my husband's closest friends and also the COO of the House of Alighieri. He came in as part of the merger along with Chiara Jossa. Unlike Chiara, he’s acceptable.
"We met at the wedding…anyway, he tells me that there is a rebranding being planned? Have you heard of that?" Toni doesn't seem to like that idea at all. "He's not happy about it, but Chiara is pushing. I'm hoping that Nico isn't going to make us all look like American wine fools."
I take a long sip of wine.
I don't like the direction of the branding, based on what I've heard from Matteo and others in the company.
The plan is to elevate the brand and bring in American music artists.
But that's not who we are. I want our wine to be drunk by regular people as well as those with discerning tastes. Exclusivity will limit our reach.
"Just because he's half American doesn't mean he's going to turn us into a gaudy Napa vineyard." At least I hope not, I think.
"So…let's get back to the texts," Toni insists. “Are they romantic at all?"
I shrug. "They're…conversational."
Alba leans closer to the screen. "Do they make you feel better about the marriage?"
I think about it.
"Yes." I exhale, shaking my head. "But they also make me realize that I've married a stranger—like something out of an old Italian novel, where the marriage is a contract, and the man keeps a mistress as a matter of course.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm in an Aleramo novel—bound by duty, stripped of illusion. "
Sibilla Aleramo was an Italian feminist writer and poet known for her autobiographical depictions of life as a woman in late 19th century Italy.
"Which one?" Toni asks. She's always been the reader among us, and lately she's been deep in classic Italian literature.
"Una Donna?" I suggest.
"She leaves her husband in that one," Alba reminds me.
"Well," I murmur, staring out at the vines catching the late light, "she had the courage to."
Alba's expression sharpens. "Is that what you want?"
A dry, brittle laugh slips out of me before I can stop it. "No. Not really." I pause, choosing honesty over polish. "It's just…. It's been over four months since we married. I've seen him once. And"—my throat tightens—"I'm married, and I'm still alone."
Alba's face softens immediately. "Oh, Alessia."
"Well…anyway, look, it's time to go and—"
"What?" Toni cuts me off. "We're not ending this call on a tragic-note-about-the-human-condition."
Alba nods solemnly. "Agreed. Absolutely not. This is when we pivot."
"Pivot to what?" I ask weakly.
"To facts," Alba declares. "Fact one: you run a Bolgheri estate that's outperforming half of Tuscany."
"Fact two," Toni adds, raising her beer, "you are sitting in the most beautiful place on the estate, drinking Franciacorta."
I laugh then—really laugh—and it surprises me how good it feels, how necessary. “Is there a fact three?”
“Yes,” Alba confirms softly. “You’re talking to the two people who love you most in this world.”
My heart lightens at those words. "True."
Toni grins. "Also, can we just acknowledge that your husband is texting you about wine? That's not nothing. That's foreplay."
"That is absolutely not foreplay," I protest.
"It’s adjacent," Toni insists. "Very niche."
"You're nuts," I state, bemused.
"And you love us," Alba says gently.
"I do," I confess.
The light shifts across the lawn, shadows stretching longer between the rows, and for the first time all day, the tightness inside me eases just a little.
"Thank you," I murmur.
"For what?" Toni asks.
"For reminding me"—I take a deep breath—"that even if my marriage feels empty right now, my life isn't."
Alba lifts her glass. "To that."
Toni raises her beer. "To not letting men ruin perfectly good evenings."
I lift my Franciacorta and gently tap it against the screen.
Lucia comes by after the call with dinner.
She lives in a cottage on the estate, and I know that these days she sleeps more often at Edam's place than at hers—but they're both pretending they aren't together, and I'm happy to wait for them to announce it. I understand the need to keep something like this private—to nourish it.
I haven't had many relationships—a couple in college that were charming in their intensity, and they made me sad when they ended, but not for long.
I haven't been in love, not like Alba, who has. She doesn't talk about it much, but she did tell me she was done with relationships and men.
"Alessia, people who say it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all are full of shit."
Unlike Alba, who will have a one-night stand or a week-long affair, I have been circumspect about who I share my body with. There have been a few lovers in my life—and each one meant something to me.
"So…is he coming this weekend?" Lucia asks me as she pours me a glass of one of our Chianti Classicos.
She's made lasagna. Simple. Nourishing.
Usually, we get dinner from the restaurant that is connected to the tasting room. But it's closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and we have to fend for ourselves. I like to cook even if it is just for me, but it's been a busy Monday.
I lift a shoulder and let it drop. "I have no idea."
She nods.
Lucia is thirty, a year older than me, and in many ways she's like me—the eldest daughter, who had to carry more responsibility than her younger siblings.
She also studied winemaking and has been working in vineyards since her mid-teens.
She joined Tenuta Pietra Alta four years ago as cellar manager, around the same time I took over primary winemaking responsibility for our Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon blocks.
We became friends almost immediately, partly I think because of our similar histories.
She tilts her head. "You want him here."
The truth sits heavy and unavoidable.
I purse my lips and nod. "Pathetic, right? I'm chasing after a husband who…" I'm tired of mentioning his mistress even to myself, so I don't.
"Stop it." She puts her hand on mine. "Don't talk about yourself like that. You married Nico in good faith, Alessia. You have a right to expect a marriage."
Like my sisters, Lucia doesn't judge me.
She shifts, suddenly thoughtful. "Does he know how much he matters to you?"
"Does he?"
Lucia makes a face. "Yes, Alessia, he does."
"I don't even know him."
"But you're married and whether you like it or not, whether he likes it or not—"
"He definitely doesn't," I interject.
"Whether he likes it or not," she continues with an arched brow, "you're both now connected, and that isn't just a piece of legal paper; it's emotional as well."
I only partly agree with her.
I do feel a connection—which is why I hungrily follow his face around social media even though I don't have time for such nonsense.
I mean, I don't even have a personal account, and yet I created a fake one so I could go on the platforms and see what he's up to.
Stupid of me because all it's done is made me sad.
Right after our engagement, he was seen with several other women. Some old girlfriends and some new acquaintances. Models. Actors. Musicians. Socialites. None of them looked like me—plain, dull, simple. They were all glamorous. I knew then I couldn't compete.
A few months before the wedding, Chiara started to be seen on his arm regularly, and now, essentially, he's hardly ever photographed without her.
It hurts not just my ego but also my heart.
Is there really no chance for us to have a normal marriage? One where we become partners and lovers? Where we're on the same team and take care of one another?
I don't pretend Nico's ever going to love me or even remain loyal—not when he looks the way he does and attracts women the way he does—but maybe I could share.
But even as I think it, I know I can't. I couldn't live that kind of half-life where you watch your husband and the father of your children leave you to be intimate with another woman on a daily basis.
So…where does that leave me? Am I going to be alone for the rest of my life? My sisters will marry—and I'll just be Nico Alarico's unwanted wife.
"Can we not talk about him?" I request.
A flicker of compassion crosses Lucia's face. "What do you think about watching Wuthering Heights? It's now on iTunes."
I laugh out loud. "Yeah, I think I'm in the mood for a tragic romance."