The Blind Tasting

Solenne had prepared for the final of the national sommelier championship the way other people prepare for surgery. For eight months she had tasted blind every morning, memorized vintages until she dreamed in years, and given up coffee, which she missed more than she would ever admit. Of the three finalists, she was the only one who had never made it this far, and she was determined that, if she lost at four o'clock that afternoon, it would not be for lack of preparation.

The rules of the final round were as simple as they were merciless. Each finalist would be given a single glass, chosen in secret by one member of the jury, and would have four minutes to identify it aloud: grape, region, producer if possible, and vintage. Glancing at the list of judges that morning, she had seen, in small print near the bottom, a name she had not read in fifteen years, and she had decided, very deliberately, not to think about it.

The glass, when it arrived, held a wine the color of old gold. She tilted it, swirled it and lowered her nose to the rim, and the room around her, the lights, the cameras, the audience breathing in the dark, simply fell away. Walnuts. Warm spice. Something like orange peel left too long beside a stove. A vin jaune from the Jura, unmistakably, which narrowed things down considerably. And then, beneath all that, came a sharp, salty note that she had smelled exactly once in her life, in a cold cellar outside Arbois. It had rained so hard that night that the two of them had missed the last train and stayed up until dawn, finishing a bottle the owner had insisted on opening for them.

It had been the night before she left for Paris, and the last night she and Matthias had spent together. He had asked her to stay. She had told him that if she stayed she would spend her whole life wondering what she might have become, and he had not argued, which was the one thing she had never quite forgiven him for. Now he was sitting at the far end of the jury table, grayer, in reading glasses, writing on his score sheet and very carefully not looking at her. She was in no doubt as to who had chosen this glass, nor why.

The year on the label would be 2002; she was almost certain of it, and to say so would very probably win her the title. Had anyone else chosen the wine, she would have said it without a moment's hesitation. With ninety seconds left, she set the glass down and named the grape, the region, the village and the small producer, each of them correct, she could tell, from the way the head judge's pen kept moving. Then she stopped.

"Vintage," she said, and for the first time she looked directly at the far end of the table. "2011."

She knew as she said it that it would cost her the title. A murmur went through the audience, and the head judge's pen stopped moving. Matthias, who had kept his eyes on his paper all afternoon, put down his pen and looked up, and then, so slowly that only someone who had once known his face very well would have noticed, he smiled.