Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow by Cynthia Baxter

fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit for white and eighty degrees for red. This is the point when the yeast begins feeding on the sugar in the juice, and yeast cells soon line the barrel. The result is a harmony between the fruit and the oak.”
    “How long does the wine fermentation take?” a man in a New York Islanders T-shirt asked.
    “From ten days to three weeks,” the guide replied. “The sweetness or dryness of the wine depends on the sugar content of the grape and whether the winemaker arrests fermentation before all sugar is converted or just part.” Pointing at the plastic tubes protruding from the top of each barrel, she added, “These tubes are called ‘fermentation locks.’ They let the fermentation gases escape. In the beginning, we stir every two days, but eventually we stir only once a week.”
    “What about all those crazy adjectives people use to describe wines?” another man asked. “Do those words mean anything or are they just showing off?”
    A few members of the tour group chuckled. “The wooden barrels are made of French oak,” the tour guide explained patiently. “The wood, which is made of starch, has its own distinctive flavor, which it imparts to the wine. For example, if someone describes a wine as having ‘a hint of vanilla and butterscotch,’ that comes from the barrel.
    “By the end of May or early June, we return the wine to stainless-steel tanks for blending. We use sterile filtration to get it into bottles, and then we cork it, cap it, and label it. The wine is loaded onto pallets and moved to a separate building out back. Until it’s sold, we hold it there in a separate temperature-controlled building that’s kept at fifty-five to fifty-six degrees. By the way, it’s also called the ‘tax room,’ because state or federal agents are free to inspect it. Wineries pay tax on every bottle of wine they produce, so it’s important that we keep good records.”
    “How many grapes does it take to make a bottle of wine?” a teenage girl asked.
    “One ton of grapes yields seven hundred sixty bottles of wine,” she replied. “If you do the math, that translates to roughly two and a half pounds of grapes per bottle.”
    “I thought you were supposed to serve red wine at room temperature,” a woman interjected, “but I read somewhere that the French keep their rooms cooler than we do. What’s the best temperature?”
    With our guide distracted by questions, I figured it was a good time to do a little touring of my own. I was anxious to find out whatever I could about Cassandra Thorndike’s family and their flourishing enterprise. I edged my way toward the back of our group, then slipped behind a giant vat. I headed back into the main building but this time found myself in a different section.
    No tourists here. In fact, the hallway was blocked off by a sign atop a freestanding metal pole. It read, Employees Only.
    After glancing from side to side to make sure no one was watching, I ducked down the private corridor. When I reached the end, I found myself in a cavernous room that looked like a gigantic wine cellar. It served as a foyer, with several doors leading off it. From the name plates affixed to most of them, I surmised that they were offices. The walls were made of red brick, the temperature was cool, and there was only one lighting fixture, hung high on the back wall.
    As soon as my eyes fully adjusted to the dim light, I saw that the lamp had been placed so that it illuminated a huge oil painting, over six feet high, in an ornate gilt frame. It faced the entryway, making it the focal point for anyone who entered.
    The painting was a portrait of a tall, slender young woman with pale, luminescent skin and large blue-green eyes, their startling color emphasized even further by her thick, dark eyebrows. Gleaming, straight black hair spilled down her back, the ends curving gently around her shoulders like a shawl. She stood erect, her chin held at a slightly defiant angle, as