LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      DRAPED LIKE GLITTERING prisms of rubies from a princess’s neck, pinot noir, French burgundy and cabernet grape clusters danced in the summer breeze at the Crenshaw Vineyard. In precise rows, the vines ran down the hills and stopped just shy of the valley. Lolling lazily in the warmth of the sun, the grapes were ripening and stretching to perfection.

      Liz Crenshaw wore cutoff blue jeans and a white shirt she’d tied around her narrow waist. She drove her ATV, its attached utility trailer filled with compost, among the rows of vines. Long ago, her grandfather had banned tractors or trucks from the fields because their hard rubber tires compacted the earth and kept the rainwater from seeping properly into the roots. Liz made the compost herself. It was organic, like everything grown on Crenshaw land. They didn’t use fungicides or pesticides on the grapes, fruit trees or berry bushes.

      Liz liked the idea that she and her grandfather were vestiges of a simpler time and way of life. For so long, it had been just the two of them against the world. Sam often joked they were not just related, but joined at the hip and the brain, like Siamese twins. Sam’s pet name for Liz had been petite chérie ever since she had been a little girl.

      Liz had no problem with that.

      She had been born on this land, in the same farmhouse in which her father had been born. Liz had always felt she was a child of the earth. Her grandfather, though seventy-seven years old, was her hero.

      Liz rode the ATV to the top of the hill and looked down on the rows of vines. They ran from north to south—the morning sun would strike one side of the grapes, high noon would bathe the tops in light and the afternoon warmth would finish the task on the clusters’ horizon-facing side.

      Liz inspected each vine with a sharp eye. Her vines were her life, and though sometimes her friends voiced concern that she was extremely single-minded, Liz didn’t care.

      She lived a life of bliss with her grapes, her loving grandfather and their ever-expanding business.

      As she crossed a line of cherry trees that helped to shelter her prized pinot noir grapes from the sometimes brutal western wind off Indian Lake, she noted the plants this year were balanced with the right amount of green leaves. The strong vines and clusters were not too fat, nor too withered from the summer heat. Years ago, Sam had made the mistake of thinking the very rich soil in the valley would produce perfect grapes. He’d learned, sometimes the hard way, that many other factors affected the productivity of the vines. Often the buds froze early in the spring, and if they lived through that, the abundant summer rains that swooped off Lake Michigan could gorge the grapes, the wine from which would be uninteresting and unmarketable. Allowing the grapes to remain on the vines even two weeks past the normal growing season meant both a superior grape and, eventually, high-quality wine similar to that which Liz had tasted in France.

      Liz wanted her wines to be the epitome of excellence, to have a taste so rare in America that other vintners would recognize how special her little plot of earth truly was. Knowing she shared that dream with every vintner on the planet did not diminish her enthusiasm—it only heightened her ambitions.

      Liz took out her cell phone and snapped some pictures of the vines to show her grandfather, who didn’t walk the hills or even ride them any longer. Despite his age, Sam was healthy and just as obstinate as he’d always been, but he was slowing down. Now that construction on his tasting room was complete, he preferred to work there.

      The tasting room had elevated the Crenshaw Vineyard into the upper echelon of vineyards in Michigan and northern Indiana. Many of the surrounding vineyards outsourced the retail side of their business, selling bottles and cases to tasting rooms in Saugatuck, Douglas, Buchanan, St. Joseph and other coastal resort towns. The problem, Liz knew, was each vintner could never be sure what the “sommelier” behind the counter was trying to sell that day. The person pouring the wine was just as likely to be a college student who would be happy at any summer job. Liz wanted each of her employees to be at least as much of a wine snob as she was.

      Liz was the first to admit she was the ultimate control freak. It was a real handicap in life, but she had long ago accepted this fact about herself. She toiled workaholic hours because she believed she knew best how each and every task should be completed. In her mind, only she could do the accounting properly. Only she knew when her pinot noir and burgundy wines had reached their peak age. Only she knew which French chardonnay grapes from which terroir should be used for their champagne. Most important for Liz, only she knew how to talk to the vines and encourage them into abundance.

      Last year, when Liz hired her best friend, Sarah Jensen, and Sarah’s boss, Charmaine Chalmers, to design the tasting room and sales office and oversee the construction, she’d nearly driven them both to nervous breakdowns over her many last-minute changes. It was a miracle the

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