You tasted it first while lingering in one of the long, dim corridors, the ones the guests never notice but the servants move through like veins. The wine was cool and bright, red fruit glimmering like a blush in candlelight. Strawberry and cranberry slipped over your tongue, delicate at first, the way a chambermaid might slip out of an earl’s room before dawn hoping no one sees. But someone always sees.
You walk on, candelabra trembling as footsteps echo overhead. Behind a tapestry a soft gasp blooms into hurried whispers. The wine warms in your chest, acidity lifting like skirts gathered in secret hands. Past the armour display a hidden door is cracked open. You hear silk, a stifled moan, the rhythm of someone trying and failing to be discreet. A lord with the wrong woman. A lady with the wrong man. A visiting gentleman tangled with the footman assigned to him, two shadows moving together in a pattern that could never be explained to polite society. Sinta drinks like that. Light on the surface, wicked underneath.
Down the narrow servant’s stairs a stable boy darts past, shirt untucked, smelling of perfume that is certainly not his, and perhaps cologne that is. You raise the glass again. The wine moves like forbidden laughter, crisp, fresh, a little sinful, finishing on your tongue like a secret you were never meant to hear.
Serve it slightly chilled with charred meats brushed in herbs or smoky tapas. But truthfully, it tastes best in a hallway at midnight, when every door hides a story that would ruin reputations if daylight ever learned to listen.
Region: Entre Deux Mers, Bordeaux, France Grapes: Merlot
