Kurt jostled up another unmarked dirt road, the third he'd driven in a vain attempt to find Rhapsody Vineyards and Wine. He mumbled under his breath, cursing Santana for convincing him that this this faraway outpost should be his first, late-afternoon stop.

He should be in the neighborhood, he reasoned, but in reality he was hopelessly lost.

This definitely was not Highway 29 in Napa, where major wineries lined the highway like suburban mini-malls.

While many Sonoma County wineries were secluded by comparison to the sweeping, highway-close conglomerates of neighboring Napa, Rhapsody was downright disguised among oak trees and rugged hillsides. It wasn't off the beaten path -- there was no path, and no signage.

In her brief outline of the winery, Santana had described its owner as young, smart, unconventional, well-educated -- and maybe a bit reclusive.

You think, Santana?

But in his few years in the valley, the winemaker had developed a dedicated following and the respect of his peers -- no easy feat in a tight-knit, old money business.

If Santana was being honest -- anyone's guess, really -- this Blaine Anderson sounded like he might be a good story, and Kurt needed up to a year's worth of them.

Something in Santana's description suggested that it may also be worth the photo spread that would accompany a feature. Kurt's assessment of Rhapsody's stock rose rapidly, even if he'd never heard of the winery before.

Kurt's interest was piqued, but the reclusive winemaker had done a damn fine job hiding himself.

He looked up to see an approaching dust cloud, apparently from the upper reaches of the dirt path, the contrail of an approaching truck headed straight for his tiny rental car.

The 'road', for lack of a better term, was not made for both of them, and there was little doubt which vehicle would win a battle of wills... and curb weight. As the truck approached, an old International Scout with its top removed, the two vehicles and their respective drivers came to loggerheads.

Kurt rolled down his window. "Excuse me..."

A face, young, tanned and largely obscured by a pair of dark aviator sunglasses, looked up, clearly annoyed.

"Can you direct me to the Rhapsody winery?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I'm with Taste magazine. Santana Lopez at the Sonoma Wine Bureau sent me. It's about a special project we're developing," Kurt said. "I'm just trying to meet with the owner and sample the wines."

"Rhapsody doesn't have a tasting room. It's private," said the stranger.

"This is a great opportunity. I'm sure he'd be interested."

"Don't be so sure about that," he said, leaning over his steering wheel and sounding more annoyed by the minute.

"Maybe if you could just direct me to him..."

"Oh god!" The man cut his engine and set the brake, jumping from the vintage truck, his  khaki pants and a fitted denim shirt scarcely masking the athletic build underneath them. "Look, Mr. ..."

"Hummel."

"Hummel. Rhapsody's private. It sells out its run each year. It's not looking to expand to the mass market. It's a boutique winery and the owner intends to keep it that way. He doesn't need the publicity, and he doesn't really want it either, especially not from some trendy publication that caters to people who have more dollars than sense."

Kurt paused, and realized who he had nearly literally run into on the road.

"By any chance, would you happen to be Blaine Anderson?" he asked. "I wish you would hear me out, because it's not just that this is a great opportunity for you, and for Rhapsody -- but for the valley, for your neighbors. 

"Nobody wants Sonoma to become Disneyland. We've already got one of those, just off Highway 29."

The two glared at each other for a moment, a showdown of wills and of horsepower. Kurt would lose on at least one front. And his will wasn't likely to stand up long to what he was looking at, the head full of dark curls, the sharply angled jaw, the clothes that said both 'I belong outdoors' and 'I know what looks good on me'.

"You're not leaving," he said, confounded. "What would it take to make you go away?"

"A tasting."

He removed his sunglasses to reveal heated amber eyes, staring Kurt down and sizing him up, looking up one side and down the other, leaving Kurt feeling more than a little exposed.

"Fine. Follow me."

Under any other circumstances, Kurt would have followed him anywhere. No wonder Santana encouraged him to come here first. She knew Kurt's type, and Mr. Handsome Angry Winemaker was it.

"You know, I don't think that little clown car of yours is going to make it up the hill. Pull over to the side and hop in. I'll give you a ride up -- and back down, as soon as you're finished."

Well, at least they saw eye-to-eye on the status of Kurt's crappy rental car.

Kurt climbed into the passenger seat of the open-air truck and held on. Dressed in a trim black suit, his hair meticulously sculpted, he was definitely not prepared for the dust cloud that billowed upward when the driver swung the vehicle in a sweeping, high speed U-turn.

"So, you never answered my question: Are you Blaine Anderson?" Kurt asked, trying to initiate conversation.

"Mmmhmm."

"You're the owner?"

"Mmmhmm."

"I've heard good things about your wines."

"I heard that you'd never heard of my wines."

This was not going to be easy.

****

Blaine drove them up the winding road to a building, part barn, part industrial compound, with oversized sliding wooden doors and a collection of farm equipment neatly lined up along its perimeter. 

Alongside the building, in an area most people would consider a yard, sat a collection of plastic landscape pots labeled "Syrah," "Zinfandel," "Roussanne." In each pot, vine seedlings were being rooted for future planting and stock.

Kurt could see the outline of a house in the distance, further up the hill and partly  obscured by oak trees. It was nothing like the faux Tuscan villas or replica chateaux he had seen so many times along the highway into Napa. It was a classic, old-fashioned farm house. Squinting to make out details, he could make out a veranda wrapped around the front of a  white clapboard home, and a series of large windows lining the ground floor. It had to be relatively new, but it looked like it had been built there decades before.

Before he knew it, the truck came to a screeching halt. Blaine grabbed the keys from the ignition and jumped out.

"It'll have to be a barrel taste if you're wanting the new vintage," he said. "We haven't bottled yet."

"I'd be honored," Kurt said.

Blaine shouldered the heavy, oversized sliding doors open, revealing a large room with concrete floors and a collection of steel tanks. Toward the back were rows and rows of oak barrels stacked on a large steel racking system that resembling industrial-strength bookcases.

"What are you aging right now?" Kurt asked.

"Aging or racking?" Blaine countered. "In here, in the final stages of racking before it is filtered and either aged in oak or bottled, are Syrah, Zinfandel and Roussanne.

"We're also racking Cabernet and Merlot, sourced from another Sonoma vineyard, in the cave. They'll be used for blending."

"You have a cave?"

"Of course we have a cave. Pretty much everyone does, but this one was designed for wine storage, not dinner parties. It's a working cave, for barrels and bottles."

Blaine walked into his winery's small office and pulled a hand-blown glass wine thief from a wall rack, along with two glasses and a bottle of water. He sterilized the outside of the thief with a spray of some compound -- Kurt assumed a mild sulfite solution -- to protect the young wine from bacteria.

"We'll start with Allegrezza," he said dispassionately, climbing a ladder to reach the top of a 500-gallon stainless steel tank.

"Allegrezza?"

"The Roussanne," Blaine said, opening the tank's upper hatch. He carefully dipped in the thief, covering it with his thumb when the tube filled with a fluid the color of a ripe pear. He released the contents into the two glasses, then resealed the stainless steel fermentation vessel. "Here."

Kurt took the glass and began his ritual, holding the glass to the light, checking for color and  clarity. Then he set it on a nearby table, swirling it gently and holding it back to the light again briefly to check its legs, watching the liquid glide down the interior of the glass, and finally raising it to his face, shutting his eyes and breathing in the light white wine.

"Mmmm. Nice floral notes. Lavender?"

Blaine rolled his eyes, swirled his glass and took a sip, holding it in his mouth and closing his eyes for a moment before swallowing.

Kurt sipped, and considered the wine for a moment. "I'm picking up a little citrus and grass, but the floral lingers."

"Yeah, it's good," Blaine said simply. "Next."

He took the glasses, rinsed them and the wine thief, and then moved on to another tank. Repeating the procedure, a velvety red wine was deposited into the glasses.

"Mezzo. The Zinfandel."

"I'm sensing a trend here," Kurt said. "Rhapsody Wines? Allegrezza? Mezzo?"

"Mm. Yes," Blaine said, truly disinterested in the conversation. 

"Is there a reason for the choice of each name to the particular wine?" Kurt asked.

"If you can't tell, then I haven't done my job very well."

Kurt again checked the color, the legs, the nose, then sipped at the rich, lively Zin. 

"It has the brightness of fruit, without the feeling that I'm eating a bowl of jam -- which is happening altogether too often lately." 

Blaine smirked, the closest thing to a smile since they had met, Kurt thought. 

"Let's see. The Roussanne? Allegrezza. It's bright, cheerful, like a bouquet of spring flowers."

Blaine's head may have been turned, but Kurt could see the slightest smile slip across his lips.

"I'll have to take a stab that Mezzo is your in-between wine. Not bright and summery like the Roussanne, but there's something else you're making that's darker, richer. Something with deeper tannins. So the Zinfandel is Mezzo."

"Yes."

"And it's lovely," Kurt said.

"Thank you. Syrah’s next."

"And it is?"

"Appassionatto."

The thief slipped samples of a dark, sinfully lush wine into the glasses. The color looked like it belonged on the runway, haute couture, and clung to the glass like a silk cut on the bias. 

A swirl, a dip of the nose. Kurt closed his eyes.

"Blackberry. Pepper and... something else, almost smoky, with a hint of sweet, like... maple?"

He took a sip, held it on his tongue. He sensed Blaine's eyes on him.

"Bacon!"

Blaine dipped his head as the corners of his mouth rose, revealing dimpled cheeks.

"Everything's better with..." He hinted at a brief sigh, then righted himself. "The lower vineyard. Sometimes there's a hint of smoke to the fruit. Apparently there was a brushfire, years ago. It still comes out in the fruit, sometimes."

"Amazing," Kurt said, sipping the wine. "So, lower vineyard? Then there must be an upper, too?"

Blaine nodded, his voice gradually more accepting of conversation. "The upper is west-facing. A lot of afternoon sun. Higher sugar concentrations. It ripens more quickly and gets harvested first. The lower vineyard takes a little more time. It's in the afternoon shadows. There's morning fog. The fruit takes more time to fully develop, but there's more subtlety to it."

"What's planted there?"

"You drove past it earlier -- the Roussanne and about half the Syrah. Zin and the rest of the Syrah are up top, beyond the house."

"Two Syrahs?"

"Yes, usually blended, but not always. They're different. One dark and sometimes smoky. The other is brighter, with more distinct fruit."

"So there are more names?"

"Depending on the year, the blend, the results, sure. We have different varieties.  And a port, Fortissimo."

"Of course," Kurt said, surveying the room and noting a set of barrels, smaller and set apart from the others. "And over there?" he asked. "What are those?"

"That's reserve," Blaine said, his voice again tightening, setting itself into a soft mumble. "Sotto Voce."

"I'm sorry what?

"It's a blend, my private reserve, Sotto Voce."

"What's the blend?"

"That's none of your business." 

The bite was back in Blaine's voice, a guarded tone warning Kurt to back off, but he couldn't, not with this wine hanging in the balance. Even young, even unfinished, Kurt knew that Rhapsody needed to be a part of of the Taste project.

"It won't be confidential when you bottle it," Kurt argued, determined to pursue it, and well aware of liquor laws would force some disclosure of the wine's origins. 

"If I sell it. Like I said, private. It's time for you to go, don't you think?"

"I'd like to buy some," Kurt said.

"Like I said, we sell out."

"Don't you want to know why? Don't you want to know why Taste magazine wants to purchase  Rhapsody's wines?"

Blaine marched toward his truck, tossing his keys with a flip into the air, then catching them.

"Not really, but I'm assuming it's some kind of publicity stunt. Go visit Napa. You'll find all kinds of wineries jumping at the chance to play in your game, whatever it is."

"I'll be going there, too," Kurt said, trailing him to the truck. "But I want you."

Blaine wheeled around, making direct eye contact for the first time since their meeting on the dirt trail earlier that afternoon.

"I want your wine," Kurt said. "I want you involved. At least hear me out before you say no."

"I'll still say no."

"Five minutes."

"You have from here to your car," Blaine said, hopping in his truck. "Get in."

****

It was nearly closing time when the front door to the Sonoma Wine Bureau was thrown open, then slammed shut.

"SANTANA!"