'Dear Kelsie' Cleanskin Ramato 2017

The label on the wine bottle says:

Dear Kelsie

I should explain this gift. This is a bottle of orange wine. As I have ranted, my small patch of vines produce a mediocre sauvignon blanc with negligible terroir - I drank the second bottle to double-check this fact. I therefore decided to do something a bit niche with my modest harvest.

Orange wine is made using ancient, natural processes without preservatives. The grape skins and seeds are kept in contact with the fermenting juice, a technique usually reserved for red wines. Tasting notes:  this is some weird fuck. This wine is so far from the norm that I do not expect you to drink it, let alone enjoy it. This is a gift so utterly useless that you HAVE to regift it. Ta da!

Gift this wine to the person who has everything, so that they may regift it once again. Bring it to your next dinner party to leave your hosts a totem they dare not open, but must pass on. I have put a dozen of these bottle into circulation. Sooner or later, one may land into the hands of someone sauvignon enough to appreciate them.

Love,

John

Renee had to read the label three times before she grokked as to the nature of this wine gifted by Secret Santa. She brought it with her when meeting the parents, who were quite lovely, of her then-girlfriend, who turned out to be a wanker. The novel orange wine came up in conversation between the parents and their neighbours, who took the bottle down, along with a crowd pleaser cab sav, to a piss up with friends. These friends, who did not get the joke and were slightly insulted, regifted the bottle to their niece and her husband, Alex and George, who in turn bequeathed the bottle to Ezekiel 'Easy' Bones on his 30th birthday.

George had said: 'We're hosting a dinner party on the 25th. Now you have something to bring.'

Caveat: at the bottom of the wine's label, in thin red biro, someone has added And Bring A Date. Well, yeah, Easy has been dwelling on the big three-oh and has come to think: shit, that was my youth? A smattering of wild oats were spread but not very far. There had been no great debauchery, no Bacchanalia that swept him unconsciously into crowd-sourced ecstasy, or into fist fights. The post-modern esotericist Amelia Gerhardt, one of Easy's influences and personal heroes, published her second grimoire when she was 29.

But there is no point wallowing in this not-quite-mid-life crisis (it will be cancer at 62, childless but content after a life of good times and meaningful work). Easy has begun habits more suited to this new stage of life, such as really getting into wine - decanting, swirling, smelling blackberry notes and tasting hints of chocolate. Not quaffing.

To prove that he can adult as the best of them, not only will Easy bring a date, but his date will be a woman ten years his senior. How's that for maturity? (Answer: not great.) On the 25th, with the late noon's bending of the light, Easy knocks on the door of a parish church repurposed into a residence. Felicity answers the door with eyebrow cocked at this interruption to her second glass of GSM.

Easy: 'Hello. I need a date.'

Felicity recognises the 'Dear Kelsie' Ramato in Easy's hand: 'I'll trade you.'

The church is open plan and pragmatically furnished - kitchen, couch, television, round table for six - with a small bedroom and study table on the mezzanine. Felicity leads Easy to the bookshelf and tilts The Secret Garden 45° towards her. The middle third of the bookshelf swings slightly leftwards, a secret door, to reveal a narrow spiral staircase to the wine cellar.

Felicity has organised her wines on racks that stretch along the two long walls, using a convoluted system of style, vintage and the tension between letting the wine age or just drinking it now. Hanging off the far wall is a pressed vinyl of an anime OST and a taxidermied werewolf's head, down here because the head returns to its human state every new moon. Next to the work bench is a pile of bent nails and split baseball bats.

Felicity mutters: 'Can never get past 12.'

'Uhhh?'

'Nothing.' Felicity points to the corner. 'And there's your date. Her name is Sascha.'

'That's an inflatable sex doll.'¹

'It's what on the inside that counts.'² Felicity tisk-tisks. 'And what's on the inside is Grant Burge 2017 Merlot.'

Easy agrees: 'Good value drop.'

So Easy leaves with his arm around Sascha's waist and Felicity decants the 'Dear Kelsie' Ramato for 20 minutes. One the nose: rancid fruit. Similar on the tongue, sour with hints of wood varnish, but at least Felicity was expecting it this time and the taste brings associations:

She met her dark stranger at the front bar when a drunk accosted him, accusing him of 'drinking glorified fruit juice' and taking a swing provoked by polite ignorance. He had ducked and retaliated with jab to chin, knocking the drunk over backwards before resuming drinking:

'This is a 2016 Henschke Apple Tree Bench. Pairs well with kick-ass.'

Security thought this was hilarious but had to ask him to leave, as the drunk was one-fifth owner of the establishment. Felicity thought this unjust and so invited this man to peruse her wine. In the cellar, the top of her evening gown fell away when she tugged its string like a parachute cord. She cracked the nearest bottle, another 'Dear Kelsie' Ramato, pouring a dribbling line across her collarbone:

'This is rare. Shame to waste it.'

They did it lotus position in bed. Eventually. First she clutched the wine rack whilst he took her from behind and a white zinfandel smashed on the floor - worth it. UberEats worked hard over three weeks. They only left the house to replace linen stained with wine and body fluids.

He had sensed the global mood and returned to parents in the UK while he could. International travel was locked down before Felicity could chase him, so she consoles herself with this nostalgia.

1. 'Sex Doll Goon Sack' would make a great name for a punk band.

2. Title of the debut album