Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [65]
His handsome face softened with a look of genuine contrition. He pulled me to him in a warm, brotherly hug. “You’re right. I’m just makin’ things harder for both y’all. I’ll keep my big mouth shut from now on. But if you need anything, you let me know. Promise, now?”
I kissed his cheek. “Emory Delano Littleton, you know you’d be the first person I’d run to.”
“Good. Now I’d better get to work if I’m goin’ to have an article to turn in tomorrow. Let’s meet back here in two hours.”
“Sounds good. I’m going over to the artists’ tent and see exactly how a wine label is created.”
I grabbed a bottle of sparkling water, twisted off the cap, and walked over to the second tent. Inside were a dozen different platforms where artists, using a variety of media, worked on paintings and drawings destined to be incorporated into wine labels. Some of the artists talked to their audience as they worked, explaining how they came up with the idea for each particular wine label.
I wandered through the exhibit of original art displayed with the finished wine labels framed next to them. Seven Sisters labels were simple but elegant, with some of the last year’s vintage’s labels showing more variety with bold, brightly colored renderings of the rose garden, the adobe tasting room, and rows of thick, lush grapevines. Though I’d only seen her work on quilts, JJ’s slightly eccentric, free-form style was apparent on these labels.
In a corner of the tent, JJ was working on a watercolor painting of a horse I instantly recognized as Churn Dash. I mingled with the crowd, watching her add subtle reddish shading to his brown coat. He was shown at a gallop, and in the background she’d painted in faint peaches and browns the pattern of a Churn Dash quilt. A photograph of the quilt made by her great-grandmother was taped to her stained easel. In her painting she’d captured the championship bearing of Churn Dash with the arch of his elegant neck straining toward an imaginary finish line and the subtle, powerful surge of muscles in his strong, solid hindquarters. She glanced up when someone asked her a question, caught my eye, and nodded at me. I waved and melted back into the crowd. I wanted to talk to her again about the grave rubbing, but this wouldn’t be the best time or place to do so.
In the last tent the silent auction items were displayed, and the line for the gourmet buffet donated by local restaurants was at least a half-hour wait. The food didn’t interest me since I’d just eaten, so I headed for the auction items. There were dozens of things to be auctioned—cases of wines, bed-and-breakfast packages, limousine wine tours, and wine dinners for six hosted by celebrity chefs. Seven Sisters had sponsored a contest and silent auction for wine bottles decorated by local artists. The entries were spectacular with each artist vying for the most creatively original bottle. The auction bids were way out of my price range, but the money went for a good cause—the Rose Jewel Brown Children’s Wing at General Hospital. The artist won a free case of Seven Sisters’ most exclusive hand-crafted noble wines, wines that were like a stakes horse, the best of the best. An announcement from the stage informed everyone of the wine bottle design winner. On the stage behind the row of twenty or so decorated bottles sat Cappy Brown, her sister Etta, and dressed in white and sitting in a wheelchair, their mother, Rose Brown. Her face was lightly spotted with age, but her silver hair and soft makeup were perfect. She looked twenty years younger than her ninety-six. The advantages of wealth and good genetics, I supposed. She smiled at the audience with long, pale ivory teeth, giving a palm-out royal wave.
After a long speech of gushing gratitude by the president of the vintner’s association to the Brown family for helping to sponsor the event and a retrospective of all the accomplishments and charities instituted by the Brown family and most of all, Rose Brown, Cappy addressed the audience.