‘According to Ted’s book, the 2016 Classic Cuvée had exactly the same proportions as our option two, but it tastes completely different,’ said Matt, scratching his head with the end of pencil. ‘I can’t figure out why.’

It was Wednesday afternoon and Sidney had asked me to join him, Matt and Clare in the winery. For the last few days, while I’d been getting to grips with being pregnant, he’d been getting to grips with the contents of every one of Ted’s bottles and tanks and working out what needed doing and when. This morning, the three of them had concocted five different blends of the 2017 wine still in the tanks, made from grapes picked last autumn – Ted’s last harvest.

‘It said in his notebook that the 2016 harvest was late and the grapes were small,’ I remembered. ‘Whereas in 2017, there was a much warmer September and October. Do you think that could have affected the flavours?’

‘Top marks for Miss Allbright,’ Sidney said with a twinkly smile which I couldn’t help returning. He folded his arms and crossed his legs, a gesture I already recognized as his I’m-going-to-tell-you-a-story pose. ‘Frost, rain, drought all make their presence felt in the finished wine …’

We’d all fallen under Sidney’s spell instantly. For a man in his seventies, and who was recovering from a heart attack, he was bursting with energy and had wasted no time in getting to work. His passion for wine was infectious and his presence and guiding hand had put a new spring in everyone’s step; for the first time since I’d been here, it felt as if everything might be okay, as if we could carry on Ted Butterworth’s legacy. And heaven knows, I needed something to go right, I thought, tuning back into Sidney’s lecture. He gave us a lot of lectures.

‘The length of time on the vine is one of the key factors in taste. And judging when to harvest is a minefield. Pick the grapes too early and the wine will be too acidic, too late and the wine will be flabby.’

‘Yuck. Reminds me of my reflection in the mirror at the gym this morning.’ Clare pulled a face.

Sidney chuckled. ‘Flabby just means not acidic enough. And you, my fair lady, are neither flabby nor acidic.’

Clare and I exchanged fond looks; he was so charming and gentlemanly and we’d previously agreed we both wanted to adopt him to be our granddad.

Matt scratched his head again and sighed. ‘So is our 2017 harvest acidic or flabby?’ He looked completely bamboozled. Either that or he’d been forgetting to use the spittoon again.