I protest. I need time. I need to think. I need to prolong this interview process—somehow.
Renzo exhales slowly. “He keeps saying if we can get Fontana…and I get him, it’ll be a big win.”
But for Alessia, Davide Fontana would be a prize.
He made his name in Piedmont, starting at a mid-sized Barolo estate in La Morra—cleaned tanks, ran ferments, the whole apprenticeship. By his early thirties, he was head winemaker. Took a property no one outside Italy cared about and turned it into a reference point—got 100 points from Robert Parker for the Davide Fontana Barolo Fontanavecchia Vigna del Silenzio Riserva 2017.
The man has an ego big enough to name his wine after himself. Luckily, his name is big enough that he’s allowed.
He left Piedmont six years ago to consult internationally. Burgundy. Rioja. Even Napa—though he complained about the American winemakers, and they didn’t care for him either.
“Americans,” he once remarked in an interview, “have a peculiar relationship with humility: you’re expected to be exceptional, but only if you perform a kind of Nordic modesty about it. Confidence is permitted. Greatness is not.”
Everywhere he goes, critics fall over themselves.
Davide Fontana is a living legend.
Obsessive about structure.
Long macerations.
Native yeasts when he can control them. He brought back old-school extended aging—no flash, no shortcuts.
Critics call him a purist with modern discipline.
That, combined with the fact that he has a penis, makes him Cesare’s favorite kind of winemaker.
Fontana owns vineyards around the world, so he’ll take this job not for money but vanity. The head winemaker of the House of Alighieri would be a gigantic notch on his winemaking bedpost.
“How does Matteo feel about him?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
Renzo’s expression tightens. “They respect each other. Fontana’s been on panels with him. Taught at the same enology programs. Same philosophy about restraint. About letting the vineyard speak.”
A chill settles in my chest.
“He looks good on paper,” Renzo finishes quietly. “Old-school pedigree. International gravitas. Male. Unthreatening to Cesare’s sense of order.”
Everything Alessia is not—at least in her father’s eyes.
Renzo is furious, just as I am. He wants Alessia. He’s fallen half in love with her—not sexually, but as a winemaker. He thinks she walks on water.
“Fontana is a marquee name,” I state wearily.
“I tried to bring up Alessia…and seriously, I thought he’d punch me,” he says through gritted teeth. “I don’t get the man. She’s his daughter.”
“Cesare’s old school.” I collapse into my chair. It’s nine in the morning, and I’m already exhausted. Not from work—this is emotional depletion.
“Cesare’s an old asshole,” Renzo corrects me.
I let out a harsh laugh. “I want her to succeed Matteo, Renzo. You know that, don’t you?”
He lifts his hands in awhat the fuck do I knowgesture. “You don’t seem interested in fighting for her.”
That grates. Renzo knows how tight the noose is around my neck. Hearing this from him feels like a betrayal.
“I need to consolidate my power before I can fight to change the entire fucking system.” I swallow the anger burning up my throat. “And he’s guarding the winemaker role like a dog with a bone.”
The pressure of the past weeks is grinding me down.
