Raise a Glass to Love

Jenna Savern, having grown up on her grandparents' vineyard outside of Carrington in California wine country, learned the love of wine from her grandmother, Ellie Savern, Jenna's parents, Mike and Lynn Savern, who now own and operate Savern Vineyards. Held only once a year, Jenna will be taking the Master Sommeliers exam in a month's time, she having not passed in her first two attempts in not trusting her tasting instincts when in doubt. She not only wants desperately to pass in there only being less than two hundred Master Sommeliers in the world, but wants to advance females in the industry in only a small percentage of those Master Sommeliers being women. Her goal is to work as the head sommelier at Alluvial in San Francisco, it the three star Michelin restaurant owned by her boyfriend of three years, Aidan Parker, who is a Master Sommelier in his own right and who is all about the awards and accolades when it comes to the restaurant, the wines they serve and his staff. Despite the want to focus on studying for the exam, Jenna heads home to Carrington for a couple of weeks at her father's request in he planning a surprise fortieth anniversary party for Lynn. It is the first time that Jenna meets native Argentine Marcelo Castillo, Mike and Lynn's relatively new head vineyard manager and wine maker, who has taken the operation in a direction with which Jenna does not agree: all natural, which means organic. Unlike Aidan, Marcelo does not believe that awards necessarily equate to good wines, and believes Jenna should get her head out of the books and truly experience the wines more to appreciate them. While Jenna and Marcelo initially but heads in Jenna's fear that Marcelo's methods may run the vineyard out of business, they may actually open each other's eyes to what they really want in life.—Huggo