Noël and I shared a private toast before he took his first sip. This night was a goodbye to my father for everyone else, but it was both a hello and a goodbye for Noël. He would never know my father as a living man, but he’d know him through my memories, and now, through this wine my father had made. Noël had been so strong holding me up, but when he inhaled the bouquet of my father’s petite sirah, his expression crumpled.
