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    Over lunch, the three critics discussed the previous evening’s award ceremony. They agreed that the overall quality of that year’s competitors was patchy, the result of very strange summer weather. Unusually heavy rain in Northern Europe led to much of the grape harvest there rotting in the sodden vineyards. Meanwhile, Southern Europe roasted and the grapes in that part of the continent had a cooked jammy taste. Ronald and Odile also agreed that
Vinifera
had been “dumbing down.”
    “I blame
Sideways,”
said Ronald. “Now that everyone is getting into wine they keep telling me to make my columns more goddamn accessible.”
    “That’s a good thing, surely?” said Hilarian.
    Ronald and Odile looked at him as though he were mad; they actually prided themselves on producing impenetrable columns. They were elitists. Wine intellectuals. Snobs. Since his own main money-spinner was a guide to supermarket wines retailing at less than a tenner a pop, Hilarian often wondered why they bothered with him.
    “So,” said Ronald when the last of the wine had been drunk and the three were sipping espressos, “you ready to pay up, Hilarian?”
    “Pay up?”
    “Your bet,” said Odile helpfully. A slightly cruel smile twisted her perfectly made-up mouth. Somehow she had managed to eat an entire meal without displacing any of her signature red lipstick.
    “I made a bet? Who with?” Hilarian asked. “And,” he added with a groan, “how much did I lose?”
    He felt a chill travel the length of his body as Odile and Ronald looked at each other conspiratorially. Ronald’sold eyes crinkled with pleasure. Hilarian tried to retain some semblance of composure but his mind was traveling back to the previous year’s
Vinifera
awards, when he bet Ronald ten thousand pounds that Maison Randon’s Éclat would take the highest prize in the champagne section. It didn’t. Ronald had insisted that the bet be paid though Hilarian couldn’t even remember having made it.
    “You haven’t lost anything,” said Odile at last.
    Hilarian was flooded with relief.
    “Yet!”
    Both she and Ronald laughed.
    “By the look on both your faces,” said Hilarian, “I’m guessing that I made a silly wager.”
    “Very silly,” said Odile.
    Ronald agreed.
    “Well, for goodness’ sake, tell me what it was.”
    “That an English sparkling wine would carry off wine of the year at the
Vinifera
awards within the next five years.”
    Hilarian didn’t put his head in his hands but that was what he felt like doing.
    “Oh dear,” he said. “How much?”
    “Fifty thousand dollars,” said Odile, clapping her hands in glee.
    “Sweet Jesus.”
    “Don’t blaspheme,” said Ronald.
    “I must have been very drunk,” Hilarian groaned.
    “Of course,” said Odile. “You always are.”
    “Neither of you took me up on it,” said Hilarian hopefully.
    Odile grinned wickedly as she reached into her handbag and pulled out a tattered paper napkin. She flourished it at Hilarian.
    “Ta-daa! We wrote it down,” she said.
    Hilarian looked at his signature in blurry felt pen with horror.
    “ ‘Fifty thousand dollars. English sparkling wine to win Wine of the Year within the next five years.’ Signed Hilarian Jackson.” Odile read it out as though she were trying to be helpful.
    “And you’re going to hold me to that?” Hilarian asked. He knew that shit-bag Ronald would. Fifty grand was nothing to that decrepit bastard. Odile came from money and Ronald’s books had made him a mint but Hilarian didn’t have that kind of cash. Nowhere near. He certainly had no “old money” as Ronald had often implied. Hilarian may have had a title but, as was the case with so many British aristocratic families, all the accompanying dosh had gone to repairing the drafty family pile in Northumberland.
    “No,” said Odile. “That would be cruel.”
    Hilarian was so relieved he thought he might lose control of his bowels.
    “But when we had finished choking in