CHAPTER 60: CHAPTER 36: LOVE YOU TILL DEATH AND BEYOND, HATE YOU UNTIL TEARS RUN DRY

There are six techniques for wine tasting:

First, choose the glass, pour the wine, and focus on the glass.

Second, swirl the aroma, observe the color, and raise the glass to your brow.

Third, smell the scent, appreciate the fragrance, and tilt your head inward.

Fourth, sip the aroma, taste the flavor, and carefully differentiate.

Fifth, savor the taste, let it soothe your throat, and leave an empty glass.

Sixth, breathe out, understand its character, and enjoy the aftertaste.

Sean Lowell didn’t complete the six techniques, not even the first step of the glass selection, which was directly handed to him by Leo Vaughn.

Selecting a glass? Nonexistent.

For The Divine Palate, wine has never been just something to soothe your throat.

Firstly, he doesn’t have the capacity to use wine to lubricate his throat.

Secondly, he doesn’t have the habit of drinking it down.

During the live broadcast of the Celestar Baijiu Annual Top 100, drinking that last glass of Mountai mixed with new wine and getting drunk on the spot was an accident, a memory-triggering accident.

It was also the start of a series of unexpected events thereafter.

In this world, the wine that you remember must have touched a very special place deep in your heart.

Perhaps it was a person, or perhaps an event.

No one knows what touched Sean Lowell.

But he just quietly fell asleep.

The Jilted, during the blind tasting festival, often wrote flattering reviews for every kind of wine.

In addition to a personality developed in childhood to please others, it was also about respecting everyone’s choices.

However, as The Divine Palate, Master Sean Lowell’s evaluations could never be without principles.

The Celestar Baijiu Annual Top 100, chosen by netizens, might not be that professional.

But they almost always represent one’s hometown or hold many memories for them in terms of Celestar Baijiu.

Whether it’s expensive wine in the thousands or cheaper wine in the tens, there can all be good wines.

Even wines that cost only a dozen or twenty bucks, as long as they aren’t industrial alcohol blends, might still have their merits.

Every year, after the Winters Spirits Group’s annual festival ends, the selected wines from the final ten distilleries see at least a 10,000-bottle sales increase within 24 hours.

The 19.8 million fans choose the "cream of the crop" based on their spending power.

The annual thousand bottles of Lowe-Fairmont Tipples are incredibly hard to snatch.

Even if you manage to grab one, it’s just a single bottle.

How can any annually publicly listed Celestar Baijiu be as "easily obtainable"?

For those private brewers who unexpectedly made it to the final list, a 10,000-bottle order often means moving from poverty to modest prosperity.

The bigger the distillery, the higher the quality of the wine, the more significant the "gold content" of these 10,000 bottles.

This is why, no matter how many insiders criticize the Winters Spirits Group’s blind tastings as unorthodox, no "legitimate" distilleries are willing to miss out.

At least a 10,000-bottle sales increase or a stock price reaching the limit up.

Such "sales effects" are irresistible for any distillery already on a commercial path.

The Winters Spirits Wine Winters Ambassador aimed for at least this 10,000-bottle effect, which is why he, still in Scotland, used his "position convenience" to set his sights on The Jilted.

Compared to those annual festival Celestar Baijiu, Summer Fairmont’s family whiskey, brought back, was an antique.

According to the price of the equivalent level of Scotland Whisky, a single bottle easily surpassing ten thousand dollars is not a big deal.

However, the batch of whiskey inherited by Summer Fairmont has some complex and special situations, unwelcomed by the Scotland Whisky Association, making it unpromotable in the European and American markets.

Everyone has their own story, and so does each bottle of wine.

After less than ten seconds of tasting, Master Sean Lowell "went back on his word."

He refused to independently promote Summer Fairmont’s family whiskey before the release of Lowe-Fairmont Tipples.

The reason being— "I currently can’t accept whiskey with intense peat flavor."

Disciplined Master Sean Lowell may not comment on wines he doesn’t like, but he would never give an insincere evaluation.

If it’s a "group assessment," he could choose to brush lightly over wines he doesn’t like, picking only a limited number of merits to elaborate on.

But if it’s an independent evaluation of Summer Fairmont’s family whiskey, there would be no option but to provide a comprehensive tasting result.

In this case, if his remarks were unflattering, or he outright stated he was unwilling to promote it, it would indeed become another "fatal miscalculation."

"What? Why? Fame-seeking master, just because I confessed to you, you’re not going to endorse Summer’s family whiskey!" Artie was so anxious her eyes were brimming with tears.

"..."

After supper, Talia Tate headed back to her room to rest, as her health condition didn’t allow her to stay up "fighting, smashing, grabbing, or burning" daughters-in-law and sons-in-law.

If Artie hadn’t shouted this out.

Leo Vaughn and Summer Fairmont wouldn’t have known about The Pouting Siren’s confession to Sean Lowell.

Now, everyone present knew that Cupid’s global general agent couldn’t even shoot the heart she desired.

This result was truly not pretty.

Realizing she had misspoken, The Devilish Lolita was rather indignant.

The indignation was mixed with some frustration, and the frustration with a little grievance.

While it wasn’t something she intended to keep secret, being revealed in such a manner still felt unsettling.

Then, The Devilish Lolita put the object of her confession half an hour earlier out of her mind.

She must always remember that the man in front of her now is a completely, utterly fame-seeking master.

If Sean Lowell hadn’t mentioned the peat, Artie could’ve tolerated it, but his remark directly ignited The Devious Siren’s temper.

"Does the fame-seeking master not know that peat is the essence of Scotland Whisky, huh?" Artie, with the mindset of a child not yet matured, tolerated the disinfection liquid, but mentioning peat was a battle to the end: "You wouldn’t think peat is like sodium hypochlorite, an invading element that destroys whiskey’s original components, would you?"

What did the fame-seeking master say to trick Summer Fairmont into coming back?

Said, "You can’t let a prank ruin a soulful whiskey."

Soul, do you even know how to write the word soul?

Indeed, what Summer Fairmont brought back this time wasn’t the original wine aged fifty years in Blairwood Distillery’s sherry casks.

Indeed, whiskey brewed fifty years ago, bottled forty years ago, would remain at a ten-year aging status.

But what Summer Fairmont brought back this time is that rare antique whiskey personally blended and bottled by the brewmaster.

It’s more stable than the previous bottle that stayed asleep in oak casks, completely unaware of how to awaken the original whiskey.

Facing Artie’s questioning, Sean Lowell said nothing, gave no response.

He’s not accustomed to, nor does he argue with women, especially not when he’s still at The Devious Lolita’s home.

Master Sean Lowell hoped to use silence to end unnecessary battles.

But the Winters Ambassador showed no intention of stopping: "Fame-seeking master, has your understanding of whiskey remained stuck in the ’30s or ’40s?"

The Pouting Siren was so angry that she lost the innate sweet timbre in her voice.

As the Winters Spirits Wine Winters Ambassador, Artie seriously doubted whether Sean Lowell understood the current whiskey trends.

Not understanding isn’t scary, but pretending to understand is what really makes Artie disinterested.

By now, if anyone still claimed Artie preferred males over friendships with Summer, The Devious Lolita would be furious.

Wellness Punk Association co-founder Artie held quite the punk and wellness insights on confessions and love—

In one second, loving you to death, and in the next, hating you till tears run dry.

Oh, boys of the world, remember one truth—

When a girl wants to argue with you, silence solves nothing.