Zen struggled mutely with some internal paroxysm, then sneezed loudly, spraying gobs of sputum over the adjacent wine bins. The famous director grasped him once again by the arm and led him back the way they had come.

‘Enough! We’ll continue this talk upstairs.’

‘I’m all right,’ Zen protested. ‘It’s just this cold I’ve felt coming on for…’

‘I’m not worried about you! But sneezing in a cellar risks half the bottles turning out corked. So they say, at any rate. As for the presence of a menstruating woman, forget it! The whole business of wine is full of that sort of lore. I both believe and disbelieve, but with an investment like this I can’t afford to take chances.’

Giulio closed and locked the massive door giving into the vaults and led the way up a long, winding staircase and through an archway leading to the ground floor of the palazzo. They passed through several suites of rooms to the book-lined study where he had received Zen on the latter’s arrival, and gestured him into the armchair which he had occupied earlier.

‘As I was saying, the idea that I’m collecting the Vincenzo wine of this year — assuming there is any — for my own benefit is, of course, absurd. If the vintage is even half as good as has been predicted, it will not be remotely approachable for ten years, and won’t reach its peak for another ten. By which time I will be, if not defunct, at least “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”, as Shakespeare says.’

‘Then why should you care?’ demanded Zen, lighting a cigarette, which induced another massive fit of coughing. The other man eyed him keenly.

‘Do you have children, dottore?’

‘No. That’s to say… Yes. One.’

‘Boy or girl?’

‘A boy. Carlo.’

‘How old?’

There was a long pause.

‘He’s just a baby,’ Zen replied at length.

‘Congratulations! But they grow up rapidly. Hence my interest in this year’s Vincenzo wines. I have two sons, both in the most repulsive period of their teens. At present they regard my interest in wine as just another example of their father’s dotage. If they drink at all, it’s some obscure brand of imported beer, although Luca at least shows promising signs of becoming a collezionista about that, too, hunting down limited-release Trappist brews and the like.’