It’s murder in Napa Valley in this “thrillingly knowledgeable, insider’s odyssey into the world of fine wines [and] . . . particularly lurid homicides” (Anthony Bourdain). With a stroke of a pen, prominent wine critic Richard Wilson lives to elevate and, more often, destroy winemakers’ reputations. How fitting, his death: found murdered, floating in a vat of a particularly bold Cabernet Sauvignon at a Napa Valley tasting. Who did it? Any vintner whose career was ruined by Wilson’s sour grapes. But when those trail turns cold, Wilson’s sister Janie enlists the help of her ex-husband, Babe Stern. The ex-sommelier turned Sonoma County bar owner is following his own lead―to Burgundy, France. In cellars and tasting rooms from Beaune to Nuits-Saint-Georges, Stern tracks down a family of vignerons, whose troubled son was interning at the winery the night Wilson died. But it doesn’t end there. And as the investigation uncovers secrets bottled up for years, Wilson won’t be the last to die. In fact, the further Stern digs for the truth, he may be the next. “An evocative insiders’ tour of French wine country that a tourist will never see” ( Seattle Times ), restaurateur and former wine columnist Peter Lewis’s juicy mystery is “a rare and engrossing wonder dealing with the murderous grotesqueries of the wine world . . . in an atmosphere of homicide, sex and food” (Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall ). Peter Lewis is a successful restaurateur and restaurant industry consultant. He has been a contributing editor for Virtuoso Travel & Life for which he wrote the column "Wine Country Notebook." His work has also appeared in Pacific Northwest and Arcade . Dead in the Dregs is his first novel. He lives in Seattle. DEAD IN THE DREGS A BABE STERN MYSTERY By PETER LEWIS COUNTERPOINT Copyright © 2010 Peter Lewis All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-58243-548-0 Chapter One They brought in the harvest early that year in Napa, and with it, Richard Wilson's body. A perfect flowering, a mild spring dotted with just the right amount of rain, and a hot, dry summer had ripened the fruit to twenty-eight Brix by late August. Wilson's selection, on the other hand, had nothing to do with how sweet he was. The bar was always dead that time of year. The whole world, it seemed, was out picking. I dreaded going to work but dragged my ass down the mountain and opened the place. I did the books from the night before and swept up. A few customers wandered in, guys too old to stoop in a vineyard for ten hours straight in ninety-degree heat. By three o'clock, I'd done a staggering twenty bucks. I'll never forget that day. It was the first time I'd seen Wilson in more than a decade, and it was the last day I would see him alive. I was just settling into the lazy rhythm that creeps up on you late in the afternoon: time to slice lemons and limes, fill the condiment caddy, and contemplate your favorites on the jukebox. Al Green was serenading the few off-hour drinkers who'd straggled into Pancho's, asking his plaintive question "How can you mend a broken heart?" Apparently, none of my customers had a clue. It was sweltering, so I'd propped the front door open to capture what little breeze there was. I had my back turned and was just emptying the last of a jar of McSweet onions into the caddy, when a voice out of my past said, "Pour me something I've never tasted." I turned around. He'd put on weight, a lot of weight-the college jock gone to seed-but he was immediately recognizable. "Hello, Richard." I ducked under the backbar and pulled out a bottle, set a wineglass in front of him, and started to pour. "An old-vine Mataro that'll knock your socks off," I said, as if I had seen him only the day before. He held his hand up. "Just a taste. I'm on my way to Norton." "In the middle of harvest?" "Filling a few gaps before the second edition of my California book goes to press." He picked up the glass the way pros do, his thumb and forefinger pinching the base of the stem, twirled it deftly, inhaled, and set it down. Then he turned his back to me, took two steps, and stopped. "I don't get it," he said. "Get what?" "This place, your life. You gave it all up ... for this?" "Yeah, Top of the Mark," I said. I had no intention of falling for it. "Where are you staying?" "With a friend." "Have you seen your father yet?" I said. "I don't know why Janie moved him out here," Wilson said, shaking his head as he turned around. "Do you really think it's possible to take care of someone with Alzheimer's long-distance? She'd have had to dump him in a nursing home." "He's in a nursing home here. His whole life is in New York." "What life?" I said. "The one he can't remember?" He stared into the wine. "I feel badly that Janie's been strapped with this." "Somebody's got to do it. You're not about to put your life on hold. At least this way he's close. She can keep an eye on him, make sure he gets