"....As you know, the Great Master was an avid wine collector. At its peak, this room held nearly 3,000 bottles from around the world. Approximately 400 remained at the time of his death. Step this way, please."
Our tour group filed into the Great Master's wine cellar. It was cool and damp, illuminated only by a few yellow lamps reflecting off the gray stone walls. Most of the racks had stood empty for several generations.
Slingsby moved smartly to the southwest corner, where stood a hermetically sealed glass case. Inside, backlit by a pale blue light and suspended by antigravs, was a single, unopened wine bottle. "Here is the centerpiece of the Great Master's collection: a 1995 Thunderbird. Very rare, and of course priceless. Fewer than three dozen bottles survive to this day."
O-o-ooooh. A-a-aaaah.
"Why didn't the Great Master drink it?" asked one girl licking a Thunderbird Crunch ice cream cone.
"No one is sure. It was found at the bottom of a dusty corner rack behind a row of empty bottles. A handful of rogue Stewartian scholars speculate that the Great Master somehow..." (and Slingsby's voice cracked a bit here) "...*forgot* he had it!"
There was a short pause, then the room exploded in laughter.
Slingsby wiped a tear from his eye. "Sorry, folks. I enjoy injecting a little humor into the tour. Of course, such a suggestion is absurd. The Great Master was one of his era's premier wine connoisseurs. He would no sooner forget about a T-Bird in his cellar than his contemporary Itzhak Perlman would forget he owned a Stradivarius. And such a good year, too!"
"Most likely, he hid it in the corner as a measure of security from intruders."
The crowd pressed in for a closer look. Meanwhile, I slipped off to check out the racks. True to his renowned cosmopolitan tastes, the Great Master owned wines from all over the globe. A chablis from the South Coast region of California. A burgundy from New York. A zinfandel from Spain. A Mexican Cinqo de Mayo sangria. Even one bottle from a vineyard outside Jerusalem!
One rack was empty save for a lone flask of Leningrad vodka and a small jug of apple-citrus cider.
The most interesting bottle of all was a special seasonal vintage from a winery in southern England. The English aren't known for their chardonnays; I presumed the Great Master kept the vin ordinaire solely for sentimental reasons. The label showed a simple charcoal drawing of an city park on a damp autumn day.
Something about the picture caught my eye. I gently removed the bottle from the rack and scanned it with my temporal sight restorer. Nothing. I was about to replace it when I happened to peer *through* the wine itself. I can't explain how it was done, but handwritten on the back of the label were the following words:
1995 ASML BOAP: Top Ten Classic Era Songs (Pre-1973):
# Song Rating Album ---------------------------------------------- 1 Clifton In The Rain 6.143 BI 2 Electric Los Angeles Sunset 5.866 ZSF 3 Gethsemane, Again 5.821 ZSF 4 Manuscript 5.530 ZSF 5 In Brooklyn 5.497 LC 6 Bedsitter Images 5.464 BI 7 Zero She Flies 5.405 ZSF 8 The News From Spain 5.310 O 9 Night Of The 4th Of May 5.289 O 10 A Small Fruit Song 5.230 ZSF
With trembling hands, I replaced the bottle quietly. My mind was racing. If the Classic Song results were hidden in the wine cellar, so in all probability were the corresponding Classic Album results. I switched my flashlight to Carbon Dating mode and began searching the racks.
Across the room, one of the VR tourists asked a question which I didn't hear. Slingsby scratched his chin for a moment.
"Ah, yes, the mystery of the Lost Bottles. Certainly, the Great Master would not decimate his collection so quickly for no good reason. Most scholars believe there was some sort of accident in the wine cellar -- a minor earthquake perhaps, or something which caused the temperature and humidity to rise."
"Maybe he sold them to purchase the Thunderbird," one woman suggested.
"That's possible, but there is some evidence that it was a gift from a wealthy benefactor."
I was only half-listening. With the exception of the one chardonnay, every bottle in the cellar dated from 2005 or later -- too recent to possibly hold poll results. There was but one hope, unthinkable though it seemed. It would be barbaric to defile of one the world's finest vintages, but late 20th century commoners were not known for their refinement.
Trying my best to look unobtrusive, I sidled over to the southwest corner. There was no way I could break through the security force field of course, but maybe there was something to be found on the label. I cranked up my flashlight and shone it into the display case.
Slingsby, in a panic, ran over and grabbed my wrist. "Have you taken leave of your senses!? That is a very rare, very fragile, 200-year old bottle of wine. A bright light could ruin it!"
"Well, could I hold it for just a second?"
"No!"
"Can I sniff the twist top?"
"No!! Sir! If you persist in these actions, I will call security and have you beamed off the premises. May we please move on?"
My shoulders sagged. I almost turned to leave when I noticed a small piece of orange paper sitting on the bottom of the display case. "What's that?" I asked.
"Had you been paying attention, sir, you would have heard me explain that it was called a 'price tag'. They are artifacts of turn-of-the-millennia merchantile culture. An adhesive originally held it to the bottom of the bottle, but it dried and fell off several decades ago. We see no reason to disturb the wine to reattach it."
"May I examine it? With my TSR, I mean. It'll only take a second, and I promise I won't shine it on the bottle."
Slingsby sighed and rolled his eyes. "Very well sir. Please make it brief."
Brief was all it took. These words appeared in very fine print on the tag:
1995 ASML BOAP: Classic Al Albums (pre-1973):
# Album Rating -------------------------------- 1 A-Zero She Flies 4.329 2 A-Orange 3.866 3 A-Love Chronicles 3.654 4 A-Bedsitter Images 3.646
I clicked off the TSR and breathed a sigh of relief. Four results found -- who knows how many more to go.
"Are you quite finished?" asked Slingsby, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling.
"Quite," I replied. "Where's the next stop?"
"The kitchen"
Great. Let's go upstairs and see what's cooking....