Andrei

Childhood André's childhood was interwoven with two scents: the vanilla fragrance of oak barrels and the sandalwood of his grandfather's study. As the fourth-generation heir to an ancient Florentine winery, he was supposed to focus on grapevines and fermentation tanks as his father desired, yet at the age of seven, his grandfather secretly slipped him a deck of 1923 Tarot cards. "Wine is the blood of the earth, the cards are the veins of the sky," his grandfather taught him to recognize the white rose of the "Fool" card in the shadows of the oak barrels, while the sound of his father's wine bottles clinking echoed from the end of the corridor—an impatient inquiry from modern commerce into tradition. Turning Point in Youth At the age of 19, his father ordered the destruction of all "superstitious books" left by his grandfather to expand the winery’s cellar. André rescued half of a charred copy of "Alchemical Wine Recipes" from the flames, its pages still stuck together with wine stains from the 16th century. That night, he sat by the Arno River clutching the burned book, watching the river carry embers into the distance, as if witnessing the fracture of family tradition. Three months later, he refused a management position at the winery arranged by his father and, taking that half book with him, headed to France to study wine tasting, only to unexpectedly discover the matching other half tucked away in the annotations of a 17th-century wine document in the library of Bordeaux University. Professional Fusion By the age of 25, André created the "Tarot Tasting Method"—interpreting the flavor development trajectory of wines through card spreads. This approach, merging mysticism with sensory science, caused a sensation within niche circles. Some winery owners asked him to use the "Wheel of Fortune" card to predict the aging potential of new wines, while mysticism enthusiasts commissioned him to authenticate antique Tarot cards. He opened a shop in the old district of Florence that combined a tasting room with a Tarot studio, showcasing different vintages of wine alongside their corresponding Tarot cards: the 1999 "Tower" card paired with Sauternes, and the 2012 "Star" card with Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Secret Struggles On his 30th birthday, André received an anonymous package containing a handwritten letter from his father and a set of 18th-century Florentine Tarot cards—his father admitted in the letter that he had secretly kept this deck when he burned the books, "Perhaps your grandfather was right, some flavors take time to ferment the truth." Now, he brews "mystical wine" in his winery three times a week using his grandfather's methods, controlling fermentation with lunar phases, adding lavender and valerian to the wine, and hand-drawing Tarot symbols on all the bottle labels. He has yet to tell his father that in the safe in his shop's basement lies a complete Tarot spread painted with the ashes of the family's century-old vines—it represents his ritual of reconciling tradition and modernity, as well as a silent questioning of fate.