Both suites overlook terraced hillsides, where in summer, plump grapes hold the promise of the velvety red wines of the region.
But for a Tuscan-inspired summer soiree, a free-standing heavy ceramic cooler, adorned with an image of plump grapes, rests on a metal base and can be filled with wine.
Plump grapes are plucked from their vines and transformed into glass jugs of young, fizzy vino nuovo.
They love it for its argent-colored leaves and its lasciviously plump grape clusters.
Mrs. Mehdian stocks Ely's home with 10-pound sacks of rice, packages of soft, thin lavash, fat bunches of radishes, long, slender cucumbers and plump grape tomatoes.
SINCE 1945, a red brick house with a peaked roof has sat on 77th Avenue near 162nd Street in Hillcrest, Queens, and according to local lore, every fall the arbor in the backyard has yielded a bumper crop of plump crimson grapes.
Before the civil wars that raked the people from the land and the Israeli occupation that drove a wedge between those who remained, its terraced farms once yielded a bounty of plump cherries, grapes and apricots.
The platter of Brie, homemade pâté and plump, purple grapes set before them was a distraction from the $16,000 price tag, encouraging the couple to sit and get a real feel for how the piece would work in their New Milford home.
As I gaze in their direction, the Mediterranean-blue wall in the rear of the garden seems to liquefy, mir agelike, into a bobbing sea, and the bare white trellises, arching over the outdoor tables, are engulfed in vines thick with plump black grapes.
As Bo Barrett Bo Barrett, one of the owners of the famed Chateau Montelena, pointed out at a New York City lunch in 2003: "California has always got plump, ripe grapes.
At sunset, as I stroll through the estate's wildflower-strewn vine fields, the plump Shiraz grapes and I are treated to a Bach cello sonata.
