Valentine's Day is getting close. I don’t know why, but when I think of Valentines Day, I think of cream sherry. This is silly I know. I should be thinking about sparkling wine, chocolate, silky red things and the excitement of being in love. But, for some strange reason, I think about cream sherry. It was raining. I built a fire. I went to the glass cabinet and got out a sherry glass than hadn’t been used in years. I opened a new bottle and poured myself a glass. It was corked. The funny thing is, that corked sherry brought back a flood of memories of the day as a young boy I explored my first winery cellar. It is amazing how smells trigger memory. First there was the excitement of sneaking away to open the heavy door to the dark mysterious cellar. The fear of being caught while holding my breath as I waited for my eyes to adapt to not one darkness, but hundreds of different shadows and diffused light hiding all those strange smells of oak, water, must, sweet syrups, cork and wine. Another smell of the glass and I am not only feeling the cool air on my face, but I am touching the old wood and iron bands of the redwood tanks that towered over me like giants. I listen for footsteps that might be coming after me, but all I hear is what seems to me to be the breathing of the wet stone floors.