First is creaky old H.E. Bravery, the home winemaking impressario. I can’t remember if he had a dandelion wine recipe, but if he didn’t, it was because he was too busy fermenting everything else around his yard. I remember thinking old H.E. had a few too many shells explode near him during the London Blitz, but that he had enough of his wits left about him to coax fermentation out of virtually anything.

Second, and more important, it’s a harbinger:

It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer.

Let the clouds part and the wine uncork!