While in Zagreb, I go for bottled wines. Having gotten used to cheap but good wines in Britain, I go for the same price and quality range in Croatia. However, cheap Croatian wines are never good, while expensive Croatian wines are often bad. I thus go for Shiraz from France, Spain, Australia, South Africa, and Chile, as well as Vranec or Vranac from Macedonia and Montenegro. For some reason, though, the wine stores I go to seldom have what I want. It takes quite a bit of savvy to collect a few prized bottles to spare. They all end up on a shelf above the cooker in my beloved’s kitchen. My altar, as I like to call it. When there are fewer than three bottles up there, I start to worry. And I do my best to replenish the blessed store as quickly as possible. But the shelf is a pleasure to behold at this very moment: there are as many as nine bottles in it. So far, there have never been more than seven bottles on the shelf. Whenever I go to the kitchen today, I raise my eyes to it by way of thanks. Nine bottles! A miracle!