 Adrian Carsini is a fanatical wine connoisseur who operates a winery on the California coast. When Adrian s indifferent brother, who owns the winery property, threatens to sell it, Adrian kills him in a fit of rage, then places his brother s body in storage in his wine vault while he travels to New York to attend a conference. Adrian disposes of the body on his return, and in such a way as to make his brother s demise look like an accident. But he hadn t reckoned on the canny Lieutenant Columbo, who is assigned to this case by the LAPD s Homicide Division. Columbo is a cigar-smoking detective with many fetishes, a constantly referred-to but unseen wife, an old car, and a rumpled raincoat. In his usual patronizing manner, Columbo suspects Carsini almost immediately, and he befriends Carsini while slyly searching for clues to link Carsini to the killing.