The 30th Year Begins
This knowledge and acknowledgement would stretch the bounds of what it means to love something so much that any black gap between doing and being is filled in and lit up by that very doing.
30 years in the course of a human lifetime is not an inconsequential amount of time. 40% of a life, about. A little more, a little less.
30 times I’ve seen veraison, a thousand times walking up and down rows tasting grapes, spitting seeds, making picking decisions. Hundreds of wines made, always chasing the perfect one in my head, forgiving myself for not having made it yet, and being awestruck at the complication that is the liminal space between wanting nothing more than taking care of people with something delicious that I have made and a personal quest to have my vision of the perfect gift matched by what Nature and I can do.
I have written many times about, not the life-altering nor life-changing moment but, instead, the life-affirming, life-giving moment, when I realized that the child’s understanding of my family’s business that I ran away from as a teenager, was the very thing that would over-fill me as a man making wine. This knowledge and acknowledgement would stretch the bounds of what it means to love something so much that any black gap between doing and being is filled in and lit up by that very doing.
Life as a winemaker, especially during harvest, is difficult. But only from a physical standpoint. Punch downs over the course of a couple of months take it out on the shoulder joints, hips hurt, feet ache…I want nothing more than this. For all this sweat and advil and devotion and wonder at the becoming of it all is the greatest of rewards. Every day is one day closer to knowing that the drink that gives people sustenance and joy was envisioned and made by me.
Every time someone tells me that a bottle of my wine helped to make their anniversary or birthday more special is one of those Grinch moments.
Being in the wine business is so much harder, though they are inextricably bound, than the actual act of bringing grapes to bottle, especially in the current environment. But this will pass too. And we will be better for having our love and our creativity tested.
Ultimately, nothing can completely dim the light that is giving. Every waking moment is spent trying to figure out ways to continue to do this simple and profound thing for the next 30 (knock on wood!) years.