Newness Hugged in Dry Creek

Was told the vineyard blocks and property was inspiring, but I had no conception or way to measure what was my way headed.  When vineyards surround you and chant an unusually haunting and encouraging chorus like the Maple Vineyard does, you stop and listen, look around.  Day was felicitous in that I and some co-workers and friends had such invitation to listen to Tina Maple speak about her and late-husband Tom’s property.  Only selling to four select wineries, they want the integrity of their fruit kept in tact.  There were so many seconds and minutes in Tina’s presentation where I wanted to break just for a second from our circle and take pictures, of the rows, of her dogs, the clusters, perceptive and vantage angularities looking up the hill, but no.  I had to listen.  This New experience had to be fully captured, however I was to do it— by observing, taking pictures, walking around shooting video, however.  But more than anything, I wanted to listen to the property’s owner detail the history and the soil composition and how the vines were cared for.

She disclosed that at the beginning, where she and Tom bought the property in the 80’s, they had no idea what they were doing, really.  But one discovery and fortunate transpiration after another, and Tom’s tectonic interest and curiosity about the their new property, they found themselves to have an opportunity to grow and replant some resplendent fruit.  While she spoke I did look around though, and the sight itself and how gripping every turn was, each image and rich specificity that greets your eye is poetic, musical.  This is a vineyard that I was meant to see.  I always say, “I’m always in the vineyard.  I have to be in the vineyard.” With the prominent atmospheric rhetoric and convincing entrapment of this property, now I know what I’ve saying to myself over and over is true.  But I know not many of the vineyards I visit or meditate in with have this celestial degree.

Not sure where the fruit is in its development and ripening, or maturation, its story, but each cluster looked and tasted prodigious.  Each its own paragraph and sonnet, line and language, speaking to me the pursuer and worshipper of vines, soil, site.  Sites like this give a writer more sight, more creative rumble about our thinking, urges, visions, where we see ourselves.  Tina taking the time to tell us all about her property as well as urging us to walk around and explore, taste the grapes, go check out the Alicante Bouschet in a parcel dubbed “Bill’s Block” could only be described as propitious.  Just as she and Tom had their dream, we should all have ours.  This vineyard’s uniquely instructional and an endearing shove for wine lovers, winemakers, wine chasers, or writers like me.  There’s no way the person who told me the Maple property was “inspiring” could have told me how much.  Because places like that can’t be contained to singular words, or thoughts.  A visit like this leaves you with an expanding reaction and reflection, sprinting forward into years just as the vineyard itself has— transcending in story and reach.  Taste from one of the four wineries to which they sell.  You’ll want to walk those rows, too.

(8/10/16)