Walking the vineyard today thinking about a

Pinot we’re pouring in the tasting room.  One thing I can say with rallying vigor is that Dutcher Crossing has shown me a new scope of wine’s existential consistencies, both drinking wine and out in the vineyard.  I’m forever based in this new oeno-ukase.  This again was punctuated when earlier today two people came in from, I think Stockton or Fresno or somewhere like that, and in walked Kerry the winemaker.  He spoke of how he learned wine from scratch, and how he now travels all over the world on his winemaking ventures and adventures.  They were on the “Proprietor’s Reserve” Zin, so I poured some for Kerry.  I gave a general introduction, not diving into my literary lingo, then stepped back for Kerry.  He vibed about the Zin and where it came from, much the way I do, but addressed the human peregrination to wine, how this is a bottle that you could have, well, whenever.  Dutcher’s shown me that wine is what I’m meant to do, where I’m meant to be, wine is all around me and when I walked the vineyard at lunch, looking at Dutcher Creek and hearing the wind through those sleeping canes, I knew.  I just knew.  I know.

Sipping the rest of that Pinot from last night.  Yes, a Dutcher bottle.  The “First Stage”, blend of three Russian River vineyards.  It sings to me.  More rhetoric that I usually get from a Pinot, beyond simple descriptors like you read from most of these wine writers and bloggers—  This bottle chants its location and atmosphere, it celebrates life and shows me something more about myself that I knew was there.  And what’s here, sitting on the floor of this home office?  A writer with his wine, thinking of the next page.  Tomorrow, time to write, write about wine, to submit like these small producers to competitions and critics.  Tomorrow’s a day that could, and more than likely WILL, storm me into the story I’ve been after.  Also while walking the vineyard at lunch I thought of that conversation Dad and I had a couple years ago (it must be now), where he asked me in a perfect world what I’d be doing, writing or teaching.  Of course, I told him writing, but then he gently ordered me to continue writing about wine as I do.  Wine purposes me toward family, a family business…  My babies in the vineyard, helping me and auntie Katie do punch-downs, clean barrels… even do “brix-&-temp’s”…  Wine tells me to follow, that it will take care of everything.  But I can’t get distracted.  If anyone knows that, it’s my sister…. I go back to my vineyard walk, sipping the rest of this Pinot and goddamnit, it’s gone.  What else do I have open?  Think I brought home a Sauv Blanc and something red from Dutcher.  Was it the Mabo’?  Oh I hope so…