A recent article in the Los Angeles Times entitled, “An Artist in the Vineyard,” featured Eben Sadie and expounded his quest for perfectionism in his vines and wines. Included was a pictures of Sadie stomping away at grapes. I gazed upon the image with eyes clouded by nostalgia. Once upon a time, I, too, stomped grapes, which turned out to be surprisingly foot-numbingly hard work. And once upon a time, I served Sadie a sample of pinot noir in the Oregon winery where I was working at, long before he gained world-wide recognition for producing South Africa’s top-rated wines.
I’ve been out of the wine biz for ten years, so perhaps I know not what I think I know. And, certainly, I’ll never know a fraction of all there is to know about wine. But, one thing is certain: wine making–harvest in particular–is a cooperative agriculture venture, bringing together people, both locally and from all over the globe. Sadie, like so many winemakers, traveled by the seasons to various wine-producing countries to garner first-hand experience and knowledge.
Personally, this congregation and migration of winemakers from far and wide broadened my interest in the world and sparked a dream of traveling to Burgundy. Ten years later, I wound up traveling further south than first imagined to the lush vineyards of Saint Emilion and Bordeaux. But, here I was. In France. In the wine country. On the train from Paris to Libourne, a woman pronounced and re-pronouned Libourne after my Anglophile-trained tongue stumbled on the vowels. I laughed as I remembered the visiting winemaker from France telling me I “talked funny” after I tried my few words of schoolbook French.
I should not have been surprised to read South Africa is in full swing of harvest, since I’m well away of the duel-hemisphere-multiple-harvests phenomenon, but I still had to do some calculating in my head. As I sat sipping hot cocoa, trying to stave off the Arctic air blasting Seattle, I reminisced about the fruity yeasty aromas rising from the open fermenting vats. I recalled the many interesting people I met along the way who shared their stories with me over glasses of previous vintages. Feeling confined indoors by the gray, rainy days, I keep a comforting thought in mind: harvest is only a hemisphere away.
