Yes, it's true, I get away with a lot. Right now I'm leading a small group which is looking at different themes in the Bible related to vineyards. And, since we are studying vineyards, we decided to go and meet in different vineyards. We take a bus and on the way out I introduce the vineyard to which we are heading, and then read some Bible verses. It has turned out to be one of my favorite small groups of all time!
This past week we visited one of our favorite wineries, Maysara, which is run by the Momtazi family. And what a family they are! I have grown to love them all. The patriarch is Moe who runs a tight ship and has a clear vision for his vineyard, and for the wines that will be produced there. Maysara is such a testament to his vision. As you leave Muddy Valley road and head up the steep gravel you sweep along the side of a beautiful, large pond which provides irrigation in the summer along with beautiful rainbow trout! The tasting room is the working winery. It's an industrial metal building filled to the ceiling with oak wine barrels. There are more barrels this
year than I have ever seen before. In part this is because they are making more wine. It is also because Moe's daughters have started their own enterprise called 3 Degrees. This easy to drink, entry level Pinot Noir is priced at just $20, and we sell a lot of it at our shop, Wednesday Wines.
The first degree, daughter, Tahmiene is our tour guide today. I so love this young woman. At 28 she is one of the youngest winemakers in the US. So has so much personality, and is such an
engaging story teller. Today she shares with us the story of how she came to be the winemaker at her father's vineyard. At the time she was working at a winery in New Zealand and got a call from her father asking how she liked it there. "I love it here," she answered, sensing what was coming next. "I'm thinking I might like to live here the rest of my life." I've never argued with Moe, I just don't see why anyone would. He's determined and powerful, two traits that have served him well in creating this beautiful winery. Unfortunately for him, his daughters are his match in every way! When Tahmiene finally had a
break from making wine down under she came to visit her family and came to realize that she was needed in the family business. She told her father, "OK, I'll consider it, but I need a week to think it over." After the week was up she told him she would accept his offer to be the winemaker, but that she wanted to make wines her way! Moe
responded that he needed a week to think it over! After a week he accepted her offer, but informed her that he wanted to produce bio-dynamic wines.
That would be a scary proposition for any winemaker. In fact, Tahmiene said that in her classes at the University of Oregon they had warned against trying to grow organic, or bio-dynamic crops. What is bio-dynamic? It's more of a philosophy than an agricultural science. You are allowed to spray your crops with certain chemicals on an organic vineyard. Not with a bio-dynamic one. Everything that is applied to the crops or to the soil comes from the vineyard itself, nothing is imported. Cover crops are grown to be used in composted "teas" that are applied during certain growing cycles. Some of these
cycles are "leaf" cycles, and some of "root" cycles and all are centered around the phases of the moon. It sounds a bit like new age religion to me, but there is one part of the bio-dynamic process I can not argue with. The results! They make wonderful wines.
There is no doubt that bio-dynamic vineyards are good for the environment. Even some organic solutions have to be mined from the earth. It is such a cool idea to think of the vineyard as a closed system into which nothing has to be imported. That includes the yeast for the wine. At Maysara they don't import any. The yeast that is needed to make the wine is already on the grapes when they are harvested. That requires a lot of faith, I think.
In addition to the wine we got to tour Moe's new winery building. It is huge! You can see that we
drove our church bus right inside with room to spare. (Yes, we take our church bus on wine
tours, remember, this is a Bible study!) The building has been made with many of the same principles of the winery itself. About 90 percent of the materials came from the sight from the oak trees that were harvested and milled on sight to the rocks which make up the foundation. Moe has also figured out how to straighten barrel staves and is covering the walls with them. It's going to be an impressive building.
I believe that we Christians need to confess that as a group they have not done a very good job of caring for the earth. One badly translated word in Genesis has caused a lot of this. The word is "subdue". People of faith have taken it to mean bend and break it to your will. The original intent was more of a stewardship role. The earth belongs to God, not us, a
nd we are temporary caretakers of this amazing gift. There is nowhere that I'm reminded more of that gift of creation that in a beautiful winery. I'm glad there are people brave enough to commit to ideas like bio-dynamic and organic. I don't know if I could do it, it takes too much faith!