Maybe my morning devotion just primed me for it, but this was one of the best days of my life. I got to work a bit up at Coeur de Terre, and the go around and tour other vineyards with Scott Neal. I'd been saving up about a weeks worth of questions, So I let them all fly at the same time. Scott was very patient about answering them all. I have found him to be the original multi-tasking, technology geek. He must have five or six different gadgets powered up on the dashboard of his car. I don't even know what they all do, but he seems to use two or three of them simultaneously. We drive by a number of vineyards that I didn't even know existed. Scott tells me that they are owned by some professionals, who do it on the side. He calls them petting vineyards. I almost we my pants I laugh so hard. Scott is out checking on some of the other fruit that his is purchasing to make Pinot Gris, and to add to his Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. The fruit is looking good. Despite some very badly timed rain the grapes are in good shape and ripening nicely.After the tour we head back to the winery. They guys have made great progress on bottling the wine. There are seventeen pallets all finished and ready to go by the time the truck arrives to
take them away to the wine storage warehouse. (Most wineries do not have enough room to store their wine, so they pay to have it stored, and then have it delivered as they need it.) You can see a lot of our work in the photo to the left. There are 17 pallets with 56 cases of wine on each one for a total of 952 with 12 bottles in each one for a total of 11,424 bottles! And we broke a total of four of those bottles (and only one was full of wine.) It's really a wonderful sense of accomplishment to know that I've handled just about every one of those bottles. In the photo to the left, Maurico is stacking up the just glued up boxes to receive the newly labeled bottles. In this week of bottling and labeling we have emptied two huge stainless steel containers that were full of wine. It just feels good.
When the truck arrives there is frantic activity to get all of the pallets wrapped and ready for transport. Then, suddenly, the cellar is empty. Just a few scattered boxes here and there and the two wooden fermenters. It is such a stark contrast to just a few minutes earlier. Lisa Neal has promised us a luncheon today. I'm looking forward to it. What could be better than a luncheon at a vineyard? Time in a vineyard is always relative, and lunch is no different. We were scheduled to eat at 12:00, then 1:00, and because of the truck arrival, we sit down somewhere south of 2:00. But man, oh man is it worth the wait.
Lisa has laid out a beautiful spread of food. There is incredibly moist and delicious BBQ'd chicken, a gourmet mac and cheese, rustic bread, a mixed green salad with still warm brownies for dessert. But that's not all. We also get to pop open one of the bottles we've been bottling. Then Ryan brings over one of their estate Pinots from 2007 and its spectacular. Then a bottle of their estate Syrah arrives. O MY GOD!
And the conversations are lively and extremely entertaining. We talk about the demented cat who is attacking Jack the vineyard dog. We move on to Ryan's wonderful and strange relationship with Roberto. Scott finally shows up and we're off to Los Vegas talking about the inability of white people to dance. It was so, so, so good. These guys that I've worked so hard with this week, finally have time to sit down and talk and have fun. After everyone else leaves our wonderful hostess, Lisa finally sits down to eat. I stay behind while everyone else heads back to work and we talk some more. We talk about our parents and the world in which they struggled to make a better life for their children. Then we move to our own children and our hopes and dreams for them. Scott and Lisa talk just a bit about their lost house and how tender that spot remains for them. And then I get to go home and see my granddaughter and have dinner with Paul and Ashley and her parents. It's just too much goodness packed into one day.
The title of this blog comes from Acts 14. Here is the whole quote taken from the Message version of the Bible: "God didn't leave them without a clue, for he made creation, poured down rain and gave bumper crops. When your bellies were full and your hearts happy, there was evidence of God beyond your doing.
I have so much, I am so blessed and it is way, way beyond my doing.