In Vino Veritas, redux.

On August 15 of last year, I wrote about a visit to a old high-school friend who has a vineyard and bottles wine near Crossville, Tennessee. I was fascinated by the process of making wine and, although the descriptions and processes came fast and were clouded by my almost constant enjoyment of the finished product, I wanted to write about it.

My friend, Tim, recently got high-speed internet (he lives waaaay out on the Cumberland Plateau, not near any cable or DSL service). Finally able to load large sites in less than a half-hour, he checked out Words of Wayne and my comments on my visit to his home. Being the consummate professional in all things wine-related, he felt he should correct some of my previous comments. I am passing some of his email comments along to redeem myself and further show his pride of work. My original comments are in italics.

I did not know that red wine gets its color from those seeds and skin, since all grape juice is white. Most red grapes have white juice so the red wine produced from these grapes extracts its color from the skins. However there are some red grapes that also have red juice. The Marquette I have in the vineyard is an example of that. It would make a rose’ colored wine if fermented off of the skins, but fermenting on the skins gives the wine a much deeper color and extracts many goodies like tannins that give the wine a bigger body. 

Then it is strained and put into oaken casks, where it ages. My red wines are in barrels, not casks. Casks are much larger than traditional wine barrels. 

Tim is a winemaker, and a vintner. A vintner is a winemaker. 

And every one of his wines has won awards—many firsts, many blue ribbons. The only prize to elude him is Best of Show. But it is only a matter of time. I have received three Best of Shows for my wines. Two in the Florida International Competition and one here in Tennessee. The one that has eluded me is the Indiana (Indy) International Amateur Wine Competition. Wines are scored on their on merits such as clarity, aroma, taste, mouth feel, varietal character, etc. You can make a great wine that scores very high, receiving a gold medal from all judges (usually five), as can several other competitors. The Best of Show compares all the best to determine the best of the best. So since Indy is the largest amateur competition (outside of CA) it is the most competitive and the most coveted of the awards. Regarding California: all the competitions out there only seem to be open to CA residents. Snobby bastards! 

White grapes are pressed immediately and the juice is left to ferment in large bins. Red grapes are crushed along with their seeds, skin and stems, and go through primary fermentation as a mush. The concoction of juice, seeds, and skins during fermentation is “mushy” but it is referred to as “must.” This is made in reference to the grapes from the time they are crushed until they are pressed, separating the liquid from the solids. For a white wine this is usually a matter of hours and for a red, it could be weeks depending on the desires of the winemaker. 

Tim continues with these general comments:

Reading books on grape growing over the last several years has been interesting, as it seems they all are about the way things are done in the great wine regions of the world. Well, TN is not one of those regions. I was told long ago by a TN grape grower that you need to take it all with a grain of salt. The books all seemed to indicate that the fruit flowers should be cut from the vine until the 4th season when you would allow your first crop to mature. Here in TN (and probably most of the US) we allow the crop to mature in the 3rd season. What I have found on my own, that I had never read, was the importance of the training in the second season. I didn’t do a very good job in 2010 with the vines planted the previous year so I will pay for it in 2011. 

I am truly looking forward to the upcoming season as every year I get a little smarter and a little more familiar with what it is that I am supposed to do. 2011 will bring fruit from the entire vineyard, and the varietals I have coming in for the first time have got me excited about the potential for some really good wine… Lord willing. I have left about 6-8 weeks before I need to start pruning. At that point my days will be centered on producing some award winning wines. 

Thanks, Tim, for the clarifications. Like a great cookbook, just reading about it makes my mouth water. See you soon!

—W. S.

Kin-tsugi

KIN-TSUGI is a Japanese word which means, in literal English translation, "golden joinery." It refers to the craft of repairing broken pottery with a compound of ki-urushi (raw lacquer) and pure gold powder. The result, while obviously highlighting the former damage, is always unique, and almost always beautiful. Blake Gopnik explains the history of the craft in a Washington Post article: 

The story of kintsugi may have begun in the late 15th century, when the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent a damaged Chinese tea bowl back to China to be fixed. It returned held together with ugly metal staples, launching Japanese craftsmen on a quest for a new form of repair that could make a broken piece look as good as new, or better. Japanese collectors developed such a taste for kintsugi that some were accused of deliberately breaking prized ceramics, just to have them mended in gold.

How fascinating that it is considered art—and indeed beautiful, desired art—to repair something in such a way that the repair is what draws the eye. This is so unlike our way of thinking (my mind turns to Mr. Bean's "repair" of Whistler's Mother). We want our repairs, be they rhinoplasty or fender work, to appear as if nothing has been changed or damaged. 
Yet could there be value in our scars? I love the way Leonard Cohen put it:

Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh. It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat.

Jesus was not ashamed of His scars, freely extending His hands to the disciple who doubted He had risen from the dead. I should be willing to show my scars as well. They do not tell anyone anything they wouldn't or shouldn't know. They tell others I am a flawed, broken individual. Yet I have been—and am being—repaired. And my scars are glorious.
—W.S. 

A Blue Blazer, Conrad Aiken and Death

   Last week, I attended a funeral. She was a long-time friend and colleague of my wife, whom I had only met once or twice, long ago. After I parked the car in the long queue that would follow the family to the gravesite, I slipped on my blue blazer. I felt something inside the right vest pocket. Pulling it out, I discovered that it was a program for another funeral, that of the father of a friend, which had occurred eleven months ago.
   Two things struck me: One, it seems the only time I dress up these days is to go to a funeral. Or, at best, funerals are the only occasion to which I wear my navy blue blazer. And secondly, funerals are the occasion where we bid goodbye to loved ones (or support those who do). And while they are full of sorrow, much effort is made to make these goodbyes full of hope as well. The loved one is, after all, going to a "better place," no?
   That is the crux of human faith: that there exists, unseen, a better world. And better all around: according to the book about it, there will be no pain, no tears, and no more death.
   Part of me agrees with Conrad Aiken. The southern poet is buried in my favorite cemetery, Bonaventure, near Savannah, Georgia. His tombstone is a bench, and on it is inscribed a notice he saw in the shipping pages of the Savannah paper. There, among the notices of ships arriving and departing, was this cryptic notice:

Cosmos Mariner

Destination Unknown

(click photo to enlarge)

   The poet in me loves that. The mystic in me agrees as well. While I am well aware of the promises of God to his children about the world to come, nevertheless I realize I do not—indeed cannot—begin to imagine what it will be like. My wife's friend knows. And my friend's father knows.
   And one day, so will I.
—Wayne S.
(photo credit)

A Hucksterish Choice?

   As many of you know, commentator, essayist and noted atheist Christopher Hitchens is battling a vigorous case of esophageal cancer. He recently wrote in Vanity Fair about all the Christians (and those of other faiths) who are praying for him. It is a must-read article. Hitchens asks some very interesting questions: To those who say the cancer is his punishment for speaking out against faith, he notes, "Almost all men get cancer of the prostate if they live long enough: it’s an undignified thing but quite evenly distributed among saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers. If you maintain that god awards the appropriate cancers, you must also account for the numbers of infants who contract leukemia."
   One of the most interesting things he says is to those who are praying for his salvation. He thanks them, but tells them don't expect a last minute grasp at eternity:

"Suppose I ditch the principles I have held for a lifetime, in the hope of gaining favor at the last minute? I hope and trust that no serious person would be at all impressed by such a hucksterish choice."

   Impressed? No. But we are convinced it is possible, if unlikely.

   Many people, smart people like Mr. Hitchens, believe that God somehow operates with the same sense of fairness in which we operate. Therefore, they conclude that it somehow just isn't possible (or fair) that person A can live his life obediently, perhaps painfully, seeking to follow and please God, while person B, in the words of some clever wit, goes to the grave "skidding in sideways, Chardonnay in one hand, chocolate in the other," and expects the same consideration, and indeed the same destination, just because at the last minute they believed.

   But God doesn't use that metric. In some sort of divine calculus that really doesn't seem to add up to us, God is less concerned with when we believe, but that we believe. How else could you explain the thief on the cross being promised Paradise?
   William Camden, an English historian in Shakespeare's day, wrote in Remains (1623) of a dissolute man who died when he fell from his horse:

                        My friend, judge not me, 

                        Thou seest I judge not thee; 

                        Betwixt the stirrop and the ground, 

                        Mercy I askt, mercy I found.

Perhaps Mr. Hitchens thinks that is a bridge too far. I will still pray for him. And I easily believe, in his case, that one day he may enter eternity with God, "skidding in sideways, Johnny Walker Black in one hand, a Rothmans cigarette in the other... ."

   He says if word ever gets out that, in some sort of delirium, he calls upon God to save him, we should not believe a word of it. How curious that, of all he has said that he wants us to believe, that would be suspect.

   God be with you, Christopher Hitchens.

—Wayne S.

One of the Only

Word confusion on the cover of Parade Magazine.

   It's the cover story; an article about Natalie Randolph, the football coach at Coolidge High School in Washington, D. C. The article is assumed to be of interest to Parade readers because there aren't a lot of female football coaches. And it is an interesting article, and Coach Randolph is quite a person.
   But I couldn't help but get tickled at the subhead on the cover. After the heading, "A League of Her Own," the subhead reads "At Coolidge High School in Washington, D.C., Natalie Randolph is making history—as one of the nation's only female football coaches."
   Read it again. According to the editor of this edition, Coach Randolph stands out not because she is female, but she is an only female football coach. This is to be contrasted with what I assume are partially female, or even mostly female coaches, which evidently are more numerous, or at least less unusual.
   Of course, the correct description (which is used in the inside article) is "one of the nation's few female football coaches." It's comforting to know that even the big boys (or girls) miss one every now and then.
—Wayne S.