I have now brought back over 50 tons of grapes to our winery this season. I drive most of them myself over from the vineyards and I have time to listen to NPR’s local stations and reflect. Over the course of this harvest I have been reminded once more of the extraordinary miracle of fermentation…the absolute and total transformation of sticky sweet squashed watery orbs to heady new wine.
As I drive over the mountain pass that separates Eastern from Western Washington I have come to wonder if the grapes I’m hauling have any clue what lies ahead for them. If I were to tell them they will be tortured with a stemming and crushing and they will be made into wine, would any of them willingly come with me? “Wine” is not a part of what they know and it may not even be a part of their vocabulary (if they have one). The grape’s reason for being is to be a raisin! “Wine… what’s that?” my grapes might say to me as I transport them far from their vineyard homes.
Yesterday, was the twelfth anniversary of my mother’s death from early-onset Alzheimer’s. “Resurrection” of the body as some Creeds ask to believe, is something she would hardly want. She was a walking pathology textbook for most of her life.
I think, perhaps, a new wine awaits us that is beyond our mortal abilities to even conceive. We are grapes without a conception of what wine is. As I get older with each vintage I am going to try and not become an old raisin and remember that my raison for being lies somewhere in a new wine to come that I cannot begin to fathom.
By Don Corson, WineSpirit Member in Washington State
Founder of Camaraderie Winery
