The Promised Land

(Newsletter for our November patron release)

Autumn (The Spies with the Grapes of the Promised Land)

This is Autumn from Nicolas Poussin's paintings of the seasons. The grape cluster so large it takes two men to carry it is an image from the Book of Numbers, where the grapes are a sort of proof of the Promised Land. The image is as apt a metaphor for the harvest season as any: yes, early fall is the moment of plenty, but also a time of intense activity and labor. The grapes do not pick themselves, and we are not very mechanized here... it takes living hands to grab each cluster. So harvest at Idiot's Grace, as in Poussin's painting, is a ragged and dramatic scene as much as an idyllic one, a great effort by the whole crew in which muscles, emotions, and many, many grapes are all strained. It is impossible to have a conversation with either Brian or Rueben for the six weeks that start midway through September and end in late October; they are so sleep-deprived from their posts at the press that they enter into a kind of artificial dementia, and tend to trail off, forget things, or recall childhood memories when you ask for something simple like the time. And we are not one of those wineries kissed by the good fortune of doing one variety, one wine so well that we can forget everything else... instead, thanks to Brian's somewhat scientific, more or less frenetic outlook on life and his craft, we have 20 or so varieties of grapes, and boy does harvest just drag on after #15 is off the vine. Eventually it is done.

Much fuss is made about wine and winemaking, and I think this can lead to a backwards way of looking at things. Maybe because I grew up with a winemaker for a father, I have a nonchalant (privileged, sure) view of wine, and the hushed reverence with which some regard the industry has never impressed me. More than being an art object or a subject for competitive good taste, wine, to me, is what we do with grapes. This is an obvious statement, and I only mention it to suggest a reemphasis. I will put it in a more logical form:

1. We grow many kinds of plants at Idiot's Grace.

2. One of the main kinds of plant we grow is the grapevine, which produces grapes.

3. We just have to do something with all these grapes!

4. So, we make wine.

I'm skipping a few steps, but I am hopefully conveying the point that the wine we make is not the product of an intense relationship with wine-culture and the wine industry, but the product of the soil and climate of a small, specific piece of land, and the labor and craft of a small group of people over the course of a few decades. When viewed this way, in its proper context, wine--even very, very good wine--is really a matter of fact sort of thing. There is something sublime there, but I would venture that it is less sublime than the basic miracle every farmer works with, which is the conversion of sunlight into living matter.

After some extra exertion by people and microbes, that living matter has been bottled for your convenience and enjoyment. Please enjoy your November alottment. As we speed into winter, I will leave you with a few images of the fruits of the last month that are relegated to the background by Poussin, though I am sensitive to the fact that many strange, heirloom apples, pears, quinces, medlars, persimmons, and so on will go undepicted here... for that there are always future newsletters.

Sincerely,

Jango McCormick

Generation 3

Brief Introduction

(Newsletter for our September patron release)

From time to time I meet someone who is, like myself, the son or daughter of a farmer. Unlike those who come to farming by choice, these people tend to be strict, unsentimental realists, and most of them learn to stay as far away from farms and farming as they possibly can. They become doctors, schoolteachers, consultants, criminals– anything, truly, anything else– and settle down in the middle of cities, where there is no danger of being tempted to do anything as harebrained as grow one’s own food. 

For better or for worse, I lack this good sense. Until recently I believed I’d made a clean break with farming, but Idiot’s Grace is a dreamy place, especially lovely in the spring and summer, and if it is easy to visit then it is still easier, once you’re here, to start imagining what it could be. It does not help that the people working here are always working on something interesting, and that the fruits of their labors can be tasted on a plate or in a glass, and shared with friends who reliably ask: “and when will you go back?”

It is not always easy work, and it is not without disappointment. Much of the 2020 vintage was lost to smoke taint, and the nearby fires this summer have left everyone tense once again. Our bosc pear crop this year is so light it won’t be picked. Just a few weeks ago we lost a dozen chickens to a weasel – a weasel! Add to this abbreviated list of heartbreaks the everyday economic tribulations that come along with farming and making wine in a country not built to sustain small farmers and winemakers, and you may see why so few farm kids become farmers, why so much farmland becomes housing, and why hardly anything good is affordable. 

I’ve been back at Idiot’s Grace since the spring. Working on farms in California after college led me to see just how good our farming is here, how Idiot’s Grace is, to a great degree, an unsung experiment on the forefront of progressive, small-scale agriculture. Brian was doing much of what is now considered cutting edge long before it was cool, and certainly before it was economical. The approach here is guided by principle, not by trend or profit. We aim to grow very good food, make very fine, very distinctive wines, pay our employees better than they would be paid anywhere else, and encourage a high degree of ecological complexity. This effort is at once rewarding (the farm is in great shape, and Brian and Rueben make first-rate wines), as well as ambitious and insane, and we have never yet been perfect in our aim. I have come back to my family’s operation not because everything here has been figured out, but because it hasn’t yet, and because I am determined to see ethical, top-notch farming and winemaking prove itself truly sustainable in a market economy. 

For at least this next year I will be the voice in your newsletters and on our social media, and I will do my best to tell you what is happening at Idiot’s Grace and why it happens the way it does. Some things will change, but the ethos will not: all three generations here are committed to sustaining this project. Our selections will become only more distinctive, our quality only better. 

As members of our wine club, you are our lifeblood. For your support we are deeply grateful; without it, the vision that has been coming into being on this small acreage in Mosier for the last two decades would not be possible. Please enjoy the new selection, and visit us when you can. 

Jango McCormick