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
