 |
| Robert Mondavi Vineyard, Sabbatical 2010 |
The title might make you think that this is my latest
devotional, and that is exactly what it started out to be; but then I got caught
up in telling a story so the devotional will have to wait for another day. If it is spiritual food you are looking for
you will have to look elsewhere or come back for a later post.
I grew up in the wine district of western New York. In every direction of our home you could not
drive far before passing a commercial vineyard.
The only connection that we had to any of them, was one of my mother’s
brothers who worked long hours and many years tending a large vineyard where
the grapes were used to produce altar wines.
So, when my father decided to devote five acres of his land to a
vineyard, no one batted an eye.
The
first winter after that decision was made, my father and I spent many weekends
deep in a woods that belonged to one of his friends, cutting locust trees to be
used for the posts to hold the wire that the grapes would grow on. I remember that winter clearly. The snows were heavy, which made even walking among the trees laborious. While
dad felled the trees I would clear the branches into piles away from the work
site. One of the first things, we did
when we arrived was to build a fire where we would sit on stumps to rest and
warm ourselves throughout the day. There
was something special about that winter, working next to dad. I had him all to myself. He was never a teacher in the formal sense of
the word. I never remember him telling
me, “Son, this is how you use an ax.” Or,
“this is how you build a fire in the middle of winter to keep warm.” He would just do these things and I would
learn through observing him. By the end
of that winter I had taken over the task of starting the fire, but I was still
too young to use the ax. That would come
years later for me.
I wish I knew how many trees we cut and trimmed that winter;
but my father was undaunted. Despite the
fact that he knew that in the spring he would have to cut them into 8’ lengths,
split them using a maul and wedges, and then haul them all back to our property
– he kept cutting. He somehow knew how
many he needed. When he had enough he hired a friend to haul them back to our farm. Once they were on site, each required a hole
to be dug in the rocky New York soil which was the main reason it was grape
country. Thankfully I was too young for
the task of digging the holes; but without any hesitation my father began the
arduous task of planting a post every ten feet in long parallel rows eight feet
apart. I don’t know how many rows we had,
but the work was never ending. Grapes
are not like seasonal crops such as wheat or oats where you prepare the soil, plant the seeds and then
sit back and let them mature until they are harvested. Once a vine is planted, one is committing to
tend that vine for the rest of its life if it is to be fruitful. Actually the planting was the easiest
part. Once they were in the ground the ongoing task of weed control began. In time
each vine needed to be trained to grow on the wires. They really
took to that. In no time, we had row
after row of leafy vines growing everywhere. Within a few years and every Fall thereafter,
we had more than enough grapes for our own use and every hobby vintner for
miles around.
My father had been given a large wine press by an elderly woman who with her husband had raised their family of nine from the sale of bootlegged wine during the Prohibition. This meant that dad had to dismantle the press hidden in the basement of her barn. The vat was about six feet in diameter with an eight inch solid steel screw in the center that was buried in four feet of solid concrete. To this screw a plate was threaded that would be screwed down against the grapes using a twelve foot pole. To say the least it was a pretty impressive piece of equipment that was reconstructed in our wine shed. Thus began my father’s annual homage to the god Bacchus. Every fall and winter our house was filled with the smell of about three hundred gallons of wine fermenting in our basement. My father’s wine was legendary in our small rural community. Everybody loved receiving bottles of wine as gifts. In fact I remember clearly every winter after the first heavy snow, my mother would wait patiently in the kitchen window for the county plow to come down the road. As they passed the house she would raise a couple of bottles of wine and wave them to the two men in the cab. They knew immediately what she was offering. They would promptly raise the plow, back up to the beginning of our long driveway and plow it out with the county truck. When they reached the garage, my mother would run outside with the bottles of wine and hand them up to the men through the window. This ploy worked every time and was repeated as needed throughout the winter. Wine became the way we bartered in the community.
Someone has said that it was madness that possessed my father to take on the task of planting a vineyard. After reading this story, I too can see the reasons for the comment. But having lived with him and possessing many of those same qualities that drove him to create a vineyard with his own hands, I understand that beyond the work there was a great feeling of satisfaction. I can only imagine how he must have felt on those evenings when he would sit back in front of his fireplace and sip a glass of his wine. For him it must have been priceless.
