Notes From Wine Country

It becomes almost impossible to write about time. Time disappears. Days are different but do not seem to proceed one after the other. Only when I ask do I then know what day it is and what the next one will be. The lack of definition of time is made up for by the utter clarity of place. And through this clarity I begin to doubt completely the travelogue’s phrase ” the mystery of place.” Everywhere resonates, reminds and recalls everywhere else I’ve been. There are so few places that to everyone appear unique. To the men and women who live and work here, this is certainly a one of a kind place. the grapes and the wine can come from nowhere else. But this belief is a fiction. This grape could be grown in a hundred other places on this planet and if grown long enough by the right people, it would become as wonderful a wine. As egotistical and anthropocentric as it sounds, it is not just the place that is special. It is the addition of people, who come there and determine to stay there and the generations after who see the initial point that makes the place unique.

So soft and delicate to define, to relate the point at which a place is spoiled. Is it as clear as with fruit? Not ready to pick yet, then ripe. then too long, it is spoiled. When the first men arrived here, was the place spoiled? When the first tree fell, when the trees were all cut clear, when the plow went into the ground, when was the place spoiled? We permit the use of the place to a certain degree and somehow it grows to a point of balance and within the scope of our definition, it becomes perfect. The changes we have made become productive enough to support themselves. We balance on the edge of nature and what is left of the place as we found it seems to thrive around our borders. We will use those thriving elements. they are essential to the balancing act. Our changes shape and funnel the natural elements. We seek in the process of growing a crop to mimic the whole cycle we observed when the place was unspoiled. Thus we derive the spoils of our endeavors.Then we escalate, we wire, we connive, we create a new place, that by some new definition is unspoiled. But wait, wait for the next set of changes, the tireless, unending waves of changes to roll by and the place will ripen again and drop to the our feet and if we do not take care, it will spoil.