He starts in with the incredulous rhetorical questions that I get from everyone who discovers my abnormality. "How many times have you been there?" etc etc. I roll my eyes, just tell me how to get there Columbus. This is old news and I've long since quit the battle. Why fight something that will never change? There are aspects of who we are that are fundamental and others that we can dicker with. Knowing yourself well enough to know the difference is one of the lovely benefits of getting older. I've made peace with the fact that my internal compass will feel the same in my neighborhood as it will in a foreign country and that I will spend the remainder of my life yelling at that annoyingly repetitive freak woman on my GPS. OK print out a google map and I'm on my way! I'm a little worried that I won't find the turn, it's not like there are house numbers out in farmland. But I keep my eyes peeled for something that looks like, say rows of grapes maybe? Ta da!
Alright now the map and figuring out which plot is where. I'm telling you, this is probably one of the hardest things about my job. I keep turning the map around and around hoping that the square boxes will suddenly make sense. Or that I'll discover the ancient secret to map-reading through this ouija board-esque consultation I'm having with this piece of paper. I'm starting to panic a little. Seriously. I'm having the hardest time figuring out how this 8x10 piece of paper has anything to do with the maze of endless rows of grapes I'm standing in. What the hell is wrong with me?! Alright relax, breathe, back to acceptance and seeing the humor. Nothing is going to change this part of me so I may as well welcome it. Ohm. And all humor aside, that actually seemed to work because the next thing I know it's making sense and I've got my game plan. I am profoundly proud of myself. Armed with my baggy I head to the first plot and start trekking.
Let's talk about slope for a minute. There are a number of factors that go into quality wine, soil and degree being among the most important. The best wines in the world are grown on steep slopes: top chateaux in Bordeaux and Burgundy; the best Barolos and Chiantis; and if a vintage is declared in Portugal, it will be from very steep vineyards. Some regions are actually famous for the gradient of their slope like in the Mosel region of Germany where vines have to be individually staked and soil has to be hand carried back up in buckets every year!
Slope is one of the key factors in a French AOC wine, an Italian DOC wine or any other quality wine that has a geographical delimiter. A quick high-note explanation of the very complicated and famous French AOC. It is a system of rating quality wine that was established in 1935 as a means to safeguard quality producers from unethical crappy winemakers who were riding on their reputation. This system set the standard and became the model for the rest of the world to follow. AOC is also the top designation within that system. So a wine rated AOC is essentially meeting certain legal requirements needed to produce quality wine. Slope is one. Why the big deal about slope? Because it provides a key factor that vines love - drainage. They don't like their roots to be sitting in water, they want the water to drain off. They want to work hard and dig deep. No wonder I love them!
(A quick aside. I should also mention that the topic of the AOC's effectiveness and the changes needed is one of the most heated discussions/arguments in the wine world. While it firmly controls a number of elements that go into winemaking, it doesn't necessarily ensure its quality. And in Italy it is commonly accepted, though not proven, that big money bulk winemakers called the shots when it came to classifying a lot of the regions rather than key elements like slope. In Italy, really?!)
So my whole point is that reading about those romantic slopes is way different than walking up and down them, getting sticky sugar/acid grape juice all over your hands in 90 degree weather. I'm huffin it up the very important slope thinking I can't believe that this is actually my JOB and not some temporary cool experience with my "real" life waiting around the corner. I had talked about quitting everything and going to work at a winery for months, and sure, in my head it had a little more romance than this. Yet it feels way more natural than my past 10 years of being in a salon! So strange. I feel perfectly content out here by myself marching up and down the rows of purple jewels.
1 comment:
Too cool Subi! Keep up the posts. :)
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