A Time of Change

This is our 18^th year up in Sonoma County.  Our little girl was 3 years old, and hid behind my legs when strangers were around – you know how that works; the kid hangs on to your legs and buries her head in your thigh.  If you can’t see them, they can’t see you.

They say that wine improves with age.  Not true.  Cheap wine never improves; it is what I drink every day, because I should only share the good stuff with friends and on occasions. Or at least that’s always been my thinking. Now I have a few cases of really good wine, and we’ll need to drink it on the occasion that is Tuesday.  I don’t know about you, but Tuesday always seems like a good day that happens occasionally – if not why would we eat tacos?

No, good wine is more like life – it improves with time to a point, and then begins to decline.  Like your knees, the cork goes first – it gets soft and crumbly.  The smell becomes a bit more musty – keep it open for a while until that disappears (no, we will not explain that one further).  And the taste gets more chocolatey – the vibrancy of the young fruit fades.

I’m saying this as if I’m an expert on wine. Nonsense.  Really, after so much time, I’m reflecting on the times that we’ve had as a family, and on the times that we’ve had with Richard and Patty in particular.   When we first came up, they were just starting up. They closed shop and are now giving us and their good friends a portion of what remains.  That’s quite a gift.

I’d like to say that I feel entitled to their friendship or our times in Santa Rosa, but that would be no more than the ridiculous notion that we all have that we have some sort of right to things.  After all these years, I know where everything is – the markets, the parks, the roads in between. But just as I cannot claim knowledge on wine, I cannot be so pompous as to believe that I’m somehow a local.  We’re more like groundhog’s day – every year we pop up locally and enjoy being here.

What makes a good wine?  Go to any tasting room and they’ll tell you of the process. Ignore them. They’ve never made wine. They are reading a script to impress you into purchasing the wine.  I’m not suggesting anything bad here; this is what they need to do to market the wine.  Talk to them about PBR (trust me on this), and they’ll really tell you what is going on and what you should know.  Of course, now things have changed – a year of “reservations” to sit apart from those who know the wine isn’t going to teach you much.

I learned about this from Patty and Richard, in San Diego.  We tried to help them out with their sales at a tasting event for a few years. These were glorious times. I don’t know if we really did them a service, but we were with friends, we liked the wine and we wanted others to try it. I overheard Patty describing the wines just yesterday to the guys at the warehouse. She still has the patter of someone who had to sell their wine.

We learned more about wine simply sitting around their table on the farm. A couple of bottles, some really good cheese from Sharon’s Cheese Shop (no she didn’t own it, but we still think that she made the place), and a home cooked meal.  That’s the way that I learned this stuff.

Corks or Tin Tops? Richard debated the two. Like all things marketing, the standard for the industry at the time was corks. But these lose about 10% more wine (yep I remember that), and don’t preserve the wine any better.  Corks it was – you can’t change the marketplace by yourself, so we’ll buy really good ones. Me, I prefer screwtops now. I learned that from Richard, and I’m sick to death of breaking corks in old bottles. It may not have the flourish of opening the bottle, but really what matters is what is inside the bottle, not what holds it in.

What’s in a label?  A family’s history.  Roy J was a bandleader and innovator, and I believe one of Richard’s personal heroes.  We all need those connections.  When they designed the label, before they even had one bottle, they had decisions to make.  Notes from Gershwin, a story of the man, what colors to use, and all the required elements that you have to include that can hide that story.  Later it was the “Family” wines – still told the story of the people who made the wine. The Meritage (which we learned to pronounce without a fake French accent), and the Cenote (which has nothing to do with wine, they explained). Lower price (and screwtops), but really the same wine source and the same quality. 

The Land (not the terroir – let’s skip trying to be French here; for all my cooking I don’t have mise-en-place I have cut-clean-cook).  Wandering around the vineyards, we saw the grapes grow.  Yes, you need a certain science to be a farmer – where to plant what, how to irrigate it, how to prune it – heck my table grapes at home have yielded all of about 3 grapes in about 5 years.

The thing is this – it is not the land that belongs to the grapes, it is the people who take care of the land. I’m not sure the big growers really understand this (but am sure they say it). I do know that every small winemaker that we know gets it.  Their land was so beautiful up in the hills. I still have pictures of it on my desktop.  They were blessed to have such good land, and we were lucky to have visited.

The environment?  Well, that changes the land.  The fires of 2008 spoiled their wine. Both Richard and Patty debated what to do with the wine, and ultimately tossed it out.  I think that was the beginning of the end for them, but only they know. And now when we come up we see the scars of 2017.  I look at the denuded hilltops with some dead trunks as their grim sentinels and really get pretty sad. I have no right to do so, no direct connection to the land, but the trees that line these hills make the place. I learned to sit under the big oak with a bottle of wine and a good book. Still my favorite place. Maybe someday I can return.

The smell?  I don’t think you get it swirling a glass (but I do so anyway). I get it by breathing the fresh air.  It smells a bit of the trees, the grasses, the morning fog and dry afternoons. I smell sage most of all, and love to add it to my food at home. 

The lifestyle?  Hard work, dirty pants, bee stings and dusty vehicles from what I gather. I never saw the oak-barrel glamour that we see in the movies.  That is not where the time is spent. 

So, I return to the question – what makes a good wine?  I think this trip proved my answer – good people. I think you can taste the people in the wine that they produce.  I know that Patty and Richard worked hard to do what they did, and between long hours, tough times and limited shelf space decided to stop. I don’t blame them, but I do miss them. 

My daughter grew up on their farm with llamas, frogs, pond swims, food and lots of movies. I can’t tell if she sees it that way, but someday I hope she does look back on it. I know that she cares for the people, so perhaps that matters most.

I could write this story and substitute the names for all the friends we’ve made up here over the time. The story is ultimately the same for each of them – good people who have done good things. We may not be a large part of their lives, but they are of ours. I do not know how to repay them for that generosity.

Patty and Richard – I have new cases of your wine to drink. They will not go bad. I will tip a glass each time I open one – perhaps next Tuesday (seems like a good day). I watched you grow the wine, bottle it, sell it and nourish it, and I see how you’ve done that with your friends as well.

I no longer know what the future holds, and whether it will return. Wine cannot be seen through the window of a car, and smelled through a mask. Times have certainly changed, but is it the end of an era? I hope not. I hope the day comes where we can touch glasses and share dinner around a table with friends.  I’ll bring the wine. (October 2, 2020)

One Last Time

I wrote the story (Article? Joke? How exactly does one describe this nonsense?) in early October 2020, thinking about the visit we had with Richard and Patty, the wine now stacked up in my study right behind me as I type, and the history of time from our visits.

What the fires of 2017 did not take, the Glass Fire of 2020 appears to have taken, or so I am told. This only a few weeks after penning my thoughts on our time in the past.

That place was special, as were its owners. This is intangible; it cannot be measured by the terrain that is burned.  The picture of me used on the front page of this site is from more than a dozen years ago, on the patio overlooking the vineyard.  The place where I learned about life, love and the need for good food.

I do not wish you to think that I sulk in the memories of what is not there anymore. Rather I wish to suggest what the future may hold and how the past informs me.

Fire has an unexpected benefit – Rebirth.  New trees, grass and hillsides will grow back over time, if we humans stay the heck outta the way.

The same with people. Patty and Richard are now residents in Hawaii, where they are experiencing life with their toes in the sand (and probably all over Wally their “it came out of the Lab” mutant mega-puppy).  We hope to visit them someday soon.

Same for us.  The budding journalist that is my daughter is only months away from her Masters. It is a Bob-Ross-Happy-Accident that her master’s thesis on the Country Bears, the music of which was in our car as we pulled into Saint Helena Road Vineyards for our first trip nearly 20 years ago. My wife plugs away saving the world, and plans for the future (she’s smart that way).  I retired, and I write these stories to entertain myself and annoy my friends and family.

Before they moved, the last of the wine had to be given away to those who enjoyed it over the years.  Without planning it turns out that we were the first and last cases ever of Roy J. Maier Cabernet.  Life can be funny that way; we realized this as they popped it in the trunk and snapped a picture.

I opened a bottle of that wine with my friends Mike and Margie at their new home the other day. The cork promptly disintegrated, but it made no difference. It was good, and I had a really great evening sharing it with them while we told stories past, present and future.

So, here is to all of our friends far and wide. You open your homes to us. You treat us as family. We are grateful for your hospitality. We can open another bottle together. (February 4, 2022)

The Third Time’s the Charm

So, there’s a correction to make. Patty and Richard let us know the other day that the Big House survived the Glass Fire after all.  Some of their neighbors were not so lucky, but apparently their property was spared.

So, I suppose my little writeup was in error. It doesn’t change a thing from what I said above; it is really all about the people and not the place.

The Third Time’s the Charm, and this time that’s true. Maybe that’s a testament to good things to come. I think we can all use a little good news, yes? (February 27, 2022)