A Wine Escapade
I had planned my main dish for dinner tonight: ‘salt and pepper fried shrimp’. Quite pleased after finishing up cooking, I walked to the wine rack, staring at all the bottles, as I always did, vacillating. Over the years, very few things in my everyday life remain increasingly alluring and baffling, both at the same time. Wine, undoubtedly, crowned that shortlist.
I wine-and-dined almost daily, with friends or just myself, for as long as I had started focusing on quality over quantity at my dinner table. However, the notion of wine grew more elusive as time went on. Intrigued by this unresolved mystery, I embarked on a quest to Central Virginia, renowned to be the greatest wine region on the East Coast, and only a three-hour drive from my North Carolina home.
Planning for my trip, I came across Orchard House Bed and Breakfast in Lovingston VA, which had its own vineyard, plus its high standard of accommodation. That’s exactly what I had in mind, going right to the root of wine-making and staying there for a few days.
North Carolina started to feel steamy in this typical late May weather. And yet, a drive around Lovingston VA, a mountainous town, was breezy and cool. Orchard House B&B was a two-story historic house built in the late 1800’s, on 14 acres of land with a vineyard, nestled on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountain.
After warm greetings from Deb and Mike, the current owners of the B&B, I brought up my curiosity regarding their vineyard. Mike told me to meet him there in 30 min. His vineyard, covering one acre of land, was like an oil on canvas painting when gazing at it in the distance: bright green glowing under sunlight, neatly kept, spreading out in the rolling landscape. Putting on my 2-Inch brimmed fedora hat and a dapper silky short-sleeve shirt, I walked briskly towards the oil painting. At close range, the climbing plants were waving to me in the breeze, resembling a well-orchestrated class of children greeting a visitor. Mike stood amid the cheering crowd, pruning, a scene that could be likened to a loving mother combing a little girls’ hair. Raising his tanned face towards me, he started to talk about his grapevines, coiling around, brushing against him.
Four years ago, right after Deb and I retired from the corporate world, we bought this property. The previous owner would have wiped out this vineyard if I did not stop him in time. But I had never stepped in a vineyard in my life before. Thanks to Lovingston Winery’s winemaker, Riann Rossouw, who has drawn nationwide attention for his wine-making skills, came over to show me what to do, in great detail, if I had a chance to sustain it and hopefully harvest fruits in the fall.
I then did as I was told, cutting or lopping off those undesired leaves, twigs and branches, one by one, from the bottom stems and some even on the tops, anything that would not contribute to enriching the grapes. While talking, Mike pointed to a few branches, taking them off to show me. I erected trellises to train the plants to climb and reach up for the sun, Mike continued. Two weeks later, the renowned winemaker came to check up on my work, only to tell me to do it all over again.
“After two years of working every day like this, pruning in spring, summer, and fall to ensure steady growth,” Mike said, “I felt I knew my grapevines, or they start to understand me, I guess.”
Mike’s routine tasks on the vineyard were cultivating and fertilizing the soil, irrigating, pruning and training each stem, and finally picking grapes in the fall. The happiest moment, he described, was when a check was put in his hand after he had sold his grapes to winemakers.
“I do not make my own wines…not yet. And the dollar amount from my year’s work is a fraction of what I was making before. But I never felt so rewarded at any time in the past.” He emphasized.
At that point, his eyes were getting watery. I then turned around because his emotion was highly contagious. It was a labor of love as he said it. I came to understand the true meaning of it for the first time.
Mike couldn’t hide his gleaming look in the selfie I took of us together.
Back to my B&B room, there were two bottles of wine made from his grapes. I uncorked one that evening. The wine that traced back to the soil soaked with sweat, and occasional tears, felt intense and terror-expressive, unlike any wine I had tasted before. I savored every sip.
An extemporized outing turned out to be an a-ha moment for me. Next time when one looks for that right bottle of wine, don’t read (too much) into the fancy labels, even less of a sommelier’s arcane remarks. Knowing the origin story of how grapes are enriched by the loam soil and turned into wine could reshape your sipping experience completely. It has done that for me.
Footnote: During these four short years since Mike took it over, one of the vineyards that bought Orchard House Petit Manseng grapes entered their blend into two different wine competitions. Wisdom Oak is the vineyard, and Jason and Laura Lavallee are the winemakers. They entered first into the San Francisco International Wine Competition and were awarded a 94-point DOUBLE GOLD for their Petit Manseng. They then entered the Atlantic Seaboard Wine Association competition and won BEST OF CLASS and Gold awards.