Eight Hundred Grapes (33)

My father believed that the most important aspect of winemaking was the soil. That his wine got better, from year to year, because his soil did. He would monitor his soil carefully, treating it with the nine biodynamic preparations. Preparations made of teas and organic compost, seven of them buried in the soil, two of them sprayed and spread over the vines. Cow horns buried deep into the soil during the winter. No chemicals, nothing added from outside the farm. This created a lot more work, but it also created a more stable ecosystem. This was what he was the proudest of, that he had made the land stronger.

My father said that this was what most people missed. If you took something out of the soil without putting it back in, the wine would suffer. The soil would suffer. You had to figure out how to get it to a better place than where it had started. My father was of the belief that, if you did that, winemaking took care of itself.

Many of the factory winemakers would disagree. After their grapes were off the vine, that was when they started intervening, making their wines do what they wanted them to do, adding chemicals and eggs and sulfites to aid the fermenting process, to refine their wines. My father didn’t add anything to the grapes. His winemaking facility was stark: a sorting table; a destemming machine; open-top fermenters. He would wait for the grapes to ferment on their own. Spontaneous fermentation. Where for fifteen to thirty days, the grapes begin the process of turning into alcohol. No help from chemicals or additives. No help from cultured yeast to make fermentation predictable. The patience it took was extraordinary. The faith it took too.

My father said this was the best part of winemaking. When the grapes you had taken such good care of did their thing, not because you were forcing them, the wine beginning to ferment because it was ready. The wine fermented because after the care you had taken with the grapes, they knew what to do. They used their own juices to move toward the wine they were meant to be.

If that sounds hokey, you should watch it happen. It was inspiring every time. The grapes sat in their tanks. My father punched them down—until, like that, the grapes revealed themselves as something new. My father able to give them the foundation they needed and step back.

Here’s why my mother fell in love with him, she said. She was sitting at the Chinese restaurant, hearing him talk of soil, about the importance of foundation. And she heard the rest. His belief, at the center of his winemaking, that with work, you can give something the strength at the beginning that it needs later on. Before it even knows how it’s going to need it.



Ben and I walked through the vineyard, Maddie a few paces ahead of us. She was quiet, focused, staring at the grapes—at certain shoots—as if she was trying to figure out which were the good shoots, which ones should get to stay.

Ben touched my wrist. “So I have a plan if you’re ready to hear it,” he said.

“For what?”

He slowed to a stop, smiled. “Us, of course,” he said. “Making this okay for us.”

“What’s that?”

“We’re not going to talk about what happened,” he said.

“That’s your plan?”

“That’s my plan,” he said, proud of himself.

Then he started walking again, keeping Maddie in his view. I tried to understand what he was doing.

He shrugged. “Talking about Michelle. Maddie. It’s just going to make it worse. We’re better off talking about the weather.”

“Are you serious right now?”

He nodded. “Bobby says it’s been an ideal harvest. And it looks like it’s going to finish out that way, don’t you think?”

I looked up at the sky. It looked blue and bright. I didn’t know what I thought, but I didn’t want to talk about it, not with him. He held my cheek in the palm of his hand, forced me to look at him.

“Please try it this way,” he said.

“Until when?”

“Until you remember that this isn’t what defines us.”

He looked at me, challenging: Did I want to try and make this okay? I took a deep breath. I did want this to be okay—and maybe he was right. Maybe this only had to be as big as I let it be. So why was I letting it be everything?

“I know you’ll fall in love with Maddie. You’re already falling in love with her.”

“This isn’t about Maddie.”

“It is, a little. If for no other reason, you’ll forgive me for keeping her from you even if you don’t accept why I did it. You’ll forgive me because of her.”

Then he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, the softness of his lips jarring me, reminding me of something I had almost forgotten.

He smiled and motioned toward Maddie, who was bending down in the gardens. The tea gardens. Her chubby fingers were touching the top of the leaves tentatively. Aside from the stinging nettles, which were far in the back, she was safe. So I didn’t make a move to stop her, letting her explore the leaves for herself.

“Is it just me or do I have a future farmer on my hands?” Ben said.

“She does seem to love it here.”

“She does, doesn’t she?” he said.

Then he looked at me out of the corner of his eyes, taking in how Maddie was having an impact on me. How could she not? This adorable little girl studying the gardens, thrilled at the idea of what she was going to find next. And yet, if I was falling for Maddie, the reverse was certainly not true. She was avoiding any kind of contact. She was pretending it was just her and Ben.