In the Land of Vineyards

A holiday among cousins

When I was a child, I lived across the street from vineyards. As an 8 year old, the vines were graceful plants laden with grapes that one ate. What did I know of wines? The adults in my family were religious teetotalers. The fermented juice of the vine was forbidden. Bacchus, to them, was a minion of Satan.

Time passed. I grew up to walk away from the religion of my father. My mother had no religion. They had divorced when I was quite young. Therefore, I landed in between the two, as I discovered a larger world filled with a variety of beliefs. Later on, I discovered a variety of wines.

Thus I learned to be discerning about who I considered a god and what I considered a good wine. Cheap gods and cheap wines are to be eschewed.

It was whilst in university that I learned these things. Classes in literature included Greek myths. I read the play, The Bacchae, by Euripides, and then read the myth. I listened to the professor’s lecture about this god that represents so much of life! Associating him with wine alone is to prove ignorance. Dionysus, as he is called in Greek, is all about grabbing hold of life with both hands, and living it. And yes, a little madness is a good thing. It balances out a sober life. The adage, all work and no play, makes us dull, is quite right. That is the game of a communist, work, work, work. And constant work dulls the soul.

Or is it that one becomes a communist because their soul has been dulled by other means?

I digress.

That vineyard across the street, was not the only one that I knew as a child. I was born in a mountain town above Napa Valley, which is full of vineyards. My mother, as a young woman, picked grapes during the harvests. Alas when I was a child, my immediate family moved away from Northern California.

All through California, except for the deserts, there are vineyards. The wine business here has grown up to be a world player in the global market. As a young woman I would visit my cousins in the North, and thus I tasted the differences, decade to decade, in the wines. During this Labor Day weekend, I came for a visit. Naturally, I went a-tasting.

Wow. This industry has matured.

The photo shows the vineyards at Pennyroyal Fram, the spread of the wines I tasted at Frey’s, and the band at Rivino, with the vineyards.

Last year, my cousin brought me a bottle of Frey’s Zinfandel. I cracked it open at my friends’ Thanksgiving dinner. We were amazed at the taste of it. So my cousin took me to Frey’s, during my Labor Day visit, to get another bottle and to see what else they had. Let’s just say I walked away with more than another bottle.

Dionysus is alive and well at Frey’s. The experience there went beyond the tasting of excellent wines. I felt like I was back in time, sitting at the table of a Renaissance farmer, tasting her wines whilst her children’s play and laughter accompanied the adult’s chatter at the table. We needed a Jan Steen to paint the scene.

I fell in love with Frey’s blend, called, Chateau Frey. These bottles are marked for my birthday, and Thanksgiving dinner.

Later, I had a tasting at Rivino’s. This was a different scene, a scenic view, with a jazz band playing in the foreground. Rivino has a very nice Pinot Blanc. I love Pinot Blancs, another discovery I made 20 years ago at another winery in Redwood Valley. Ergo, it was soooo nice to find this again, though at a different winery.

Toulouse-Lautrec would paint the scene at Rivino.

On Sunday, we were off to Boonville. Yes, they do name the small towns with interesting names, that sound, well, pioneer like. Because that is who named these towns, back in the day. 100 years before I was born, hardy folk that wanted a new life, and were not afraid to work hard, emigrated to California. In the early 20th century, my paternal grandparents migrated to Northern California. After WW2, two sets of my maternal aunts and uncles migrated to that area.

California, in the beginning, was filled with native Americans, and then Spanish Mexicans. This mixture is what makes California different. That, and its weather.  The Europeans, with their enterprising ways, began the growing of grapes in 1779. It was a Spanish monk activity, with Father Serra directing the first planting of vineyards. The California climate brings Mediterranean weather. The topography of the state is also Mediterranean.

During my visit to Spain many years back, I noted the similar weather, and similar topography between the fat Iberian peninsula and California. Indeed, the Spaniards felt right at home all along the Pacific coast. That it should also produce good wine is a no brainer.

Back to Boonville. It was another afternoon of wine tasting at Pennyroyal Farm. Plus, cheese tasting. Their cheeses are made from the milk of goats. In addition to that, they make chutneys. Another food I am fond of. In my humble opinion, if one doesn’t put chutney on their meats and cheeses, one is a barbarian.

The artist to paint this scene would would be Edith Ridley Corbet.

Goats are to modern farmers what cattle were to the first group of Europeans that came to the Americas. By the way, cattle ranching is a Spanish thing, not a Northern European thing. The Spaniards brought the art of raising cattle to the Americas and the Mexicans passed the skill on to the North Americans. And let’s not forget the gauchos of South America, and what they brought to the Western tradition of cowboys and outlaws.

We Americans owe the Spaniards a huge debt of gratitude for wines, foods and traditions. Wine and meat, and all those cheeses from goats! Well, the goat cheeses are a Mediterranean invention.

Those industries are the accidents of location. The topography, the weather, the two together give us our resources in what our lives will be like. Indeed, the study of geography is much more important than the study of some new ideas like CRT. One cannot begin to study the concept of race without a good grasp of geography. CRT is a drop in the bucket of understanding the variety of people out there. As a real estate broker will tell you, location, location, location, the anthropologist will reply, “Yes!”

Mendocino County, as a location for me, is about companionship and love. Having a visit with my cousins was oh so sweet. I had not seen them in years, due to, well you know why. I enjoyed myself in the land of vineyards because the cousins are there.  And those sweet cousins of mine know me so well! Irma and Kirsten are why I was able to drink and eat my way across Mendocino County.

If you’re a gourmet of any stripe, get over to Mendocino. You too, can eat and drink your away across the county. I give it 5 stars out of 5.