Life Itself

For those that thought a cancer diagnosis in my family would scare me away from my passion of the fermented grape, the answer is a resounding "no." I am aware of the study talking about the links between alcohol and cancer. I am also aware of the study promoting red wine for heart health. I can even find a study promoting wine to prevent esophageal cancer. Not to be outdone there is yet another study promoting red wine for brain health and longevity. I also know that my stepfather-in-law's cardiologist is fairly certain that his recent heart health issues were due to him refraining from red wine for 3 months.

Here is the deal, adult world. Life is a risk endeavor. Choose your risks and understand the importance of moderation in all things (except for eating your vegetables).

In essence, a positive could be a negative and a negative could be a positive depending on the context. Oh no, context!

This is life. This is viticulture. This is wine.

Viticulture comes from the Latin root 'vit' - life, 'vita' - life itself.

Viticulture is not the same as agriculture. Agriculture is a science that seeks to eliminate variables, promote homogenization, mass production and consistency, consistency and consistency. Whereas viticulture seeks to encourage individuality and the cultivation of variables. (Granted this is a romantic notion and we all know that the wine industry has a dark underbelly but allow me my gloss. It's been a hard couple of weeks. Regarding dark underbelly, we will get to that someday.)

A fine wine is born in the vineyard. Ignore the fancy machines and computers. Even today the most notable wines take root in the vineyard. The life of wine starts from bare root stock and dirt.

What I find to be unique and fascinating about the grape to glass odyssey, is that fine wine, truly amazing, complex and deep wine is dependent on stress. As someone dealing with her fair share of stress lately, I have found myself many a night last week savoring a glass of wine and thinking "you survived your journey."

Vines need balance. In the vineyard, any one element of climate might be a positive or negative depending on the context - deja vu. For instance, a vine with too little leaf canopy may not give the grape enough food and burn the grape. However, a vine with too many leaves might prevent formation and ripening thereby compromising the fruitfulness of the vine.

It's a balance. It's life.

But my favorite thing, the thing that my friend and I were laughing about this weekend, is that grapes really need STRESS. Turns out good wine is a bit of a drama queen and needs a little adversity before it wows you.

For a vine, the ideal condition is not so perfect.

This may not be true for most plants. Particularly for the plants fighting to stay alive in my office. But for the grape, it is gospel. To create character and spunk in the fruit you must first have a challenge. Obviously, you can't stress them out too much. You don't want to put the vine in shock or permit conditions for the vine to shut down completely.

Just some stress is needed...enough to give you character and cocktail party stories.

So the wine grape must endure adversity. The grape must struggle so that it will learn to adapt. The vine needs to do a little work to grow, to be forced to concentrate the sugar and limit the clusters to create a perfect yield for the wine.

This challenge will result in a wine of greater character and concentration.

This pain is the making of fine wine.

This is life itself.