Festival ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Vintner's Fest.  2012.

Saturday morning, I woke up with a headache at 4:30; drank some water, took some Advil (God's finest gift, in my opinion), and went back to sleep.

8:30, when I climbed from bed, I wondered what had happened to my usual joy.  When I wake up, regardless of the time of day or night, I wake up happy.  Unless it's a nap; then I wake up surly, disoriented, and not very pleasant to be around.  But this was waking up for the day ... and I felt as if I'd just crawled into bed.  My spirits were down, my body was dragging, my mind was slow.  What the heck???

And then it hit me - Festival.  I'm going to set the scene for you, as seen by those of us working the industry:  imagine the old horror movies, and the voice of the man portraying the dark, evil, monster wrapped in a human body.  The music that would wrap around the dark voice, and suddenly your body is thrumming with dread as you watch these movies - yet, the dread is not understood.  There's the threat of ... and the music and the voice say the 'threat of....' is going to be nastier than you could ever imagine.  So, with that voice in your head, the music as its back-beat, I want you to read again...Festival.

Bamp-bamp-bum!!!!!

I was expecting - anticipating - eagerly ready for - Festival.  In all of its dark undertones.

Ever notice that, when you least expect it, life throws you a curve ball, and you forget to swing?  And suddenly the opposing team is winning because you don't know how to swing at anything other than a fast ball, so you duck, and you, and the team, are screwed.  Well, sometimes, those curve balls are great, wide, wonderful things.  They take the moment at hand, twist it just a little bit, and give you something wonderful.  Apple trees, rainbows, and cellar doors.

And that's what happened to me this Festival.

I left the house with errands ... three of them, to be exact.  Refill my daily hormone replacement drug, buy vacuum cleaner bags, and drop off my comforter at the cleaners.  Two out of three were strike outs; not a good start for what I anticipated to be a very challenging day.

I arrived at the winery at 10:30, was given my favorite station, out on the patio, and was given a newbie to train - Kelly.  All of 24 years old, blond and beautiful, I felt old and fat beside her.  My problem, certainly not hers ... oh, but it troubled me.  Strike three - batter out.

It didn't make me feel any better to learn that she's educated, career driven, and an absolute sweetheart of a young girl.  Her mother used to work at Sanford, before Richard split from his partners and opened Alma Rosa.  It's a family affair....and I felt even worse for my negative thoughts - more about me, than her, but since she was the catalyst for the moment ... well, you know how that goes.

And then the customers began to arrive.  From the very first interaction, I had fun.  Every person I talked with had a story - we had club members, favorite wine tour drivers (who happened to have his phone with a few videos of his baby and wife that he shared with me and it was a really fabulous interlude in a grand day), bachelorette parties (Sylvia was unveiled, and my comment was, 'so you met him last week in Vegas, your mother approved, and you decided to go for it'; the whole group got a laugh, and she told me before they left my station that she was going to make up a new story for every stop that Brian was taking them to ... getting into the spirit of the day and having even more fun with it), club members (one who makes his own mead and is going to Boston on a 'mead tasting tour' with people from all over New England - too cool!), we hosted vertical tastings with two separate Pinot Noirs, taught people about the Riedel glass and why one should NEVER rinse the Riedel glass with water during a tasting, and just - well - played.

Richard and Thekla Sanford were there all day; watching them talk with the customers was so awesome.  Both Richard and Thekla are unassuming people - yet they were the first people to plant the revered Pinot Noir in the Santa Rita Hills - now world-renowned.  They were the first to go wholly organic - before organic was cool.  Richard even grows his grape in the old style - as it wishes, called a California Sprawl, as opposed to the straight-up, straight-over, most vineyards prefer. 

I even got a new story from Richard, that he shared with a club member and his brother (the mead guy, whose brother lives in Boston - hence the mead tour).  We (the club member, his brother, Kelly, and me) were talking about spiders, and Richard walked around the bar, asking if Jonah (mead maker) was a spider lover.  He said he was only afraid of the brown recluse, and then Richard told the story.

Y'all know me; I'm all about The Story.  Richard has ten million of them ... this one came out because of a club member.  Richard had been bitten by a brown recluse; he was here, on the ranch, got bit, couldn't find the damn spider, and watched in awe as his leg swelled up.  It went from bad to worse; he finally found an Epi-pen to stop the symptoms, but it didn’t' stop what was happening to his leg.  His skin began to rot - literally.  The bite from the brown recluse kills the flesh around it.  Nowadays, according to Jonah, doctors put maggots in the wound and bandage it.  Because the maggots eat the dead flesh.

Obviously Richard recovered ... even though it took months. 

I'm wondering now, as darkness has fallen and sleep is fast approaching, if this is one story I could have done without....fear of spiders, disgust of maggots, smell of dead flesh ... well, you get where this is going....

At the end of the day, my hormone replacement had been called in to my pharmacy, Kelly had proven she was going to be excellent, I'd gotten to watch both Richard and Thekla in action, told stories, learned stories, shared stories ... the funk I woke up with was long gone.

To make my day beyond perfect, an employee from my D-C Wine days had reached out to me saying, "I'm in town for Festival; let's hook up."  He and his gal came to my house, where we started with Alma Rosa 2009 Mt. Eden Pinot Noir, El Jabali Vineyard, and morphed into D'Bruno 2006 Merlot, Grassini Vineyard, with sautéed peppers, fried bread, three cheeses, a loaf of sourdough, salami, and some gorgeous Late Harvest Riesling  from Santa Barbara Winery.  I've not seen Matt and Jamie for nigh on a year - the short time together, with Jordan added into the mix, was sweet, poignant, funny, and perfect.

When they left, and the kitchen was finally cleaned, I remembered why I loved the wine industry.

It's about the people - both in, and out, of the industry.  It's about the stories, the sharing of the stories, the power of the stories.  It's about remembering that we all have our own unique story.

And it's remembering to get out there and share that story.

Tomorrow, I do it all again.  And I can't wait!