France

Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, October 13, 2005

“Scott. Scott! Jack’s not in his crate!” I peered out the plane’s window, watching the rosy-faced baggage handlers toss an empty grey dog crate, OUR dog crate, JACK’s dog crate, up onto the conveyor belt right below me. Last time we saw Jack he was in that crate, when we checked him in in Dublin. That was over seven hours ago. We were in Frankfurt now, on this journey’s last leg home to Portland, Oregon.

“Let me see.” Scott leaned over me, craning his neck until his view found its way through the thick glass. The crate stood on the belt, rattling emptily in the wind. “Just stay cool,” he told me. “I’m going out there.”

We were on our way back from Ireland, coming home after Scott’s two-year work assignment, about to embark on a dream that had been growing in Scott since I had known him and probably way earlier: making wine. And not just any wine. Distinct wine. Wine with soul. Which meant growing and tending its vineyard, too. No “sourcing” from grape “warehouses” for us; we didn’t see the point of getting into the industry to be another label mining from the same veins of grapes, and we were not going to make it up as we went along, grabbing and blending what we could after the best were sold to the more established kingpins. No way would we want to enter that race. Instead, we had a grander vision—for the land, the grapes, the wine. We wanted it all to be proprietary, personal, and personalized. In short, unmistakably individual. Read the rest of this entry »