Why I Want to Do This

Big social events are not at all my thing but this weekend Clint and I attended the Encounter Wine Fair in Richmond. It was held at Studio Two Three and featured only natural wines. Each wine maker would explain how each wine was created, how long the wine sat it its skins, how long it aged in the barrel, if it was a blend with other wines, and so on.

With every splash they poured into our glass, nearly every wine maker (or importer) explained the maceration and fermentation and precentages and all that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the technical stuff is cool and I do like hearing the details of that kind of thing, but in truth, that's not what really interests me.

I'm in this for the stories.

The Rojac family is from Slovenia, and the son explained all the details that were on the specsheet very well, but I was more interested in the fact that their family had been doing this for seven generations. Also, the wine was good. Had I ever tasted Slovenian wine?

The woman who imports their wine, Summer Wolff, also makes her own wine in Montaldo, Italy. Her husband has his own wines, too. Also she paints the labels for her wines that are named after her children. Oh and she runs a school in Italy that she put together out of necessity during the pandemic. The wax she uses to seal her wines is from her beehives. "But I don't have time to tend the bees," she said. When I explained that I wanted to teach my customers the exciting stuff about geography and the people that make the wine, she offered to stop by Burgundie's when she's here for the wine fair next year. But she doesn't have time to tend the bees. I like this gal.

Summer Wolff Wine - Montaldo, Italy - she painted those labels

Another wine maker we met, from the Klinec family - also in Slovenia - was overall unassuming. He was quiet, jammed in between two more outgoing people, and his wines were all in green bottles. But Oh! The colors of these wines when he poured them in my glass! And the aromas! If I were a dragon, I would pour his wines into crystal balls and just surround myself with those colors in my den. And they're the kind of beautiful that is pointless to try to recreate. No photo or painting will do them justice. You just have to see them, and taste them, for yourself.

We met Alice Jun who makes Hana Makgeolli, a Korean rice wine. Now, I've had sake but this is nothing like it. And I could sit and listen to Alice talk about her wine all day long. She's animated and passionate. She makes the science of it almost artstic. Her wines look milky and at first have a shocking acidity to them, but if you hadn't tasted grape wines for two hours, you wouldn't feel such a smack. Also, her wines really do have infusions of flowers, plants, and so forth. One has a hydrangea tea that steeps in the wine in its final two weeks. I bought a bottle and am excited to build a meal and an evening around it.

Alice Jun's Hana Makgeolli - Korean rice wines

My favorite story, though, was of wines made in Lebanon by women. The two labels are Heya and Love Letter. The wines from both producers were very good but Heya's story gave me goosebumps.

Heya, in Arabic, means 'she'. The two women who make this wine had noticed that the Syrian women working the vineyards made less money than the men for the same amount of work. That's not a new story. These women did something about it. First, they got rid all the men and paid all the women the same or more than what the men had been making. Also, the women on the labels are actual workers - and those are photos, not representational paintings. Also, their wine is bold, smart, aromatic, delcious...and will definately be on my shelves when I open.

Heya Wines - the woman's name is Farha

Look. I love geography. I'm a freak for a map and go nuts for a globe. Terroir - the land, the where, the nursery of the grapevines - is something I could dork out on for days. Getting to dig into where a wine grew up is just one of the higlights of this gig.

I love chemistry and biology. Summer Wolff talked about a wine's parents (i.e.; the grapes it came from, not like its human parents) and another producer had a wine that wasn't from any European grape. The way they make the wine - or let the wine be made, I should say - is fascinating. How they cultivate the grapes and allow herbs and flowers and fruit trees grow around the vines to make them happier is just the most delightful scene to imagine.

And, sure, as they say, if you plop a bunch of grapes in a bucket and leave them alone, evenutally you'll have wine. But for good wine, humans are involved. They decide on oak barrels from France or the U.S or Australia. They decide barrels versus clay amphora. They touch the grapes and let their dogs run wild between the vines. Their kids play tag while they try to figure out if the damned vine has some kind of fugus.

Learning and sharing the stories of the humans that grow and make the wine is why I want to do this. When you come into my wine shop, I want to hear your story, too. Real people, real stories. And, truly, I don't really care if you like wine. You can come in and have a glass of water, for all I care. We'll learn something about you and you'll learn something about a wine grower in Lebanon, or New Zealand, or Croatia, or Upstate New York.

To be honest, accents or not, I didn't hear most of what everyone said today. As I said from the beginning, I don't like big groups of people. My hope is to get this wine shop to a point where I can actually travel to hear these stories directly from the makers, while standing on their land. Talk without yelling on a warm or cold day. Maybe I'll be able to get some video to bring back and share with you all when you come in looking for a great bottle of natural red or white or orange or rice wine. Or maybe you say you'd like to try a wine that was grown with sheep that grazed between the vines and I'll be able to tell you which ones you might try.