December 5, 2005

• I had a day today that just doesn’t happen more than once every ten years. And it wasn’t any one thing that was so spectacular; it was an accumulative effect of good plans, good weather, and good people.  I think it was even more than that because I did things I don’t normally do.

  
  

  Initially, the middle daughter was going with me.  We were driving out to Carlton to some wineries.  Over the years, I’ve had friends plead with me to go on wine-tasting tours, and I promptly said no.  I’m not much of a drinker, and I avoid fashionable outings, but I got this idea that Carlton was a place I’d like.

  
  

  It all started with FOODday’s review of Cuvee, a French restaurant on main street.  Then I saw a map of Carlton’s 36 wineries in the Holiday Guide to Oregon Wineries.  I avoided the big Thanksgiving tour and went today, without my daughter.

  
  

  And that was a good thing I decided, as I ran back to the car for my notebook.  I met several people who were full of good information, and I took lots of notes.  As they talked I wished I’d gone on some of those tours so that I wasn’t a stranger to the wine lingo I was hearing.

  
  

  Just after 4:30 I pried myself off the barstool at the Carlton Winemaking Studio, where Camille, the tasting room manager, was describing their gravity flow and how they were the first green-built winery, because I was due at a Tilth fundraiser at the Doug Fir.

  
  

  That’s where I met Josh.  Five hours later I was sitting on another barstool writing up the notes of the evening, to submit to Tilth’s magazine (organic farmers).  Josh was with the record label who had recorded the last group who’d just played downstairs.  Tall, with lanky good looks, he ordered a beer with a shot of whisky. 

  
  

  I was taken by his sincerity.  As he described the types of groups he was looking for, I admired the care with which he chose his words.  He was drunk but he was ethical.  He was versatile, too, because when I said I’d come from Carlton, he told me how he’d made wine there.  And, in fact, when I regretted not getting to talk to this guy named Ken, at the Depot, he told me he used to deliver wine there.  Josh answered some of the questions I would have asked Ken.

  
  

  We talked about a lot of things we had in common, and, as I watched him articulate with his hands, I tried to come up with a daughter for him.  But the youngest one’s too young.  The middle one’s too chic, too city, and the oldest one is taken.  I stood to leave, shaking his hand good-bye, and all the way home I wondered about how I ended up in Carlton and on that stool next to Josh.

  • 4:21 am
  • 13 Comments