I've been mulling this over for a couple of days now. Our friend Wes loaned me a copy of "From Ground to Glass", a winemaking video with great scenes and fantastic interviews with winemakers. One of the common themes that kept coming up was "The Lifestyle" and how many people felt blessed to be able to live it. I was trying hard to figure out what that really means. How does that translate exactly?
One thing I stopped saying last year was "Good Food, Good Friends and Good Wine" because I kept seeing it everywhere I went. It was in print in a food and wine magazine, on the wall at Trader Joes, and on at least two other winery websites. But as tomorrow approaches and Paul and I get ready to celebrate St. Vincents Day with friends, it really comes down to that.
We're going to smoke some pork (with used barrel staves), there will be homemade bread (I'm leaning toward rosemary rolls), and other treats that our friends are bringing.
The best part will be having a house full of friends, the food will nurture our bodies, and the wine will complement it all.
The lifestyle is a combination of many things, it's not any one thing or moment in time. It's pruning in January and observing the vineyard at the beginning of the season, it's watching the buds break, the flowers bloom, and the fruit set. It's having parties and breaking bread. It's sharing our craft at lifes celebrations, cheering each other on through good times and bad, having a tangible good to share with others. It's very personal. It's time spent in the winery or the lab, it's time spent washing barrels, tanks, hoses, and pumps. It's being hands on. It's cuts, bruises, and scrapes. It's friends showing up to help in any capacity or situation. It's the support and encouragement from friends, family, others in the industry, everyone we meet. It's being up at sunrise and harvesting then processing until after dark. It's late night pizza parties when we're still dirty and unwashed and totally exhausted.
It ends up sounding corny, but I do feel blessed to have this opportunity to connect with so many people on so many different levels. It's great to feel a belonging to a community, to my local community, and one on a much larger scale.
The economy may suck right now but we'll always have food, wine, and friends to share it with.
And that, in a nutshell, is The Lifestyle....
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4 comments:
http://www.fromgroundtoglass.com/
I came here because of being curious about your use of quotes around "The Lifestyle". To be honest, you may be living "a lifestyle"...not one that interests us in the least, but we are actually living "The Lifestyle" as we all refer to it in the swingers community. Just careful what you claim because there may be a few swingers in your group of friends and you would never know it!
Giggle giggle, we have swingers on my blog page. That is so cool.
Tragically it's not a shock and I'm well aware of swinging being referred to as The Lifestyle.
If there are people in my group of friends that are into it, I wish they'd get in the hot tub already, oh wait, they probably already have!!!
Wes, thanks for posting the link to the movie, I'm going to play it tonight for everyone...if the rest of you are interested in the other movie, you can search Movies+The+Lifestyle and it will come up.
http://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=490266
A "Lifestyle" wine, try it at your next hot tub get together. That's why we made it.
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