There is a carboy of magenta mash fermenting in a corner of my living room. I can feel it with the eyes in the back of my head, changing ever-so-slowly, day by day, into what will become our first ever batch of homemade pinot noir wine.
Just thinking about our stash over there, working in its corner while I work in mine, makes me feel inordinately lucky. Lucky to live in Oregon, lucky to be able to get my hands on some grapes for a household experiment, lucky to have found a pick-your-own grape hookup that I plan to cultivate in the years to come.
I’ve heard that pick-your-own pinot is rare indeed in the Willamette Valley. Ask any real winemaker if you can come and “help with the harvest,” and chances are good that you’ll get one of those incredulous, are-you-kidding-ma’am, you-really-don’t-have-a-clue looks in return. There’s a reason why vineyards hire migrant workers to accomplish the chaotic and frenzied harvest of grapes. It is hard work — and it is work. Some of us might get all googly-eyed at the very idea of spending a morning plucking plump pinot from the vine, but real winemakers need the deed done fast and hard.
Well, I still want to wake up to one of those oogly googly pinot morning. And a I did a few weeks ago when our neighbor invited us to come pick our own grapes at a vineyard south of Salem.
This particular vineyard is owned by a former doctor who spent many years growing a range of pinots on his property, harvesting them, making juice and bottling it for commercial sale. After an illness interrupted this cycle, he began inviting the public to pick grapes on his property. Yes, he so loved his grapes that he gave his only begotten vines to the world.
I cannot tell you how much we paid for these grapes, since it involves deciphering a strange rubric concocted by our neighbor and the winemaker, and which we were only privy to through our relationship with the former.
I will not tell you how much we paid for these grapes because the price was ridiculously low, and I still feel kind of guilty for having achieved such an “in.”
But I will say that we picked about 200 pounds worth of pinot noir grapes from 3 choice rows at Salem Hills Vineyard and Winery and paid less than one would pay for a really nice two-person dinner at Morton’s Bistro.
The mash is fermenting and we are waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
We are, both of us, the carboy and I, fermenting in our respective corners. I’ll give that mash a year or more and then it had better watch out.
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