Wine

The property where I live is a mixture of benchland meadow and steep live oak/chamise covered hills. It does not take much imagination to understand that this would have been a mighty fine place for Indians to be back before the missions came.

The meadows are, so far as I can see, remnant creek bed from Cachagua creek's earlier, wetter life. They are covered still with big white oaks, whose acorns are choice eating. Down below us there is a rock known as Indian Rock, which is covered with mortars overlooking the most resilient pool of water in the often dry valley. One of the roads between here and the valley floor cuts through rotting granite, but at a certain point you can see the stones turn to water polished river cobbles, now about fifty feet above the water. If you are used to only driving Cachagua road, it comes as a surprise to stand in the meadow here and see that these benchlands are quite extensive, covering an altitude of about 1200 feet and harboring some of the last open oak meadow woodland around. For the most part white oak country is being crowded out by chamise and live oak, fire prone vegetation that kindles like gasoline soaked newspaper and chokes off everything around it.

When I was young here, in the late 70s, there was one winery called Durney. This never was wine country historically, but Durney was a tough old bird with money from who knows where, a son in law with a viticulture degree from Davis, and thirst to play El Patron. He originally built a small chapel in the fields, the way they do it in Spain, and encouraged his hispanic workers to worship there. They generally declined.

The winery long ago changed hands, and the software millions glut briefly put intense pressure on Cachagua to Napa-fy itself with “Executive Orchards” and other such nonsense. But in the meantime Durney had been joined by a couple of serious wineries, the most interesting of which was started by a relocated Swiss vintner more interested in getting hands dirty than gazing from his veranda. The wineries are a mixed blessing.

On one hand, they have augured a middle class in Cachagua. In most places that would not be the case—serious wine being usually the province of the rich. But this is not like most places, and our rich are generally richer than yours. For the most part they are an unpretentious sort, by which I mean they don't build McMansions. They tend to build extremely high end but modestly sized homes, many of them surrounding expensive art and breathtaking views rather than an extra five bedrooms. As such they were always a somewhat invisible class.

Used to be that between them and the backhoe driving, dope growing class there was not much representation. Much of the horticulture, manufacture, and service surrounding the wineries are jobs for people who do fall in that category, even if their standard of living would not look like middle class solidity in other parts of the country. The landscaper for this property is the kind of person who never existed in Carmel Valley when I was a child: a local kid who got a horticulture degree and is building a house on his labor rather than a trust fund or, like me and my ilk, a propensity to shack up together in trailers on remote property. Some of his work involves tending small orchards that produce modest amounts of grapes. The grapes are then bought by wineries and in exchange the owners are given cases of already bottled wine from years past.

But the wineries use vast amounts of water, and some of them lots of chemicals. During the fires last summer, everyone had to post at the bottom of the driveway a placard with a description of the water resources on their property for firefighters to see. It was sobering to read the astronomical well figures on the winery gates. This in a very dry valley, whose river downstream is ludicrously overpumped and where residential well permits are very hard to come by. It was clear that the wineries had been getting away with humongous allocations because of their agricultural status. I cringe to imagine what happens if they go bankrupt and are able to pass on all that water to subdividers. Alan, the landscaper here, spent the late summer triaging water supplies for his clients when their wells went dry.

The old Durney winery, or part of it, is across the road from here and I look out over it day and night. Two big white oaks stand near the top of the hill, a circle of grass beneath them. Occasionally wild pigeons flock there in the afternoon. I discovered last autumn that all the recent coyote shit was stained purple and when I looked closer saw that they had been eating wine grapes. I sleep a little easier knowing it is certified organic as their downhill slope runs right into the aquifer where my drinking water is pumped from.

The winery is now called Heller. Last summer, my friend Gary came to visit and I decided it would be nice to buy a bottle of their wine to drink while we had a barbecue overlooking the hill where the grapes come from. It was the most expensive bottle of wine I have ever bought and I was secretly hoping that it would suck so that I would not be tempted to make it a habit when friends visit.

But it did not. It was strong and delicious, complicated and oaky. It was everything you'd want your neighbor to be growing out of the same soil you live on. It was the only bottle of wine I have ever thoroughly enjoyed and remembered long afterward. As I write this, I can see the fields over there green and dormant. It's a good sight.