The End is Near.......

And it's not a good thing necessarily.... One of our retail people asked me today--yes, today, she was emailing at 2 AM--if I was going to be happy when harvest was over.

Of course not! Harvest is what harvest is. And that to me is the best time of year. It's when the grapes come in--well, we bring them in--and we get a chance to pull back the veil on what we've been working on all year. Sometimes we have good feelings about it, sometimes not.

Think of it as Christmas when you were a kid. You knew going into it that there were gifts you knew you weren't going to want. Like the matching socks and sweaters from your grandmother. But for one fleeting moment before you tear off the wrapping, there's a chance that what lay underneath was excitement. And sometimes it was. But it was the feeling of anticipation and the process of gift-opening that made your adrenaline rush and carried you through the rest of the day as the grownups sat around exhausted..... That's what I'm talking about.

It's also why I haven't been posting. This could be a yearly phenomenon, so deal with it. I'm out here running around in my pajamas opening up presents of Hot Wheels cars, sweaters, and Legos, all the while I can't wait to take the best of them and play with them the rest of the day.

I will admit it makes me tired some. OK, a lot. I'm 39, and this is my 12th harvest. Not a lot, yet. But I can tell a difference. I still wake up early, too excited to sleep, but I can't go go go like I used to. Ray--my assistant winemaker--is starting to show it, too. When he first showed up here in his late 20s, he used to help with harvest then head to the bars. Now, four years later, it's been a few weeks since he's done that. We all get older, but the feelings for this only get stronger.

I'll do this till I die.

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