Battle Of The Late Harvest Riesling

I don’t usually put energy into a negative situation- I am more apt to just walk away and leave the whole thing alone.

And after harvesting umpteen million pounds of niagara grapes, I am kinda burnt out on harvesting grapes. Understandably so, I have 20 gallons of wine juice fermenting.

But freedom calls… look at it

Somewhere in the past, maybe three owners ago, they planted this grape vine next to a climbing rose bush….oh 5 feet away from each other is plenty of space is probably what they were thinking. “We’ll train it to the chain link fence”. Right.

Since then, it has climbed over the chain link, over the top of my storage shed, and into my tree-20 feet up. I had no idea what invasive species from another planet this was. Everybody else in the Umpqua Valley is harvesting their grapes, and I am clueless as to what is invading my sacred space. And so are the new owners- or rather should I say the housesitter. See, the yuppie owners decided to discard all worldy goods and move to a hut in Grenada. Sounds good, “watch out for monsoon season, btw wtf is this grape? falls on deaf ears. The house is still for sale, sans For Sale sign.

I take this specimen to the local Farm Extension office, and they confirm my worst fear-yes it is an edible grape of the reisling variety. I don’t like white wine much. It requires fish as an accompianment usually, and I don’t like my house smelling like burnt fish. Something about Olive oil and a low burning point, lol.

But I digress.

The aroma these things put off when ripening is comparable to a concord, but as the season gets later, the weather turns colder, and they turn this nice blush pink. These are the grapes I want- the late harvest with notes of cherry and plum and ever so slight pinkish blush. I procrastinate-no, it’s only 33 degrees outside, not a freeze yet! Still time to take the Harley out for an afternoon of freedom. My PTSD Female Veteran friend in Ohio states on her facebook she is due to get snow in Ohio-my wake up call. I look outside my window here in Oregon and the wind is blowing, the rain is going sideways, and it’s the sudden realization that yeah, it’s late fall, crap.

So I don my gear, get out the pruning shears and prepare to harvest. I am not greedy- I only want 3 maybe 4 gallons of this precious juice to practice my wine skills on. I go next door to my neighbor’s house- they don’t have much grapes on their side, so I start there on the souh side, where the precious pink bounty awaits, sunburned, cold tempered and hardened by the wait. 30 pounds go by in a flash- into the wash bucket. Then onto the rose vine- the rose vines cling to me and clash at me as I try to extract the most precious from the green. Bountiful coral pink grapes waiting to be unveiled in an unpretentious wine. I realize the futility of my efforts agains this bohemeth rose vine, and start pruning its hips without prejudice. Soon, I have a pile of rose hips and another 30 gallons of grapes. Damn. Not what I wanted.

I decide that it would probably be a good neighborly thing to take the rose hips with me, they are a source of vitamin c when dried and used in tea, so another project to do on my never-ending list of things to do.

I retreat to the safety of my own yard, where I know there is 60 pounds of grapes, easily. But not easily.

I start feverishly cutting, all grapes, going into the bucket, the wind is picking up, the rain begins to fall.  Fuck fall, even if it is my favorite time of year.

I notice something is awry with my plan-I look in my bucket and see only this:

Alas, I have to get more of the pink grapes! Where could they be hiding? I only need to pick 30 more pounds. And then I look up.

Twenty feet in the air the vine has slithered, almost up to the top of my tree. I reach in vain-feeling like an old crone whose back has been hunched over by years on toil and trouble. GEES I am not that F**king old, get a ladder, stupid. The wind is picking up, the rain falls intermittently and here I am thrashing about in tree, clinging to a grape vine getting these ‘precious grapes.’ I realize at this point all common sense has gone out the window, I could fall and break a leg or a hip and not even have a phone to call someone who cares. But i only need a few more, so onward always onward. My delusions of grandeur fall to the ground like the grapes that I am harvesting.

In summation, I achieve my goal of 120 pounds of grapes. The temperature is 43 degrees in the heat of this afternoon, almost like a refrigerator at this point, so I don’t worry about my grapes for now. They will be fine for the night. I crawl into my bedroom and turn on my heating pad, and crawl on top of it. I feel like I just went on a ten mile hike in the wrong shoes, every back muscle crying out in angony- stupid-stupid-stupid.  I let the battle seep out of my bones, with the cherishing thought of how good the wine will be this summer, cool and chilled on a hot August afternnon.

I nap to the fantasy of what yeast I shall use, how much oak, if any, my mind dozing off to thought of happy winemaking.

Tomorrow is another day.