Fall arrived with bluster, gusts bowled over the good luck sign on the patio, rain intermittently blew sideways, the house felt chill and damp, but we were off to a party arranged by Kerry, a friend from school who had purchased futures on a barrel of Cabernet that was now ready to bottle. Rainsong is a boutique winery on 55 acres with about 9 acres of grapes, located about 45 minutes from the ranch along a narrow curvy road in the hills near Cheshire. We arrived during a lull in the rain and found a few of the other bottlers already exploring the small (even by Oregon standards) winery, set on a slope between trees and fields, with the end of grape rows barely visible at the top of the rise several hundred yards beyond.
Mike, the vintner, started a fire in a cast iron fireplace under the portico and began telling us about the young bobcat that was making inroads in the local wild turkey population, and when the rest of the party arrived, about making wine and how the bottling would proceed.
Mike started at the beginning of the production line, pointing out the barrel we would be draining, on the third tier above, a Tygon tube trailing from the bung hole down to the array of spigots where we would fill the bottles.
When a bottle was full, the person at that station placed it to the left where the corker inserted it in the tray of the corking machine, pushed the lever down until the cork was seated,
then placed the bottle on the labeling table, where individuals smoothed a label on the back, then passed the bottle on to another who put on the front label.
In the middle of all this, someone spotted the bobcat in the field above and some of us rushed out to see: a speck some hundred yards away.
My little Leica could barely record the speck, and even enhanced, only a few brown pixels provide evidence.
While I was out, however, I snapped more evidence of life in the wild.
When the barrel was empty, the bottles all cased, we sat down to a pot luck, fortified against the weather, of course, with generous glasses of Rainsong's product.
And when we were sufficiently satisfied, we purchased our own cases of the Cab against the possibility of more chilly Oregon sunshine.
