Volume 02
Craig Haarmeyer, essential research. photo saraheowen
Two Blondes Walk Into a Bar
It was one of those days in the land of the two suns. Bright, just blindingly bright. f 32 type light at 1/1000th of a second on the slowest film you can find. We started early, as you do because you know what is coming. We were visiting a winemaker and his wines. The things one does when you are trying to understand sites, soil, and intention. Essential research, one might call it. You could also argue it’s a study of person as much as of place. Without a person and intention, grapes would raisin and eventually fall to the earth in the coldest days of winter. No wine would be made, no people brought together, no stories written.
People are everything.
So, sunnies packed, SPF somethingorother applied, ill-fitting ball cap on top, ready for the land of two suns. Driving down Harbor Boulevard with not a boat, jetty, or water in sight. There on the left, not signposted, opposite a storage yard. We knock and are welcomed inside. Thief, glasses, bungs pulled. Pull, pour, swirl and sniff. Swallow and sometimes spit. A sleeping bottling line, pallets stocked with freshly labelled wine, a pump. It is what we do. One barrel after another, puncheons and Foudre’s too. Hoses, pipes, lines, depending on where you were raised. A cross-pollination of California Chenin. With Riesling and Nebbiolo. Personal life details hinted at on either side, a life lived and still living. Offspring, the best kind, joins and gives just the right amount of sass lip.
Kids, you have to love them and how they show you all of your failings.
Glasses drained, minds full, hearts even fuller. Back on the tarmac, the melting, greasy tarmac of Sacramento. Easily 100°F at noon. Lunch downtown, back on the road, turning towards the Delta in hopes the water eases the heat. Down, through Clarksburg, past the Old Sugar Mill, running next to the Sacramento River. Past a barge, mid-afternoon fisherman, it's so beautiful out here. Through the town of Hood, established by the Southern Pacific Railroad to transport grain. Keeping on down the Sacramento River, toward Locke.
Two blondes walk into a bar. Al the Wopes or Al’s Place, if you prefer. Well, by blondes, I mean one in particular. Tall, regal, strawberry-blond for sure. The other was blond once. Now, less so, more Silver Fox like, you know the type. The younger, strawberry blond, she disarms at first sight, you cannot help but warm to her. The Silver Fox, well. One gets the impression he may be in the CIA, MI5 or both. Dodgy bugger for sure, intense but charming, a bit of a worry.
The two, Strawberry and Silver, roll into Al's Place. One would think they are here to beat the heat, down a chubby water or three, get back on the road. Only partially true. They are here for the pickled vegetable bar snacks. True story. Things are like this in the Delta. A real, stuffed Ostrich stands above the ladies’ room. The floorboards creak, the walls are definitely not straight, not even close.
Al’s the Wops was established in 1934, twenty-two years after the town was built. The only town in the United States built by Chinese for Chinese. A little-known fact is that pre pre-World War One, most of California's labor was of Chinese descent. Locke township looks today much like it did one hundred years ago.
Strawberry and Silver are content.
Toward the land of two suns. photo saraheowen
Content until, “Welcome, what would you like to drink? You can have anything you want?” Well, that's easy, says Strawberry to Silver. “Two Mezcal Margaritas, please. A little salt on the rim. And the house pickles!”
This really is a well-thought-out request. A mid-morning tasting of transparent, zippy white wine without the mascara of an obvious new French Oak barrel, requires the counterpoint of the wonderfully smoky, stimulant that is Mezcal. Supported by lime juice and a smidge of orange liquor! And pickled vegetable bar snacks.
“Anything but that, we don't have Mezcal”, was the reply from the barkeep.
Apart from the impending confusion and realization that we would have to drink martinis before four in the afternoon, the barkeep's response is certainly an interesting metaphor when you apply it to wine.
I entered this industry as a listless, impressionable late twenties male, trying desperately to find his way. And, as is often the case, I was hugely influenced by the first people I worked with. Bar none, all were obsessed with making “world-class” wine. South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and California, it did not matter. All my mentors were comparing their wines to the greats. It was with this raison d'etre that I forged my career over the next twenty years. However, the longer I was “in it,” the more I began to understand and see the disconnect between winemaker and consumer.
Almost everyone who loves wine and has been to Europe says the same thing.
“We were in this restaurant in Paris, Barcelona, or Milan, the “house” wine was served in a carafe, and it was incredible! Couldn't have been more than $8 a carafe! The best wine we have ever tasted!”
Ahhh, was it the best wine, surroundings, company, or yes, all of that!
So, yes, you could go to Burgundy, to the most storied domaines that begin with a D and end with a C, and have your pip blown tasting the 2005 vintage out of barrel in the early Spring of 2006 with a 5-month-old in a baby Bjorn (a wonderful mobile heating device). You could also go to Provence, drink humble Côte de Varioux Rose, with Venison loin butchered with pruning shears (true story) and, think you have died and gone to wine heaven.
Yes, if you have the means, you CAN have anything you would like, but just because you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD! So, my conclusion after drinking Martini’s at four in the afternoon, with pickled vegetable bar snacks, is that to truly live wine, make it a part of your daily, weekly or monthly life, it’s the carafe, Village, humble, Côte De Varois, everyday wine, the Tuesday night wine, that elevates one into the culture of a wine life.
Simple can be, oh so good. I venture that if more of us leaned into the everyday simplicity of a thoughtfully made, affordable, and “crushable” wine, our lives would be richer for it. I truly hope you enjoy the wines I am offering and, if you do, spread the word. Everyone needs “crushable” wine.
Everyone!
The entrance to Haarmeyer Cellars. photo saraheowen
