Ah, nope … this isn’t about Jesus turning water into wine!
However, wouldn’t it be kind of interesting to be able to walk into a room and turn a pitcher of water into your favorite Cabernet Sauvignon? Oh well … maybe one day and a long way over the rainbow!
Water is such an important subject and is critical for the ongoing existence of human beings. So, why do we take it for granted? Why do we dump junk into it and make it something that doesn’t bring life but ends it? We use it for everything in life including swimming tests.
Let me say this with emphasis: “I am not a swimmer!”
In my young years, we could take swimming lessons in a local lake and I hated, disliked and cringed every time we would get in the car to drive to the lake. You may have noticed by that sentence my feeling for being in the water. My go to statement was that if the good Lord had wanted me to swim, I would have been gifted with fins and not extra long feet. That didn’t stop my mother from taking me to the lake. I did enough learning to pass the tests but really didn’t learn very much about how to stay afloat and move forward in the lake water.
Then I found myself at Navy boot camp in San Diego and the day arrived when we all had to pass the infamous swimming test to continue our normal training. If one failed the test, you had to take extra lessons and that meant less off time and more stress. The moment arrived for me to face the 100-yard swimming lane. I climbed the steps to the tower and, taking a very deep breath (I may even had called upon the before mentioned Jesus to help me!), I dropped into the pool.
Do you have any idea how long 100 yards is in a pool? I do. It goes on forever. I did my best form of a breast stroke at first, then switched to a doggie paddle like movement, and with the pool side urging from my company commander, I flipped, flopped, floundered and finished the swim. That pool was the only water I entered in my Naval career — thankfully!
Once beyond that traumatic experience, I soon found myself immersed not only in my communications position but also, in the world of wine.
Coming from a farm background, I knew how important water is to growing crops, watering animals and keeping us humans clean and hydrated. Wine confirmed all my farm beliefs and also taught me many things about plant and environment interaction.
When I first saw many of the vineyards, I saw very steep growing hillsides. How does rain help the vines when it seemed to me the rain would simply and very quickly rush down the hillside and erode the ground? Well, I ventured into those steep vineyards and learned something about soil.
Many of the hillsides are very rocky and that allows the rainfall to slip very quickly into the subsoil. Also, these stony soils ensure that the roots of the vines go deep into the ground and through some chemical reactions, there’s a tasteful bringing forth of the soil into the grapes.
But, the importance of water to wine doesn’t stop in the vineyard. There’s not a lot of water used to produce wine but, it’s essential when it comes to cleaning all the wine making equipment. A batch of wine can be entirely spoiled if the equipment isn’t clean and allows unwanted bacteria to grow. And, it doesn’t make any difference if the wine is made in France, Spain or South Australia.
Belleeruche wines are from the Cȏtes-Du-Rhone region in France. You will find limestone soils and clay soils in this region and each soil is reflected in the wine made from these respective vineyards. Limestone soil will give you some citrusy tasting wines — like a good white wine from the region. Clay will give you nice medium-bodied reds and each type of wine relies on the interaction of rain fall and very clean production areas.
Coto De Hayas from the Bodegas region in Spain produces many types of wines from their vineyards — from Granacha, to Syrah and many in between. The wide diversity of the region allows many different grapes to be grown and the rainfall can be from almost extremely dry conditions on steep hillsides, to moderate rainfall in the upper valleys and to heavy rains in the lover valleys. Drawing upon a moderate amount of rainfall, Coto De Hayas makes a sterling blended wine of Garnacha and Syrah grapes. Very tasty and satisfying.
The Y series of wines comes from southern Australia and the series contains many blends from across the region and reflects the environmental nature of the area. There’s a wide variety of quality wines in this series and I’ve swum through a lot of them — meaning tasted! A favorite of mine is the Viognier — nice citrus and tartness. A good wine.
So, water and wine are critically important for each other to flourish and I’ll be happy to continue my swim through the world of wine.
However, let’s not tie swimming to sipping, and if that’s what you want, then you swim and I’ll sip!
As always eat and drink in moderation but laugh with reckless abandon!
Cheers!