Stop Wine-ing!

It was Crush 2008 this past weekend at my brother-in-law’s vineyard in Oregon. Which, loosely translated, means free labor for the harvest of his grapes. Generally speaking, I am not the first girl you call if you’re looking for manual-labor-type work. My friends know this. My husband knows this. Pretty much everyone knows. But, for Crush, I made an exception. We packed up the kids and headed south for an “adventure”. And, as it turns out, it was.

I liked it. Seriously.

Stop laughing.

There was something about it, something about moving up the rows and clipping fat, ripe clusters of grapes from the vines. It was cathartic. It was Zen. It made me feel really cool. Plus, I was totally racing my husband to see who could gather the most grapes at certain starting and stopping points (even though he didn’t know it). Although the real victim in those particular events was my brother-in-law since I was harvesting leaves, vines, and probably spiders too in an effort to fill my bucket the fastest. Sorry, Joe!

But besides the actual work, there was great food, wine (from previous harvests), all of our nieces and nephews running around, a barn with a warm fire, and perfect, perfect weather! It really was a great experience. And the real payoff is when we each receive a bottle of the exclusive (and dare I say, expensive) boutique-style 2008 Pinot made from the harvest. Oh, did I mention that we get that in 2010? Only two more years to go…

Sounds a bit like a scam to me. I think I’m going to plan Landscape 2008. You guys can all come over and weed and prune for me, and in two years I’ll send over a case of Bud Light. Deal?

No? How about some Corona? Fat Tire Ale? Jagermeister…?