Chapter 9 A Nobody Wants to Be Somebody
A Nobody Wants to Be Somebody
Nineteen seventy-two came down with a shower of heartache. The Bloody Sunday Massacre reminded them that it wasn’t only Southeast Asia and the United States that were in trouble. Humankind had reached a tipping point.
Much closer to home, Jed was struggling and becoming more like his father with each depressing day.
Still living at home and propped up by his VA disability compensation, he showed no interest in finding his way toward a career.
Instead, he spent time with a crew of Vietnam veterans who drank and drugged their troubles away.
When Rebecca and Otis saw him, he’d knock back straight whiskey and rant about the war and Nixon and how he’d been spat on by a protester, how “the whole damn world” was on fire and burning its way to the ground.
With each visit, Bec would die a little inside, and Otis wished Jed would stay away from home until he cleaned up his act—if he ever cleaned up his act.
In early February, as Otis was sharpening his clippers and about to join the crew to start pruning and prepping for a new vintage, Paul clapped him on the back. “You know that block of zinfandel on the north side, up past the tractor shed?”
“The one you keep neglecting?”
“That’s the one. I was thinking you could take care of it this year. If you can get some fruit out of it, it’s all yours. I’ll give you a corner in the winery to make some juice. You gotta buy your own barrels, though.”
A smile leaped to Otis’s face. He’d hoped to buy some fruit during harvest, but this opportunity would allow him to make a wine from scratch. “I don’t need barrels. Just lend me a stainless tank.”
“Suit yourself.”
When he first walked up the hill to assess his block, he hadn’t quite realized what he was getting into.
It was a half acre of mostly zinfandel, perched on a steep slant that made it hard to farm—he certainly couldn’t use a tractor—which was one of the reasons Paul hadn’t bothered with it.
Having never been trellised, the vines lay curled on the ground like snakes.
Paul didn’t have irrigation up there, so they’d eked out their existence on what little rain had come the last few years.
Otis didn’t see a hopeless cause. What he saw was an opportunity to bring these orphaned vines back to life.
A life is built with moments. Ever since the day he met Rebecca, Otis had been collecting moments that were becoming a foundation for a life worth living.
Moments that were building his confidence and turning him into the man he sought to be.
Twenty years old, and he’d found what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
Twenty years old, and he’d made his first wine.
His first wine.
Almost ten months after Paul had given him a block to farm, Otis stared at the tank. He’d been tasting it every day, and it wasn’t exactly horrible. It was maybe even palatable. Maybe even delightful.
The multivarietal fruit had looked good when he harvested it two months ago in October.
Paul had eyed the bounty with wide-eyed surprise.
“How you managed this, I do not know, brother.” Under judicious temperature control, the juice had fermented easily after pitching the rehydrated yeast. He hadn’t let anyone taste it, as this was his baby, and he wanted to guard it till it was perfect.
On Sunday afternoon, Rebecca was holed up at the cottage, studying to ace another economics exam.
Earlier in the week, the government had hosted another draft lottery, promising to tear more men away from their families.
That same day, Apollo 17 , packed with three astronauts and five mice, had launched from Cape Canaveral and was due to land on the moon tomorrow.
Otis cared deeply about what was happening in the world. He was tired of hearing about more men like Jed coming home without limbs, tired of seeing clashes between protesters and cops, tired of all the bloodshed. There wasn’t much he could do, though, so he put his head down and kept working.
To many, including his father, making wine seemed like such a small thing. Sure, he wasn’t performing surgery. He wasn’t sending people to the moon. But it wasn’t a small thing at all. Not to him.
Making wine was his way of shining some good light out there in the world.
Wine brought people together. How many bottles had graced the tables of family reunions, of celebrations of new births, of lovers tying the knot?
How many bottles had graced simple moments, new friends gathering to share like-minded conversation, reminding themselves that they weren’t alone.
How many bottles had transported people, tasting a wine from very far away and being taken to a different place and pulled back in time, being touched by the souls of farmers dedicated to bottling the heart of their vineyard.
Just as Otis had done with his first wine.
This particular tank didn’t have a sampling spout, so he cracked the racking valve to let the wine spill out into his glass. December was quiet at the winery. Otis had been in every day, learning from Paul and anyone else willing to teach him.
He lifted the wine to his nose, expecting a bouquet of berry and stone fruits. A fresh and fruity wine. Perhaps not ageable but certainly sessionable. Something of which he could be proud.
Long before the vines had even flowered, Otis had dreamed of what his label might look like and imagined how it would feel to one day pull the cork on his creation.
As the scent traveled through his nasal passage, his mouth curled in shock.
It smelled like rotten eggs. With a curse, Otis cast the wine down to the cellar floor, letting it seep into the drain.
He cracked the racking valve again and poured another sample, hoping for a different result.
With his nose deep down into the glass, he confirmed the existence of hydrogen sulfide, a volatile sulfur compound that he’d learned to detect in his work with Paul.
Bile rose up Otis’s esophagus; a whole year turned bad.
He’d bragged to Bec, telling her the whole process had been easy. He’d told her—he’d told his dad too—that he’d shown a natural talent for fermentation. For the whole bit.
His shoulders slumped, and his heart ached as he chucked the rest of the reductive wine from his glass into the drain, his liquid dreams rushing away from him.
This was supposed to be his break. It wasn’t simply a tank of wine; it was the beginning of his winery, the beginning of .
.. no, he couldn’t say it. Couldn’t even think it.
He’d already come up with the name of his winery, even designed the label in his head, and this wine was supposed to be its first vintage.
He’d planned on holding back cases of it, sharing it with his children and grandchildren.
In the following days, Otis went to work on the wine, racking it with desperation, hoping a ton of oxygen might save the day. He was too ashamed to ask for help. Trying another technique he’d learned, he added copper sulfate and crossed his fingers. Days later, it had only gotten worse.
No amount of air, copper, or any other winemaking trickery could save this batch. He’d blundered his chance.
He pulled at his hair and yelled into the cavernous tomb of the cellar: “You fucking buffoon!” His words bounced off the concrete floor and the stacks of barrels, shouting back at him, assuring him that he was indeed correct in his assertion.
“What’s going on, man?” Paul’s voice cut through the void.
Otis came to, realizing his eyes had leaked tears. He wiped them quickly and nodded toward the tank. “I’ve made the most reductive wine in history.”
Paul was good under pressure, hard to rattle.
He kept his cool as he grabbed a glass and cracked the valve for a taste.
Otis looked at the wine like it was poison, proof that he did not have the natural talent it would take to own a winery.
He wanted to be some kind of savant, someone with inborn talent, but his nose wasn’t extraordinary, and now he was proving his instincts were no better.
Paul took a whiff. “Oh.”
“It’s wretched, isn’t it?”
“It’s a ...” He sucked in his lips. “Let’s rack it.”
“I’ve racked the bloody hell out of it.”
“Copper?”
“Yep.”
Paul looked over at him. “It’s your first wine. It’s not supposed to be perfect.”
“I don’t want perfect, Paul, but I want drinkable.”
“I’d drink this ... you know, after a few tequilas.” He grinned.
Otis couldn’t even kick-start his facial muscles. All of him drooped.
“You’re not the first guy to screw up his virgin batch.”
“It was going fine. We went to Montana for a few days. I should have been here.”
Paul shook his head. “If it were easy, everybody would—”
“Don’t patronize me. What do you think went wrong?”
“Probably not enough air, man. You have to find that perfect balance of protecting it without suffocating it.” Paul stepped forward and put a hand on Otis’s shoulder. “We’ll get ’em next year.”
Otis didn’t have years. They were broke.
This would have earned them some money, something off which to build.
He wasn’t dumb enough to think he could have made a wine worthy of Carmine Coraggio, but he at least wanted to pull off a wine that he could share with his family and friends, something to show them that he could make his dream reality.
What it felt like, what this wine tasted like, was an omen, his last chance to get out while he still could.
Fear rushed in, his father’s voice the bugle call for an army of doubt, but he pressed his eyes closed and shut it down. He wasn’t going back to Berkeley. He wasn’t giving up.
Rotten eggs still on his tongue, he drove through the valley to the only man who he thought might save him.
Shortly after first tasting the wines of Carmine Coraggio, Otis had learned that Carmine’s farm wasn’t too far away. Only a few miles south.