Chapter 22 （Interlude） Howling Again
Howling Again
Red Mountain, Washington State
The man I loved found wings on that day. Never had I seen him so full of hope. It was dangerous, actually. Mike and I looked at each other, and we knew that Otis had been reborn. We knew we better hold on tight, because the Otis rocket ship was ready for its second launch.
Once we hiked back down the mountain, we ran into Tom and Anne-Marie Hedges, who had bought fifty stunning acres in prime position in the center of the mountain.
They didn’t have the beautiful chateau that they do now, but they invited us to a picnic table where they uncorked several sensational wines.
In fact, I’ll never forget Otis, charging up from the table and pacing as he kept jamming his nose into the glass and rambling on.
“Brilliant, just brilliant! What’s your oak treatment?
What were the Brix when you picked? Do you drop fruit?
How many tons per acre? How deep did you say your well is again? Absolutely brilliant!”
Tom, a mustachioed and debonaire Washingtonian, had grown up nearby in Richland and had only recently returned to his home state to try his hand in the wine business.
He’d met Anne-Marie, an elegant redhead from Champagne, on a rooftop in Guadalajara while they were both studying Spanish and quenching their thirst to see the world.
From that first moment, we became fast friends, as we saw eye to eye on so many things, including our wine philosophies.
We sat with slack jaws as Tom and Anne-Marie told us the tales of how the area had been a crucial site of the Manhattan Project during World War II and how an influx of scientists and engineers, along with their families, had led to an incredible population boom.
“It’s a good place to raise a family,” Tom said, swirling a velvety merlot.
“Good people here. I can only imagine the future. One day Sunset Road will be a long line of tasting rooms. They’ll be speaking about Washington State all over the world.
The Columbia Valley. Maybe even this place, Red Mountain.
I’d love for it to become an AVA one day. That’s our dream.”
Otis smiled. AVAs, or American Viticultural Areas, were legally designated regions recognized for their unique climatic and geographic characteristics. The status came with a certain clout and allowed its wineries to put the region on the label, as we’d done with Glen Ellen for all those years.
“Ah, what a dream that is,” my husband said.
I’ll never forget that smile. I could see him almost drooling at the idea of joining the Hedgeses and the other pioneers in making something unique and wonderful.
“There’s only so much available land permitted with water rights,” Anne-Marie said, “as the aquifers have to be protected from going dry, but there’s a nice piece for sale on the other side down there.”
They all looked to the southwest, across Sunset Road to exactly where Otis had pointed earlier.
Anne-Marie patted my arm, a smile rising on her face. Such a friendly soul. “We might let you beat us to buying it, if you’re interested. Let me put you in contact with the owner. He mentioned he might let go of the property if he found someone interested in planting a vineyard.”
Otis bit his tongue, and I knew he was waiting on me to answer. Truth was, Mike and I were equally excited. I said yes, and we all walked down there together, dizzy with the promise of what was to come.
The plot had grand potential, a perfect slope, multiple microclimates, a front-row view of Mount Adams, a short walk to the Yakima River.
Otis threw himself onto the earth and didn’t move for a long time. But when he stood, he looked like he could take over the world. He hugged Mike and me and then he hugged the Hedgeses and said maybe ten times in a row, “I’m home.”
In writing this whatever-he-wants-to-call-it, he’s certainly recalling the thirst he once had. I can see it in the way his back arches when he writes, the way he starts writing faster, talking to himself. The way he pauses and starts yapping with Amigo as if he were a writing partner. Like now.
“That first day, Amigo,” Otis said, “I knew we’d found our Mecca. Climbing up the mountain. It was in the air, all this possibility. In my mind’s palate, I could taste wines from grapes that hadn’t even been grown yet. More than anything, I felt hopeful.”
Otis gave Amigo a pat on the head and chewed on his pen for a moment. He stood and sat and stood and sat again. Finally, he found stillness. Desperate to relive those first years on the mountain, a smile spread across his face.
It was like having sex for the first time, stumbling and fumbling around, unsure of what to do or how to do it, but craving it all the same.
Of course, I’m talking about figuring our way through the new terroir.
I suspected that I’d have to learn a few new tricks, but I didn’t know what it would require.
Amazingly, I thought I was on an easy glide for the rest of my life with regards to wine. I’d found my passion and made money from it, didn’t have to keep learning.
That’s what was so special about Red Mountain. She turned me into a kid again, lost and alive all at the same time.
Truthfully, all was well until ...
Otis slapped his pen onto the desk. “For God’s sake.
If this isn’t the mark of a bad writer, Amigo.
All was well until ... let’s hope no one ever reads this namby-pamby.
How else do I say it? I had the tools, the skills, the experience.
Lloyd had disappeared in the rearview mirror.
I was ready. The world was my oyster. Shit, another cliché. ”
Otis dragged a line over much of what he’d written.
“Can you imagine what Graham Greene would say? I suppose it means I should leave the writing to the pros. Don’t worry, I’m almost done, but maybe I should back up a hair.”