Chapter 27 The River Rushes By
The River Rushes By
It wasn’t for three more years that Sam Ledbetter reached out to Otis. “It’s been a long time,” Otis said through his first cell phone. He’d finally succumbed to the new technology a month prior.
“Yes, yes, it has.” Otis cringed as he recalled the one and only time he’d seen Bedwetter in person, when he’d raced out of the steakhouse in Sonoma.
“Listen, I wanted to see if I could visit Red Mountain. I’ll be in Portland next week and want to come see what all the fuss is about.”
“I think I could squeeze you in,” Otis said with a sly grin.
When the day came, the third Tuesday in June, Otis greeted him at the front door of the tasting room. Rebecca was there, too, thank God. At the very least he could rely on her charm.
“Welcome to Red Mountain,” Otis said to Ledbetter.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” the mediocre journalist said. He wore khakis and loafers. A thin scarf wrapped around his neck.
“Have you tried any Red Mountain wines?”
“No, not yet. I’ve tried the usual Washington State suspects, L’Ecole No. 41 and Leonetti, but I’m afraid my knowledge is limited.”
Otis led him into the tasting room, and Rebecca poured the wines while Otis talked.
“It’s like exploring an entirely new medium, working this land.
What I love is that it’s such an arid place.
Mildew isn’t a problem. Phylloxera would have a hard time surviving.
We’re the gods of water, situated by the river as we are.
It doesn’t rain, there’s no humidity, so we don’t suffer like Burgundy from bad years in that regard.
We can fine-tune our water use with the drip irrigation. ”
“Oh, this one is nice. A syrah?”
“From the first block Bec and I planted.”
Ledbetter spent a long time pondering the wine, then: “I see the appeal. You know, I suppose I owe you an apology, Otis. I’ve had friends tell me that you think I have something against you.
It was never that, it’s that ... I suppose it seemed like you were trying too hard.
I’m not sure how to put a finger on it, but your wines didn’t resonate with me.
Not like they do now. Maybe you were right when you told me that context is everything. I should have tasted with you.”
“Well, here we are.”
“Yes, indeed.”
Ledbetter’s article in The New York Times did more for Red Mountain than anything up until then. The only problem, if there was one, was that he coined a new nickname for Otis.
Several paragraphs into the article, he wrote:
I’ve been following Otis Till since the beginning, and though I was well aware of his pedigree, his wines lacked something.
They lack no more. I believe Otis Till has found his place.
He is no doubt the Grapefather of Red Mountain, a man leading that small piece of land to stardom.
The wines he’s making now remind me why I fell in love with wine in the first place.
I’m not tasting juice with an agenda. I’m not tasting wines that are designed for any particular palate.
I am tasting wines that speak of a place, and nothing more.
That, my dear readers, is all that is required.
If only it were that easy. In the meantime, go find Red Mountain, in a store, on a restaurant list. Know that you’re tasting a region that will soon dominate our great country.
“The Grapefather,” Rebecca said, after listening to Otis read it out loud.
Otis set down the page. “For the record, he said it. Not me.”
“I think it’s adorable. Sure is better than the vine messiah.”
“I liked that one.”
“So ... how does it feel to finally have Bedwetter write about you?”
“You mean Ledbetter?”
They both chuckled. “It feels nice, Bec. What’s funny is that it doesn’t change a thing. I’m still just a farmer trying to make wine. Though there was a time when I would have thought differently, his words don’t validate me as a man. I suppose the best part is they do lift up Red Mountain.”
She petted his face. “My love, how you’ve grown since that young boy on the bus.”
“Please, if you don’t mind, you must refer to me as the Grapefather going forward. Capitalized, mind you.”
“Okay, maybe you haven’t grown that much.”
If anyone else told Otis that he needed to go see the movie Sideways when it hit the theaters during harvest of 2004, he worried he’d attack them with his shears.
Everyone told him that Paul Giamatti was a fictional version of Otis, a grump with unbridled passion.
Some even claimed that the writer, Rex Pickett, had based the character in his novel on Otis.
“I’m not a grump,” Otis would reply. Then he’d snidely ask how anyone involved with wine had time to go see a movie during harvest.
It became nearly annoying. Every person he saw, be it at the grocery store, the hardware store, the taco truck: “Did you see Sideways yet?”
Turned out Vance was the one who convinced him to see the film.
He’d recently lost his mother, so Otis was trying to spend as much time with him as he could.
They’d been working nonstop all harvest, and they’d finally brought in the last of the syrah.
It had been a hell of a year, perhaps the best on record.
Otis had never achieved such balance. Vance had proved to be a superb grower and promising winemaker.
His wines were currently fermenting in the Till Vineyards winery.
They walked out of the theater that night, and Otis had nothing left. He’d never laughed so much in his entire life. Hopefully he wasn’t too much like Miles, but by God, what a movie.
“He drank from the spit bucket!” Otis said. “And ‘I’m not drinking any fucking merlot.’ That man is funny.”
“What was his deal with merlot?” Vance asked. “He hated it, didn’t he?”
“Not at all.” Otis wagged a finger. “That bottle at the end, the Chateau Cheval Blanc, most of the juice is actually merlot. It’s not that he didn’t like the variety.
It’s that it reminded him of his wife. But I can only imagine what this will do to the merlot market.
The old me would start grafting all our merlot to cabernet.
” Otis slapped Vance on the back. “Actually, I have a few bottles of Cheval Blanc in the cellar. Shall we go dig one up?”
Down in the depths of the cellar, Otis uncorked an ’81 Cheval Blanc and sat across from Vance in one of the small tables covered in melted wax.
A half glass in, Vance said, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since Mom died.
It’s been such an honor working with you.
You’ve become a father to me, but I have to go.
I want this to be my dream, but it’s not.
I’m going to move to Los Angeles with the band, see if we can make something of ourselves.
I’m hoping that I might sell my land to you. ”
In the last few weeks, Otis had detected that Vance had something brewing, and he raised a glass to him. “The honor has always been mine, Vance. By gods, yes, go live your dream.”
After they’d finished the last drop of the bottle, they embraced. Otis kissed his neck and told him he’d always be there for him.
July of 2005, Otis flew out to Colorado to spend some time with Camden.
He got out there at least once a year, but it never felt like enough.
Otis took Cam and a few of his friends out to dinner that night; then they retired early so they could make the morning drive toward Breckenridge to the Blue River.
“How’s the love life?” Otis asked on the drive. It was always a touchy subject.
“You know, steady.”
“Steady? What does that mean?”
Cam wore a plaid shirt rolled up at the sleeves. He ran a hand through his long shaggy hair and gave a grin. “Nothing that makes me want to settle down.”
“Fair enough. No doubt you have to wait for the right one.”
“How about you guys? How’s Vance working out?”
“He’s leaving, taking the band to LA, see if they can make it.”
“Good for him.”
“You know his mom died. We’re about to close on his ten acres. I gave him a fair price.”
They stopped for pastries and coffee halfway there. They sat outside overlooking Grays Peak. A jet contrail striped the mostly blue sky. Cam had polarized glasses on, so it was hard to see his eyes, and Otis wondered what he was thinking.
“Tell me,” Otis said, “are you happy?”
“Am I happy?” Cam smiled. “You know I am. What does that mean?”
“I’m just asking. We don’t see you as much, and I want to know.”
He held out his hands. “What’s not to be happy about? Great job, plenty of time to get outside. I have good friends. Healthy fam. Life’s good.”
Otis set down his drink. “That’s all I want to hear. It’s hard when your kids leave. Whether you two are happy or not, I sometimes feel something missing. If I could do it all over again, I would have made more time for you growing up. Mikey got to see me more. You got the worst of me.”
Cam removed his glasses. “Dad, really? You get so sentimental lately. On the phone too.”
“You wait, son. Once you have kids, you’ll see. I beat myself up sometimes, wishing I could have done better.”
Cam placed a hand on Otis’s arm. “You being right here now is all that matters. There’s nothing that means more to me than your visits, just you and me.
I know you don’t love fishing like I do, but you come anyway.
And I get it. You had to figure out a way to make the wine thing work when you were young.
I came as a surprise. You figured it out, though.
We didn’t starve. You gave us a great life.
Come to think of it, where I am now. My love for the outdoors.
It comes from you. I might not have been interested in farming, but I’m like you in so many ways. ”
Otis patted his son’s hand and offered a smile.
“Seriously, I’d rather throw myself out a window than work behind a desk. You and me, we belong out here.” Cam lit up as he looked out over the mountain. “This is where we shine.” Cam gave a quiet “ Ahhhwoooo. ”
Otis echoed him back, a little louder: “ Ahhwwooooo. ”