Winnie
I got into a cynical mood after that conversation.
All the success I’d had with my writing for the vineyard started to feel empty, like a house that had been cleared of all its furniture.
For the year it had gone well, it had been gratifying in a far faster and more tangible way than my poetry, which took a long time to write and was mostly rejected.
If I wrote a press release, and we got new orders or an article in a magazine, it happened fast and I was applauded at dinner. The approval felt so good.
And yet, I started to feel a haunting dread, not just on the increasingly cold mornings when I’d throw the covers over my head to trap the heat and ignore the hangover I had from drinking with Mom the night before.
Well, in truth the hangover actually came from the additional bottle I’d finish by myself alone in my room before bed.
To avoid my melancholy, I started writing poems set in ancient worlds, with clashes of swords and rivers of blood and witches and sirens banished to distant, desolate lands, and I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed sending my imagination into fantastic realms. When I wrote those poems, I could disappear and also be in total control of what was happening because I wasn’t bound by truths of science or history—a heady combination, and not a state I could achieve any other way than drinking, though I wouldn’t realize until it was too late that the writing high was far better, and ironically more real, than the chemical.
Early in 1971, I went with Miranda to a meeting of the Viticulture Society down in San Francisco.
We stayed at the Fairmont, where the group was also convening, and I feared running into Lincoln even though the only time I think he’d ever been there for a meal was the disastrous brunch with his mother.
“If he shows up, I’ll be your bodyguard,” said Bernard over coffee poured from an elegant silver pot.
“I know, I know,” I said, taking a shaky sip of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice.
Miranda, whose uniform at the vineyard was ill-fitting jeans tucked into muddy boots and a ratty old barn jacket, was utterly transformed here, wearing navy gabardine trousers and a slim white turtleneck sweater.
I’d made her add my turquoise necklace and my silver chain belt for just a touch of style.
“You seem preoccupied,” Bernard observed to my sister, who was indeed sipping her coffee out of a delicate porcelain cup and looking distractedly out the window at the fog.
Setting her cup down, she said, “I’m giving a presentation today about single-varietal wine.”
Bernard raised a brow in interested confusion.
“Most California wine is a blend,” I said, wanting to be the good student for my sister. “Cabernet grapes mixed with merlot. Zinfandel with Syrah.”
“Are you making these words up?” Bernard joked.
“That’s the thing,” said Miranda. “Most wine drinkers don’t know the difference between a cab grape and a Syrah grape.
I’d like to change that, starting with bottles that contain only one varietal, for a more pure drinking experience.
I think it might also help to educate consumers, so that they don’t think red is just ‘table wine’ and expect it all to taste rough like Chianti.
It helps people to learn one flavor at a time. ”
“I’m going to take notes and maybe get a press release out of it,” I said.
Bernard raised his juice glass and said, “I believe in you, Miranda.”
“Thank you,” she said, raising her glass and clinking it to his.
The warmth between my best friend and my sister made me smile.
When we got into the big conference room, I could see another reason why Miranda might have been nervous: We were the only women there.
It was like walking into a cornfield where everything was taller than we were and blocked the light.
Stetson hats, cowboy boots, and ruddy cheeks abounded.
The hands I shook were big and rough. And with the gold watches and gem-encrusted rings, the style of these men felt pretty incongruent to the refined atmosphere of the venerable old San Francisco hotel.
Miranda smiled and said familiar hellos to many of the men, and introduced me to a few as well. Robert Mondavi, who had employed Miranda one summer when she was in college, greeted her the most warmly. He was tall and wore a black leather string tie.
“Nice to see you, Miranda. How is your mother?”
“She’s doing well,” Miranda said, “enlarging her garden, you know. The usual.”
“Please tell her that we look forward to her basket every Christmas.” Then, glancing around the room, he asked, “And Emilio. Is he here?”
“He had a family emergency,” said Miranda, which I knew meant that Raul needed a ride to the VA, and that was his priority.
“I hope everything is alright,” Robert said. “I’m looking forward to your presentation.”
“Thanks,” Miranda said, though her face was pale.
More than one of the other men said, “Hello, little lady” to me and Miranda. Some ignored us altogether. She and I sat in our woven cane chairs at the far left of one of the center rows at least five minutes before all the men finished glad-handing each other.
Most of the meeting was a snooze, about how to petition the legislature to approve certain measures that would make growing more efficient, some talk of tractors and other technology, and debates about pesticides, which was somewhat interesting.
No one talked about the grapes or—notably—labor practices.
Miranda’s talk was so different, and to my mind more important, than all this other bluster, I couldn’t wait for her to take the podium and blow everyone away.
Except when she got up in front of the room with a miraculously straight back and clear voice, there was a surge of throat clearing and paper rustling in the audience, and other signs that this was some kind of break.
A few men actually stood up and walked out, and others turned around or leaned over to make comments to the men near them.
Only Mondavi and about ten others, among them Warren Winiarski and Lee Paschich, who were also outsiders to this crew of California ag men, sat in engaged silence as Miranda talked about the value of single-varietal wines.
I was so impressed with how dignified she was in continuing for her shrinking audience.
By contrast, I was appalled at the behavior I observed around me. I was going to write a scathing critique of the sexism in this room! I was sure I could get it published, and I started penning it as I sat there and suffered through the remaining presentations.
Back in our room, I exploded. “Miranda! Those assholes! They didn’t pay any attention to you!”
Miranda shrugged. “I expected that.”
“You did?”
“This is why I don’t go to most of these things. No one takes me seriously. Which, honestly, is fine. I don’t mind flying under the radar. I can get more done that way.”
“It doesn’t piss you off?”
“It used to. But Warren said something to me once that changed my thinking. ‘Let them fall behind. We know we’re onto something.’ ”
“But they are so obviously sexist, and we could change the system, Miranda! I wrote a whole opinion piece, and—”
“No,” Miranda said firmly. “No opinion pieces; no changing the system.”
I was crushed and outraged. “Why not?”
“Because then I’ll actually become a target. The hysterical woman. That is a reputation I can’t afford.”
This took the wind out of my sails. I got that. She couldn’t.
And still. “Shit, Miranda. I’m just itching to do something about this.”
“Oh, I’m doing plenty,” said Miranda. “And someday, they’ll all see.”
Man, was I proud of my sister in that moment.
In the spring I started taking long morning walks around the property to clear my head, especially if my hangover was bad.
On one of my hikes, I found a small shed a few acres from the house that looked like it hadn’t been opened in years.
The clapboard had never been painted and it was practically black with weathering, and about a third of the building had sunk into the earth.
I wrenched open the swollen door just enough to release a strong moldy odor and allow me inside.
There were a variety of tools, like rakes and hoes and shovels, plus a few crates with mason jars full of pale-yellow liquid.
I opened one and was assaulted with an alcoholic smell that was something like vinegar, a bit like rubbing alcohol.
I gagged and was seized with a spinning nausea that actually made me stumble and lean against the wall for balance.
Then I saw Dad again, on the desk, from my bad trip, and I threw up.
I screwed the cap back on and walked as fast as I could to Miranda’s office.
I shut the door after I entered, then set the jar on her desk. In the bright light of the clean office, I saw that the jar was grimy and even had a few cobwebs floating from the bottom. “What’s this?” I asked my sister.
Miranda’s eyes were glued to the jar.
“It’s grappa,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a very strong alcohol made from the stems and other leftovers from the crush.”
“Why are there so many jars of it in a weird shed way on the west side of the vineyard?”
Slowly, Miranda lifted her eyes to mine. “Dad used to make it.”
“What?” I started to feel dizzy and sick again.
“I think he gave some away, but mostly…he drank it. I think. Mom has always refused to talk about it.”
“Because?”
“Probably because there was a jar of it half drunk when…when he was found.”
The silence after she said that was pristine, like someone had shut off the volume of the world.
“Did it kill him?” I asked, which didn’t even disturb that silence.
“Not on its own. There were pills, too. You know that.”
I suppose I had known that he’d overdosed on purpose, but it had never occurred to me that…“He used a liquor he made here? To help kill himself?”
“He made it and drank it on the q.t., as far as I know. No one knew about it until he died. Well, I suppose Mom might have, but again, she won’t talk about it.”