Call me Kyle. Some years ago, never mind how long precisely, having little or no money in my purse, and nothing in particular to interest me in Portland, I thought I would navigate about a little and see the winery part of Oregon. It is a way I have of driving off the spirits, and regulating my circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly October; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before the California wine section, and lifting up the cover of every Wine Spectator I meet; and especially whenever my hippie ghosts get such an upper hand of me that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from going to a Grateful Dead concert, then I account it high time to get to the Oregon winery as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. If they but knew it, almost men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards Oregon wine with me.
There now is your insular destemmer, belted round by boxes of grapes as Indian isles by coral reefs. Right and left more grapes are being unloaded from the truck. Its extreme downtown falls through the floor, where the noble grape is received by the tank, and cooled by water which a few hours previous was far under the land. Look at the crowds of wine-gazers there.
Circumambulate the winery of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from the barrels of Arleys Leap to those of Clos Electrique, and from thence, by thePinot bianco, upstairs. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels around the winery, stand mortal men fixed in wine reveries. Some leaning against the piles (of debris); some seated upon the barrel heads; some looking over the bulwarks of the destemmer; some high aloft in the rafters, as if striving to get a still better peep. But these are all wine lovers; of week days pent up in offices and cubicles—tied to computers, nailed to swivel chairs, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the wine bottles drained? What do they here?
But look! Here come more crowds, pacing straight for the destemmer, and seemingly bound for the noble grapes within. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremist limit of the winery; loitering under the shady lee of yonder brewpubs will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the grapes in the destemmer as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of them—leagues. Winelovers all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues—north, east, south and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the Miracle of Cameron attract them thither?