Page 49 of Red Mountain Burning
Mountain Women
“Ah, there she is,” Brooks said, raising his eyes from his computer. “Ready for your first day, my apprentice?”
“Totally.” Emilia looked so much more like her father today for some reason. Maybe it was the look of hunger and eagerness in her eyes. Brooks liked to see that in Emilia. The more Jake she had in her, the better.
He pressed up out of his chair and smacked and rubbed his hands together. “I thought we’d start where it all begins.”
“Where’s that?” she asked.
“In the vineyard, of course.”
Brooks led Emilia down the stairs, out the back door, and up the hill. As the morning sun sprayed rays of light through the clouds, he was reminded of his walks with Otis years ago. His mentor had given Brooks a reason for living, literally dragging him off the streets of New York, flying him to Washington State, and teaching him everything he could about raising vines. The grapefather had lit a fire inside Brooks that continued to rage inside, this desperate need to grow wine and capture the essence of a place and time in a bottle. Never before his first year on Red Mountain had he felt so alive and full of purpose. Could Brooks pass along that same passion and knowledge? He sure hoped so. Was Emilia even that interested? He’d find out soon enough.
They stopped halfway to Sunset Road, and Brooks explained that the rose bushes at the end of each row were used as early indicators of irrigation or pest problems. They used red and white roses to mark the color of the grapes down each row.
Wandering down a row of very healthy-looking syrah vines, he stopped and pointed. “The trunk rises up into these two cordons that run along the wire.” He pulled his clippers from their holster and made several cuts. “They were a little lazy here, but we want one cane per fist-length, and then two buds per cane. That’s how we get the perfect yield and concentration.”
Moving on, Brooks wondered if she would notice why he’d chosen this particular row.
Halfway through, she stopped and pointed to the gnarly vine he’d come to know well. Its trunk and cordons were twice the thickness of the others, and its canopy had already developed fully.
“Why is that one so much bigger than the others?” Emilia asked. “Looks like you’re feeding it steroids.”
Brooks was delighted and impressed. “She’s why we’re here. Your dad named her Angeline.”
“After my grandmother?” Emilia asked.
Brooks nodded as he felt the energy of Angeline rise up through his feet. “She’s become the heartbeat of this vineyard. We can’t explain why, but all the other vines grow in her direction. We can train them anyway we like, but they’ll bend and eventually grow toward her, almost like she’s drawing them in. And she grows the way she wants to, no matter how we prune her.”
Emilia’s look alone answered the question of whether she’d find all this interesting. “Why did my dad never tell me?”
“Maybe he didn’t think you were ready.”
“This is one of the vineyard blocks that was here before us, right?
“Yeah,” Brooks said, “this block is one of the oldest on Red Mountain.”
He bent down and took a handful of Red Mountain dust near the trunk of Angeline. As Otis had done for him, he said, “Open your hand.”
Brooks slowly dropped the dust onto her palm and fingers, and some of it collected in the air like ashes. “We have one objective, and that’s to capture the truth of this place. The air. The soil. The wind. The rain. The year. The people. The culture. We can’t explain it, but it all intersects here with Angeline. She’s the keystone.” He pointed to the ground. “Take a knee.”
Emilia knelt in the dust.
“Close your eyes and touch her trunk.”
Emilia looked at him like he was crazy.
“I’m serious. Get to know her, and Angeline will make you believe in a higher power.”
She reached out and placed Emilia’s fingers on Angeline’s trunk, a foot above the earth.
“There’s something special here,” Brooks said reverently. “Your vineyard is holy land. We think this spot is the source.”
She looked at him. “Really?”
“None of us can explain it, but an energy resides here. Almost like someone was buried here a long time ago. You feel it?”
“Yeah, I feel something very powerful.”
