Page 60 of Red Mountain Burning
The White Knight of June
The heat of June came racing to Red Mountain like an angry bull breaking free of a pen. As the temperatures skyrocketed, everyone suspected it would be one of the hottest years on record.
Emilia visited her vines five or six times a day, studying the minute changes in her little microclimate. Brooks had told her that the best fertilizer was a farmer’s footsteps, meaning a great farmer spent abundant time walking his crops, watching for changes in the soil, the leaves, and the irrigation. That idea had resonated deep within Emilia, as if farming were rooted far back in her genes.
The appeal of wine hit her from every angle. She loved the idea of capturing “a year in the life,” as Brooks had said. She imagined how many other families across the world were similar to hers, living among the vines, working the land, coming together in celebration at the end of each harvest.
There was a sophistication that was also terribly attractive. Some people could study farming and wine their entire lives and never truly grasp it. Though some snobs could get annoying and pretentious when it came to wine, she loved the men and women she’d met over the years who’d become a part of the wine tribe, people who’d also been bitten by the bug, who’d sought out wine regions like Red Mountain to experience the differentterroirs. Emilia had suddenly wanted to become one of them. She wanted to go back to Europe immediately and visit all the great wine regions, to understand the different methods, and perhaps to even bring some of their techniques home.
She felt kind of sorry for having spent all of the previous summer in Europe without visiting evenonewine region. That young girl seemed so far away from who she was now, a young woman craving the intellectual stimulation that the wine life offered. Having her own babies heightened her feeling of belonging.
Emilia was waking before her dad in the mornings, which was clearly blowing his mind. She’d barely take time to eat a protein bar before she was out the door, running up the hill to her little vineyard block. There were never any monumental changes, but she felt she needed to be there, to be on the lookout for threats.
She loved seeing how the leaves reacted to the sun and how the vines changed during the watering days. Most of all, she loved sitting on the ground in between the rows, listening to the sounds of the desert, imagining that she, herself, was a vine.
After more pruning lessons from Brooks, she’d gone in with her clippers to make sure there were no more than two buds per spur and that the canopies weren’t too thick.
When she had questions, she’d rush to Brooks. “I feel like I’m watering too much. Will you come take a look?” Or, “Some of my leaves are being eaten up. What do you think? Leafhoppers?”
Back in the cellar and in the lab, she couldn’t get enough of the wine talk. Discussions about the coming vintage were more interesting than any Red Mountain gossip. The arguments over American versus French oak, or even Hungarian, or which white variety was best suited for the mountain, or who was growing the best wines in eastern Washington—all were ear candy to Emilia.
When she wasn’t working her vines or soaking up knowledge from everyone at Lacoda, she read books by wine geeks like Kermit Lynch, Kevin Zraly, Karen MacNeil, Alice Feiring, and Lawrence Osborne, and the content was much more interesting than anything she’d studied in school.
It was the magic of growing vines and the chemistry of fermentation and the concept of vine-to-bottle that enraptured her. How had she been living here for so long among the vines and not noticed the beauty? It was almost like someone had recently yanked a covering off the mountain, revealing its wonders.
One day during lunch, she took Jasper to her vines, excitedly tugging him by the hand. “Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked.
“These are your babies, huh?”
“Twenty rows of syrah. Brooks is letting me do whatever I want with them. And I basically get to make the wine—” She stopped.
Jasper had put on the smile he used when he wasn’t entirely happy.
“What is it?” she asked.
He took her hand. “You’re not going back to school, are you?”
Emilia frowned, imagining how difficult it would be to let him go back without her. They were a foot away from each other, standing among her vines, and she loved him so much and hated the idea of saying goodbye. But she wasn’t sure she had a choice.
“I keep thinking about this place as my legacy,” Emilia said. “I know my mom wants me to go back to college and do something else, but what if my future is supposed to be here?” She wanted to tell him about Angeline but held back. It wasn’t her place.
“What does your dad say?”
“You probably know better than I do,” Emilia said.
“Are you kidding me? I try not to bring you up when we’re playing. It still feels weird.”
Emilia shrugged. “I haven’t officially brought it up with him, but I know he’s happy for me. I just wish my mom would back off. If it’s not her worrying about me drinking, it’s her going on endlessly about how I need to see the world. I backpacked Europe, and I’ve lived in Seattle and Manhattan. At some point, we all have to decide what we want to do for a living.” She looked at her vines. “I could see myself here.” And then, “If only I could talk you into staying.”
Jasper put his hand on her waist. “You know I have to go back.”
Emilia leaned into him, pressing her cheek against his. “I know.”
“But as far as you and I are concerned, I’m not going anywhere. I don’t care how far away we are from each other.”
“I feel the same way,” Emilia admitted. She shrugged. “Maybe I’m being stupid. What if I mess up by dropping out of NYU?”
“You have to go with your heart. College will always be there if you ever want to finish.”
