Page 129 of Before We Say Goodbye
“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 inThe New York Timesdid 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 withan 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 movieSidewayswhen 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 evenclaimed 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 seeSidewaysyet?”
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 Château Cheval Blanc, most of the juice isactuallymerlot. 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?”
