Bar Ditch Winery

Growing up in the Magic Valley of Texas, there was always some type of plowing, harvesting, canning and cooking going on. We had rag dolls stuffed with cotton gleaned from the side of the road. Sunday there was fried chicken and a ritual nap on pillows stuffed with feathers  (a by-product of lunch).   In black dirt, you can grow anything, and it grows all year long.  In retrospect, I recal a grapevine outside my sister’s bedroom window. It never did any good at all. It was an annual disappointment. 

By moving to Erath County to raise a family a new world was opened for me.  First of all, I didn’t even own a coat.  Then the ground was “sandy loam”, what’s that!!!?.  My in-laws had to teach me all over on  how and what to grow.  Additionally, you had only short seasons to accomplish this.  Citrus was replaced with wild plums and brazos berries. However, one of the greatest finds for me, was wild mustang grapes.  They were everywhere and, they didn’t burn my hands when I picked them. That’s a big thing! 

My life became scheduled by chasing wild mustang grapes on an annual basis.  Maybe I should say an annual obsession which lasted 12 months out of each year.  Does this mean is was just an “obsession”?  Probably so….well anyways.  There was the picking and the processing; add bottling and making homemade labels just for the fun of it.  Still had to save enough for jelly… so, we took cutting from around the county and made a small vineyard next to the house, just to have some of our favorites close enough to keep an eye on. 1000 foot of vines was where we started. 

 

Then there is the vision board. This is what you do when you hit a certain crossroads in your life and you ponder exactly what you want to do when you grow up. It has pictures of a large vineyard and on one of the corners…three oak trees.  This was followed by : “The Phone Call”. 

My husband had been visiting with a local doctor who had put in a vineyard.  Seems that he had some vines that were not going to take his vineyard the direction he was looking for. The vines were a mustang highbred and were going to have to go.  I got a call asking how many vines I wanted.  At first I started thinking how to extend my current rows and after doing the math my answer was “I can take about 300 plants”. I stopped for a moment and looked at my vision board….What Was I Thinking!!!!.  I called back and said…I’ll take them ALL!  Now we have 12,500 foot of vineyard.  It’s almost exactly what was on the vision board including three oak trees that sit in a bunch at one corner.  Come by and I’ll show you the picture…it’s crazy 😊. 

One day I was visiting a fellow vitner.  He asked me many questions about the vineyard, and about wine making.  We found so much in common.  It was easy to see that we both had quite a passion for the wine making process. Then he said to me, “you know Shadows make the best wine.”  This statement has stuck with me and I ponder over it quite often. It’s been commented that, it takes 4 men to work 1 acre of a vineyard for the first 4 years, then one man for each 4 acres after that. “Labor intensive” can be an understatement for the care of and sustaining of a vineyard. One would expect that being in the vineyard hands on and passionately caring for it would make a real difference in the outcome of the wine itself. I believe this is a fair and accurate statement. But I believe it goes even further. It’s an understanding that sometimes you have to get out of nature’s way and having faith that the trials and triumphs that come each season are for a reason. It’s way more than just the humans in a vineyard that cast their shadows. Every drop of rain, each blade of grass, the rays of sun and the beams of the moon, the way the wind tosses and twirls each leaf; they cast their shadows leaving their mark on each vine, leaf and grape. 

Laying the wine to sleep and waking it up when you uncork a bottle casts its own type of shadow and makes the wine ultimately what it turns out to be. 

My prayer is that when you cast your own shadow on a glass of our wine that you can feel, if even just for a moment, that you are part of this vineyard.  Taste the cool of the moon and the warmth of the sun. Find the fragrance of each flower and the hint of oak from the trees that surround it.  Join in with every bird, bunny, chicken and hawk that find refuge in its branches and its fruit.  It’s all here…. all you have to do is tip your glass.

Cheers!