Not sure I have time today to write 3 pages as I’d like, and after the walks in the vineyards with Glenn, I only want to stay lost in these wine thoughts, and keep sipping wine and thinking about having my own vineyard, or label.. keep myself in wine, lost and not caring. At the Hopper base right now, in the side conference room, if that’s what you’d call it. Sipping my coffee and looking through pictures I shot on the vineyards and about the block, of the rows and the clusters I clipped and tossed into that red Home Depot bucket, one of two that we went to go quickly fetch. And honestly I don’t know what to do with all this material I’ve gathered, just from today let alone pictures from the past week or two. There so much to learn about all this; wine and the business I’ve started, running a business and media and the blend of everything. But I’m not focusing on what I need to learn but more so on what I already know. The videos I shot with Glenn talking about the grapes and the levels he wants to see with immediate respect to acid, ph, brix.. again, still learning.
Have to do a couple house-cleaning things while here, for mikemadigancrEATive.. site and 
business cards design, and marketing.. more marketing.. crEATive marketing.. I see my office, off the H-burg square, just down or up the street from Sanglier, in a spot where I be around and about everything. Watching the video where he talks about cluster sampling, and the samples’ intention, getting a snapshot of the vineyard and ripening, and with harvest coming ever closer.. so much to think about but I don’t get flustered, just fixate on the vineyard and its magic, especially that Bennett Valley spot, up there in the hills, a bit up the street from where Alice and I used to live. And there’s the proximity and the unifying quality to wine, that magic and coercion that I welcome. And my wine story intensifies, get further into my already-busied 
character. Need something to explore, something to taste, but I’ll wait till tonight, at Mom and Dad’s whatever they decide to open and I love not knowing.. maybe I’ll send them a note to open something new and unfamiliar, with some unique chord they’re aware of and that they think I should feel.
Again with the pictures. Those Pinot clusters in the bucket, looking back up at me and I wonder what they’ll turn into (well, even though I know these particulars are meant just for sampling, to get a read on the vineyard). What will the vineyard look like the night before picking? Can’t wait to be out there when the crew is, early in the morning, writing about the harvest and all the activity as I did in ’12, covering the story, and being there as the ’15 vintage is written, documented and sent to press.
(7/31/15)
