The Winery
By
Skully
11/12/2006 8:00 AM


I have some property that is adjacent to a wonderful place, a winery of some repute in the hills of my beloved West Virginia. The wines made by the cellar master are competitive in taste and texture with expensive wines costing two or three times what these sell for even at retail. There are only grape wines, high quality grapes crafted into bottled bliss.

Some at this point would shout, “Real men don’t drink wine!” Actually real men have been making and drinking wine longer than beer or distilled spirits. Wine was first because it can make itself right on the vine if you leave the grapes on the vine long enough. What should really be the rule is “Friends don’t let friends drink white zinfandel…especially men”.

One of the things that I love about the winery is that it is not a “fu-fu, nose-in-the-air, unisex playground for yuppies, the place is actually perdy-damn manly, kinda like the folks at the Merietta winery out in California, they make great wines and still have time to go hunting. I start all my hunts at the winery, it’s a great place to gather your thoughts before heading down over the hill and a great place to end the day with a glass or three of good wine before heading home.

The winery kitchen is also very alluring. Aside from the delights of the pallet that are often created by those who frequent the winery, there is comfort and relaxation in the air. The fireplace is made from stone and is large enough to house the front of a small car. A storm-drain grate is the burner and can accommodate six or eight logs three feet in length if you can stand the heat. The ceiling is adorned with a full coating of old wine corks from all of the state wineries as well as a good selection from other small and large ones that grace the world. The cellar has plenty of oak barrels aging quantities of hand crafted wines and large stainless steel vats where hundreds of gallons of wine await the right time to either go into the barrel for aging or into the bottle for enjoyment. I have been fortunate to have this Eden to escape to in the midst of all of the daily cares of work and world. In all of the hundreds if not thousands of times I have been there I cannot recall ever feeling any stress, any burden. There have been many places that I have considered to be sanctuary but this place tops them all.

Well the wife and I are headed out to a nice breakfast somewhere; I’d better get going.