How I Came to Live in a Barn: Part 6

Welcome to Friday and another edition of "How I Came to Live in a Barn," the series that strives to connect drinking to farming as relevantly as humanly possible.

If you're just tuning in, as a quick preface to this series, from April to December of 2010 I lived in a barn. No electricity or running water, but all the paw paws, persimmons and passion fruit you could eat. During that time I worked on a legitimately (though proudly uncertified) organic farm in Southern Kentucky. This series is about the many whims, fascinations and revelations that eventually inspired me to drop everything and go farming. Once we catch up to the present, I'll use the occasion to explain what I'm up to now, beyond the blaug. Is this preface going to appear at the beginning of the entire series? You Betcha. Ready? Wunderbar.

How I Came to Live in a Barn: The New York, Tony Coturri, and one fateful year edition

By facilitating this whole fiasco, New York City became the unsung hero of my barn life. It introduced me to the shop, that introduced me to the wines, that introduced me to the people, who introduced me to the idea that I might one day want to be a farmer. New York is quite possibly the only entity inspiring enough to inspire someone to move out of New York City. I remember when I returned there, after my adventures with Éric and Hervé, I had a theretofore inconceivable thought: in one year, I'm gonna jet.

My goal was to commence a winemaking education by April of 2010, but I would be forced to define what that meant, and how and where to go about it––New York City not really an option. Every move up until then had been a simple, semi-logical reaction to something else––like meeting winemakers because I liked their wines––whereas this decision, I feared, required actual decision making. To make it worse, there was an offensive array of options: France? California? School? Winging it? I would spend the following year chewing on numerous ideas and spitting out the unreasonable, until I eventually landed upon the one with the most resonance. But said resolution did not come easily, until I tackled all the of the existential challenges of what do I want out of this? 

I was relatively sure of two things: 1) I wanted to end up in Kentucky, my homeland, and 2) I wanted to make wine. My worries mostly fell to whether or not there would have to be concessions made to have both. Could one make good wine in Kentucky?––I feared not. Or at least that's how I felt at first, but one unexpected consequence of having to make these decisions was that I had inadvertently became obsessed with all things fermentation over that year––kombucha, kimchi, wine, cider, beer, etc.––for its social as well as medicinal attributes. I had inundated myself with nerdy wine books, leading to an obsession with microbiology––one I'll kindly spare you––but which proved to be invaluable in aiding my eventual decision. When I redefined wine, I redefined my possibilities.

An idea began growing in my head, mid-way through that year, that I could see myself simply on a farm––it didn't strictly have to be a vineyard. When we were talking to Hervé Souhaut he had said something interesting: "Wine people are almost always food people, but food people aren't necessarily wine people." Cooks aren't obliged to like wine, whereas most wine people––like myself––find the two inseparable, and I didn't really want to pursue one without the other.

Wine-making is simple––grapes, crush, ferment, right?––at least in theory. Perhaps I could teach myself, I thought, because what really intimidated me, was that I hadn't a clue about how grapes or vegetables grew, save for what I read in books. If I couldn't produce the fruit, I couldn't produce the wine. I began casually researching farms in Kentucky at the same time I was talking to winemakers in France. Food, I decided, was to remain central in my plans, no matter what I chose. Weighing the ease with which I could start my training in Kentucky (where I spoke the language and didn't require a visa) against the bureaucracy and foreignness of France––staying in the states seemed rather appealing. I remained incredulous however until one fateful night when I met biodynamic winemaker Tony Coturri in Brooklyn, and unprompted, he validated the idea.

Tony is a calm and intelligent personality, garnished with an impressive beard and an incomparable knowledge of natural winemaking. Coturri's wines of California are among some of the most pure in all the land, and I greatly respect and seek his opinion. That night, Tony suggested that he didn't think they should focus so intensely on growing grapes in the south, that it's not a grape growing climate. He added, "There's so much good fruit there––you can ferment anything," and boom. Here was one of my favorite winemakers in the world telling me that it was possible to have my cake (Kentucky) and eat it, too (fermented). That was all I needed, his words confirmed it for me. I was sold on staying in the states, on going to a farm, and teaching myself to make wine... once I learned to grow the raw materials. Now I just had to choose a farm, but luckily I had one in mind; one in Kentucky; one I'd been eying with more than just passing curiosity. So the next day, my correspondences with France stopped and I printed the application, filled it out and sent it off. A few days later, I got a call from the farmer, and next week, we'll conclude the series with a trip to Bugtussle and the glass of wine that changed it all.

Until next week, friends, cheers.