October 3, 2001
Appreciate What You Have LocallyToday is my Aunt Frances's birthday. On 911 we talked on the phone. She was around for Pearl Harbor; I wasn't. That morning we talked about the catastrophic events of our lives. Three that struck us both were Pearl Harbor, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the horrific act of terrorism on our soil September 11, 2001.
As the world changed with the sudden and deliberate attack on Pearl Harbor and World War II, the world has again changed-and changed drastically-with the horrific act of terror on our soil September 11. Sadly, even if we win this war, we have lost. Today as I write this column I'm thinking of the new Cabinet position, Office of Homeland Security. Who would have thought? Offices of homeland security belong in the Third World, not the United States of America! The thought of a military force with orders to use F-16s to shoot down passenger planes-this is not our land!
Terror from biological weapons or chemical weapons is now a reality. And the frightening thought is that they might be an inevitability!
We can no longer make assumptions. What worked before 911 doesn't work now.
I believe we have to eat local, think local and drink local. Look around in your own backyard! We should cherish and appreciate what we have-both big things and little things. They (or we) might not be around tomorrow.
Harvest 2001
I spoke to Kevin Merrill, President of the Central Coast Wine Growers association, to get his take on this harvest. He told me it got off to a slow start because of the weather, but that "summer's finally kicked in." On a countywide basis, the quality looks great, he said.
Kevin added, we "dodged the bullet" with the hurricane off of Baja, and got no rain. Rain, of course, in any real measurable amount could spell disaster, like the year of the El Nino back in 1983!
The fog we got before the hot spell kept temperatures cooler. This has given the fruit longer hang time, especially here in Los Alamos, the Santa Maria Valley and the Tepusquet Bench.
Right now, though, because of the recent hot spell, wineries are picking and crushing 24 hours a day-"everything's coming in at once," Kevin told me. In the words of the late Joe Heitz, "Mother Nature can be a mean old lady."
Bob Lindquist of Qupe told me, "Even though winemakers always say every vintage is great, this one-2001-truly is. It is, because the weather has been ideal. Notwithstanding the current heat wave we've had, which accelerated the ripening of varietals which were on the verge of ripeness anyway, we had very good weather during flowering and set [in May and June], and the hottest June that I can ever remember. But then July was very cool which helped hold the acidity in the grapes. August was pretty much ideal-warm days, cool nights, allowing even veraision and ripening. It looked like it would be a fairly early vintage, but then September cooled back down, once again holding the acidity in the grapes, and allowing them to ripen slowly and evenly. About a week ago, we were saying we needed one of those Indian Summers, and sure enough, a few days ago, it came along."
A great vintage for 2001! We need to read some good news right about now.
Only in Santa Barbara . . .
. . . Would the nutcase Downtown Organization take American Flags down on State Street! Of course, the more sensible patriotic citizenry protested, and the flags were put back up!
Salud!
Bob Senn lives in the Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.
