For Thanksgiving, my sister drove up from her job in California as a harvest intern at Donelan Winery. And she brought with her a case of some very fancy wine. Betsy and I like the fine things in life just as much as the next guy, but perhaps not quite as much as the guy who spends $240+ on a bottle of wine. Suffice it to say, A’s wine laden visit was a delightful taste of how the other .9% live and what the .00000001% (I’m sure this is close to the approximate number wine makers expressed as a percentage of total world population) think and do as they create their work: perfectly balanced wine.
I couldn’t begin to recall specifics, but it was eye opening to hear about grape selection, microbe identification, single origins, fermentations, cork testing, blending trials, and more. To understand that beautiful things which appear on our tables don’t just happen because someone wished they would, but because a lot of skill, hard work, and time were spent increases the value of these beautiful things.
And I think this is one reason that this whole handmade revolution has taken root so fervently. There are notes of fair trade, rarity, and shop local sentiments that power it, too, but I think people like knowing that something which started as a field of dirt and buried seeds goes through a process to become something in their glass. Or, for instance, that something which began as a coil of wire, a strand of heishe beads, and part of an old drawer could be imagined and worked into something wearable.
Here’s to handmade this Holiday season. Here’s to enjoying the beauty as much as the process it took to make it.
***Song of the Moment: Impossible Soul, by Sufjan Stevens***
