The Summer Wine

 

August on the Central Coast is as it should be: Summer in full swing. Nature seems aware of it, and people too. Migratory species are passing through Cayucos, from the tourists who throng the beaches (and, frankly, why shouldn’t they?) and struggle to cram their vehicles into already-full car parks by the Veterans’ Hall downtown, to the hummingbirds (right) who are feeding from the bottle-brush tree above me as I write. Out of curiosity, I did a bit of research and found that this particular species is known as the black-chinned hummingbird. I personally think this is a rubbish name. For one thing, they have no discernable chin, black or otherwise. The link I posted here seems to be a bit sniffy about them too, calling them “the least colorful of US hummers.” I think this is down to bad P.R. and if I was a prominent bird in the black-chinned hummingbird community I would think seriously about hiring a new manager to turn thing’s around. Someone with a proven media record and some industry savvy. Perhaps Oprah would consider it; she’s bound to have spare time on her hands now her show’s finished. I wouldn’t be surprised if she could get them on a stamp by the end of 2012.

Also spending August round Cayucos have been migrating Fin Whales. Chasing shoals of krill northwards as the water warms, we watched them for half an hour as they swam a couple of hundred yards offshore. For those of you unfamiliar with whale-watching, the best way of spotting whales in a whale-rich environment is to scan the horizon rather than the water. What you are watching for is the tell-tale “blow”; the column of water and whale snot expelled at high velocity as the whale exhales. This, visible for several seconds, is far easier to spot than the whale itself, which can usually only be seen for a fraction of that time. Having seen the whale breathe, you know where to watch.

We are now, at the beginning of August, just over halfway between Independence Day and Labor Day, the two public holidays which book-end the American Summer. In England, the cricket season is at its height (England having just completely crushed India) and the football season has just started.  As a kid, I always thought it was great that the season began in mid-August because it gave the season a little time to take shape a bit before we all went back to school at the beginning of September, and it was possible to drag some of the Summer with you into school, in the form of conversations about player transfers and the three or four games which you’d not yet had the opportunity to discuss at school.

This weekend the Perseid meteors passed through the atmosphere but were largely obscured by the quite spectacular harvest moon which coincided this year. It being that weekend, it was time for the quarterly wine pick-up at Rotta Winery in Templeton.

Stace and I first went to Rotta two years ago on the recommendation of Stacey’s sister Thea. The Paso Robles AVA (American Viticultural Area) is located just over the hills East of Cayucos. Paso Robles, you will recall, is the town which hosted the California Mid-State Fair at the end of last month. It was once home to outlaw Jesse James and the Polish pianist (and later diplomat and founding father) Jan Paderewski, the latter planting Zinfandel grapes which were subsequently turned into wine for him by York Mountain Winery. Padarewski’s were not the first grapes planted in Paso, nor were they the last. Wineries are now a significant element in the local landscape, culture and economy. We visited York Mountain in 2009 and found it a shadow of what it was once reputed to be. That was before it was bought out, the next year, by Epoch Wines- owners of the vineyard planted by, yes, Jan Paderewski.

All wine-tastings are not created equal. We once went into one very grand-looking winery a little way further than York Mountain; a stately-looking building with substantial adobe walls and Tuscan Cypresses planted outside. Snooty people in aprons patronised and overcharged us for the privilege of trying their acceptable-but-overpriced wine. It was distinctly off-putting. We left them with their silly trees and their silly aprons and their silly prices and went in search of a more fulfilling experience.

Above: The Paso Robles American Viticultural Area. Clicking on map opens link.

When we moved on from Snooty Valley Vineyard (or whatever it was called) we acted on Thea’s recommendation, and went to Rotta Wineries, near Templeton. The winery has been owned by the Rotta family for over a century, the original vines having been planted by a Frenchman in the 1850s. Rotta, for those who don’t know, is pronounced to rhyme with “voter”. It was Easter Sunday, and a family was seated on the patio, clearly having a good time.

Inside, the tasting bordered on cabaret. To the accompaniment of first-class banter we tried about ten wines, and bought a couple of bottles; one was a present for my dad. The lady conducting the tasting said she could get the owner of the winery to sign the bottle. A moment later the man who a few minutes previously had been enjoying his Easter Sunday lunch with his family walked in, having signed the bottle I’d just bought. “I hope you know,” he said “this is gonna decrease the value of the bottle by around 50%.” Surrounded by his family and his customers, Michael Giubbini, the owner and operator of Rotta Winery, was spending Easter in the vineyard which had belonged to his grandfather and great-uncle, Joe and Clement Rotta. It’s that sort of place. He said he’d worked in the vineyards as a kid, had loved it, and he had hopes his daughters would continue the family business.

Paso Robles is well-known for its Zinfandel grapes. It’s a traditional Californian varietal, genetically identical to the Sicilian Primitivo grape. In a state which grows over a hundred different varietals, Zinfandel is grown in more than 10% of vineyards. Paso has its own Zinfandel festival, held the third weekend in March every year. During Prohibition, Californian wine producers started producing bricks of grape concentrate which would enable consumers to illicitly make wine at home. The packaging would include warnings like “After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty days, because then it would turn into wine.” The acreage of Californian vineyards increased by 700% in the first five years of prohibition. The staff at Rotta, a firm proud of its Italian-American heritage, told me the vineyard had survived Prohibition by supplying the church with sacramental wine.

Rotta “dry farms” its Zinfandel in the Templeton vineyard. Basically, they do not irrigate the vineyards, which forces the vines to grow deep roots in search of water. This makes for small yields, and intense character, according to the marketing.

Since that first visit, I’ve been there three more times and Stace has been back a couple of times more than that. The winery has character; the staff are actually very knowledgeable about their product, rather than college students earning a bit of pocket money. The wine is good value for money. When I say this, the following should be borne in mind. The price lists at the Central Coast wineries I’ve visited generally start at about $18-20 a bottle and work their way up. I say this as someone who usually buys wine at the supermarket and rarely spends more than $10.

Sometimes, unfortunately, the wine you buy at wineries is not always better than the wine you buy at supermarkets pound-for-pound; this is especially true of the bottom end of the wineries’ price list. It’s quite often the atmosphere that sells wine to the wineries’ visitors. Vineyards are scenic and are usually in places where the sun can be depended upon to shine. Add to that a drop of alcohol and an enthusiastic pitch and people who have set out to buy the product in the first place and what you have is a sales opportunity. One thing to remember when wine tasting is: all grapes grow in vineyards. All wine is made in wineries. Some of those wineries are out to sell wine to visitors.

So, what you have to ask yourself is not “Is this great wine?” (because at that point in time, the answer will almost certainly be yes) but “Is this wine worth the asking price?” And I can honestly say that the wine at Rotta is worth it. I have tasted better wine, it’s true, but usually on occasions when somebody else was paying for it. And I have definitely been in situations where people have asked for more money in exchange for worse wine. A $20 bottle of Rotta wine is, in fact, twice as good as a $10 supermarket bottle, and that’s not always the case at wineries.

Membership of the various wineries’ wine clubs vary in what they offer; this is a selection of a few.

Winery	Price	For:
Rotta Winery	$32/qtr..	2 bottles of wine, 10% off purchases; free tastings, “Rotta Run” pick-up parties.
EOS Estate	$45-$55 qtr..	2 bottles of wine, 20% wine discount, membership benefits at sister wineries, opportunity to rent on-site vacation condo.
Wolff Vineyards	$35/qtr..	2 bottles of wine, 20% off purchases; free tastings, invitations to events.
Opolo Vineyards	Free (with minimum purchase)	Minimum 4 bottles of wine at 15% discount; free tastings, private tours.
Tobin James Cellars	$155, twice yearly	Eight bottles of wine, 15-20% discount on wine purchases, special gift in each shipment, invitations to special events.

The above wineries are from the 170-odd wineries in the Paso Robles  AVA, with the notable exception of Wolff Vineyards, whose crisp white wines are produced just south of San Luis Obispo in the Edna Valley AVA. I mention them because not only are their wines very good but they are ecologically sound producers, who have a turtle sanctuary at their vineyard. If you can’t approve of a turtle sanctuary you just aren’t having enough fun.

As you can see, Rotta’s wine club is comparable to many others. Not knowing quite what to expect when we turned up, we found a fairly diverse group of socially lubricated individuals enjoying themselves on the patio where, two and a half years ago, Michael Giubbini had been enjoying his Easter Sunday with the family. While winery staff took club members and visitors through the now-familiar list of wines, including their award-winning port- and sherry-style dessert wines, there were others serving snacks to complement the wine, and others still making sure customers collected the wine they’d already paid for.

We tried Cabernet Franc with grilled steak and a 2006 Merlot that went well with blue cheese. We sat on the patio with everyone else. It was so far removed from how I imagined the events at Snooty Valley Vineyard would be. Although there were cocktail dresses and Panama hats in evidence, there was an equal if not greater number of people in jeans and polo shirts. Everyone was eating, drinking and being merry, listening to the live music.

A bold young lady who appeared to be about nine or so was playing her part in the afternoon. She had enlisted the help of a shyer, younger girl who could well have been her sister. The younger of the two was carrying a plate. “It’s cream cheese, and the jelly’s made from the Black Monukka dessert wine.” said Big Sister. I tried some, and as Stace and I smiled at the unabashed confidence of this little lass who was pronouncing words bigger than she was, we reflected on the likelihood that these were the daughters, whose great-grandfather Clement Rotta had bought the vineyard from his brother Joe, who had bought it from the Frenchman who had first planted vines here a hundred and sixty years ago. It’s not just the vines which have deep roots in Templeton.

A million bucks.

 

Like so many things I’ve seen and done since coming to America, going to a rodeo is a a life experience. It’s one of those events whose scenes are familiar to people who’ve never been within 6,000 miles of one, and therefore, one which has the potential to surprise an outsider. I can’t even recall why I’m familiar with the images of rodeo. I can’t remember seeing one in a film or anything. It must just be one of those things which pops up from time to time, but I can’t for the life of me think where. So, as a newcomer to the culture of the American west, it was more than handy to have Dustin and Kimberley along with, who- unlike me- know one end of a horse from the other.

 The California Mid-State Fair, which came to an end yesterday, almost has to be seen to be believed by anyone who isn’t familiar with such things. You find yourself asking if there’s not something more than a bit strange when Kid Rock, Maroon 5 and Lady Antebellum perform at an event which awards prizes for the best jar of pickled eggs. But this is the United States. Where else, one asks, is chocolate-covered bacon available? Where else would otherwise-sane members of the community take a perfectly good  corn-dog, dip it in chocolate and cover it with sprinkles?

Actually, it appears I’ve been pronouncing the name of the country wrongly all this time. If I heard him correctly, the announcer at the rodeo finals, held on the last Saturday of the fair, pronounced it

“Theee HyooNaaaaaahded States

hawwwve

Ha-Ma-Rah-Kuh”

And if you don’t say it with a tearfully reverential wobble in the back of the throat you aren’t doing it correctly. He was, I have to say, very psyched up, and he was enjoying himself. But nobody talks like that. Not even people I met at the airport in Atlanta (the ones who pronounce the word “Order” with three syllables) talked like that.

At first glance, the rodeo was shaping up to be exactly what I’d been afraid it might turn out to be. There was a slightly worrying superabundance of cowboy hats. Which was only to be expected, I suppose; nothing wrong with that. And then they had the national anthem, which is a normal part of public events here, and there’s nothing much wrong with that either- the singer was good and she remembered the words, which is more than some others manage.

But they started playing the sort of country-rock music which barely manages to stop short of saying that failing to be an American is pretty much the worst sin someone can commit in the eyes of God, that if you aren’t an American you’ve got it coming good and hard, and that if you are an American, you’d better be as durned good an American as the singer is, and that’s a pretty high bar to clear because as far as he was concerned anyone from east of Dallas or north of St. Louis was no better than a Canadian or a communist. It’s strange to hear modern patriotic music. This is probably because most British patriotic music was written in the days of the Empire. It’s entirely probable that American visitors to Britain a hundred years ago found Land of Hope and Glory equally odd, and no wonder.

The reason they were playing the record was because a sky-diver was descending upon the arena, bringing with him a truly massive flag- “Old Glory”, as the announcer put it, using no fewer than 6 syllables to do so. It being Armed Forces Day at the fair, a squad of US servicemen were on hand to catch the flag before it touched the ground. The skydiver, the flag and the soldiers and marines all came together in an instant; disparate elements which started out eighty yards apart and yet were all where they had to be, exactly at the right moment and not half a second before. At this point, a corner was turned; the spectacle had begun. It was no longer just weird foreign pageantry; it was a real show.

The events started soon afterwards. You know, I assume, that rodeo events are based on the skills used in cattle ranching. Before about 1880, cattle were grazed on the “open range”; that is to say, allowed to wander over hill and dale in a landscape without fences, for most of the year. In the springtime they would be rounded up so that young calves could be branded and so mature animals could be sorted out for sale. Because the cattle were allowed to roam more or less freely, and because they are by nature herd animals, it would take skilled work by mounted ranch-hands to sort out one owner’s cattle from another’s. Not only did a cowboy have to persuade a cow to do what he wanted it to do, and go where he wanted to put it, the tool he had to use in accomplishing this task is a horse. In short, he or she had to have both the knowledge and the skills.

The techniques used in sorting out cattle (known as “cutting”) and roping individual steers, as well as horsemanship skills were showcased at the rodeo we were watching.We watched teams of three riders separate three steers from a herd of thirty, according to the number the judges called, and drive them into a pen without getting any incorrectly-numbered cows mixed in.

I apologise; I’ve just re-read that paragraph and it sounds about as exciting as watching tortoises play chess. This happens fast. I mean, really fast. It’s a race. The winning time was just over forty seconds, for a team of three to get about a ton of prime brisket from the safety of the herd into the corral fifty yards away .
“You having fun?” Dustin asked. Damn right I was. It’s always pleasant to see something done well, when you can’t do it at all, but this was fast, and it was real. No artificial aids; no computers. It was people, horses and cattle.

We saw barrel racing. Competitors- this was an all-female event- have to take their horses around three barrels. The horses have to be agile and they move like greased lightning. The dirt from the arena floor sprayed up in waves from the hooves. This is a high-octane event; the horses best known for competing in barrel races are of the American Quarter breed, which have been known to reach speeds off 55mph over short distances.

Between events we were treated to a performance by Tomas Garcilazo.  Garcilazo is probably the best in the world at what he does, and what he does is known as la Charreria. Without going too far off the point, he and his friends, as his horses are known in the literature, perform manoevres similar to dressage, incorporating skillful use of the rope. He has performed for presidents of Mexico and the United States, on Broadway and for the Disney, Will Rogers and Buffalo Bill Wild West tours in Europe. It was one of those acts which probably had to be seen to be appreciated; it was like ballet. They guy was throwing a rope in a loop so big his horse could walk through it with him on her back.

This brings me onto my final point here, which is to do with the relationship between all of the people and all of the animals involved. We saw horses ridden hard and we saw steers roped when they most certainly did not want to be. The most spectacular and dangerous events in the rodeo involved determined men trying to stay on top of bulls and horses who were equally determined that the men should be spending the rest of the evening flat on their backs in the dirt. It has been called “the most dangerous eight seconds in sport”; and I think calling it eight seconds is giving the cowboys the best of it. Rodeos have been fairly criticised in the past for endangering the welfare of the animals through some of the methods they have used.

For example, my mother, who has a keen interest in animal rights, had heard that they tied the bull’s nads together to make them buck and said it was cruel. I agree; it would be, but I have the opportunity to reassure her on three counts:

1) You could see that they weren’t tied. They were swinging around back there like a couple of grapefruit in a towel. There was something called a flank strap. This consists of a length of rope loosely  tied around the bulls’ abdomen. This was not tightly fastened; it has to flop around to annoy the bull into trying to shake it off.

2) Both the bulls and the broncos are valuable stock animals; applying undue pressure to sensitive areas is not in the interests of the animals’ owners, if they want to be able to breed from them in years to come.

3) Speaking from a masculine perspective, if I thought anyone had a tighter-than-appropriate grip on the Potts family jewels, top of my List Of Things Not To Do Next would be “Thrash around violently.”

In any case, although I saw animals treated in uncompromising ways, possibly even roughly, it was no rougher than the way animals treat each other; I would guess it was no different to watching a dog herd sheep. All of the animals walked away, which is more than you can say for the Grand National meeting, where horse fatalities average 3 per year according to researchers at Anglia Ruskin University. I’m not saying rodeo is safer for animals than horse racing; it probably isn’t. What I am saying is that I didn’t see animals in distress. I didn’t see animals abused. There’s no doubt that the broncos and the bulls were less than happy to have a guy on their back, but they were given free rein to express their displeasure and they made sure he didn’t stay there too long. The cowboys would have ached a bit the day afterwards; the bulls, not so much.

Which brings me back to what I was saying about Tomas Garcilazo, whose friends will do all he asks of them. Walk backwards, kneel down, roll over, bow, curtsey, step through a spinning rope. What we saw on Saturday night was an old-fashioned thing, perhaps a little out of time. Cowboys don’t drive herds to Abilene any more, and the skills are more to show what can be done, rather than what is routinely done.

It’s not entirely nice. It does appeal to our base instincts, a lust for speed and a will to win, which doesn’t always bring out the best in us. Perhaps if rodeo didn’t already exist today, we wouldn’t take the trouble to invent it. But it would be utterly impossible for it ever to have existed without the humans’ affinity with the animals who make the show. Enjoy the photos:

California Mid-State Fair Rodeo Finals VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL