Two years ago this month, I packed five friends, one a talented photographer, into the tour van for a trip out to the Applegate Valley. I had been building the vision and infrastructure for Latitude for six months, and it was time for the next big step: capturing the feel of the wine tour experience in a photo shoot. With some real photo assets, the website could go live, and all of my work bringing this business to life would be out in the open and ready for people to experience.
Initially, I was a bit frustrated with how the timing worked out: my first real assets would showcase the foggy, bare vineyards of the fall, when I figured my peak season would be during the summertime. But even after two years have passed and I’ve gotten more content during our sunny busy season, I come back to these first photos over and over again.
Because this slower time of year, or cellar season, is my very favorite time to visit wine country.
I’ve been visiting wineries for much of my life, long before I could indulge in the wine. Every Black Friday, rather than hunting for deals in department stores, my family would pack into the van and visit Apple Hill to hunt for a Christmas tree. Afterward, my parents would warm up in the Lava Cap tasting room, my mom with a flight and my dad the responsible DD, as my brother and I ran around in the bare vineyard. I would learn many years later that I was playing in the Sierra Foothills AVA, a distinct and historic region home to iconic Italian varieties originally brought over by industrious and hopeful immigrants during the Gold Rush. I didn’t know at the time, snacking on water crackers judiciously metered out by my mom, that a sniff of these wines would bring me back to these moments for decades to come.
As I got older, I started appreciating vineyards as something more than a playground. I moved to Southern California for college, got my degree in engineering, and was in charge of picking out the wine at fancy client dinners. Living in LA, I was far, far from the scenic beauty of the Sierra Foothills, and visiting wine country when I saw my parents during the holidays always felt like a form of homecoming. I’d feel a squeezing around my heart leaving them behind every time, but I would assure myself, once I retired, I would pour wine in a tasting room and never be far from a vineyard ever again.
In October of 2020, my now-husband found a beautiful home in Southern Oregon. I came up to visit and felt that same homecoming in the foggy, bare, rolling vineyards of the Rogue Valley. I moved up shortly after and, at the encouragement of my ever-supportive husband, started working in a local tasting room. I learned how to decant a precious aged bottle, how to “slurp” my wine without spraying onlookers, and how to deftly explain how orange wine is, in fact, not made from oranges. I earned my WSET 3 with Merit and came to understand the wide world of wine (as much as one person can) and our place in it. I started my own wine tour business so I could share that story and understanding with others, while showing them one of the most beautiful regions on Earth.
During cellar season, the calm after harvest where the wines are finishing fermentation and resting in their vessels, the earth takes a deep breath in. Vines and trees drop their leaves, and animals prepare to hunker down. Grape sugars are consumed by yeast, producing CO2, alcohol, and heat. But this process too, after a couple weeks, slows and then stops.
So in this season, I wanted to share my own reflection, as I watch our vineyards yawn and ready for sleep, as I bundle up to watch the fog rolling through the vineyard, as my breath creates its own fog in the glass and in the air. I can reflect on the many cellar seasons that have brought me to this moment, and how lucky I am to share wine country with people near and far. And how lucky I am to never be far from a vineyard ever again.
