The Big Pick

International

Four years ago we pulled into Cape Girardeau, Missouri along the banks of the muddy Miss-uh-ssip. While some might recognize the sleeping city as the home to neo-conservative (read 'facist') shock jock Rush Limbaugh, the cape town will forever be etched in my mind as my first, ugly foray into poster sales.

Stepping out of our rental truck outside a Travelodge there was a mighty racket in the trees. A wild buzzing that infiltrated our ears and reverberated throughout the body. Pulling up to the counter we nervously announced we had a reservation. Not quite veterans of the poster tour circuit, Gaccess and myself approached every endeavor with child like timidity.

Seeking to brake the ice as we handed over the cold hard cash for a week in a luxrious two bed, poolside non-smoking room I asked what was making all the fuss in the tall conifers surrounding the city.

"Are those locusts making all the racket in the trees," I asked thinking back to a tamer chorus that ruminated along the banks of Lake Ontario durring humid, camp-fire lit summer nights.

"Oh, those, the cicadas. Yeah, they're pretty loud I suppose," he responded. "You get used to it after awhile.

"Right, cicadas," I echoed, using proper nomenclature the second time around. Cicadas are oft-times incorrectly called locusts, which is actually the name for the swarming phase of the short horned grasshopper.

Standing corrected I nodded in approval. Then the attendant countered in a thick, southern accent that hung heavy "But most people jus' call 'em the BIG bug."

Welcome to the South, or better yet the territory where the Mason-Dixon line becomes more of a fuzzy blur than a defined line; where counting Confederate flags and Natural Ice empties would give you a better indication of which side you were actually on. Judging from the slow drawl and arresting humidity I wagered that we were no longer among the ranks of the Union. We were in Jonny Reb's territory. We.... were... officiallly... sigh... carpetbaggers.

***

Flash forward four years, two months and a day. Around seven a.m. I pulled into the lot that seperates our home office from that of Sonoma-Cutrer, searching for a spot to park my bulky green Pontiac. Wedging it between a beat up Saturn and a Blazer I stepped out to hear a different sound altogether: a hulking Kenworth with a roaring engine that was being revved up at two second intervals. A beast of a machine, more akin to a dragon than an eighteen wheeler. Giant plumes of smoke blew out the stacks and the ground near the picking bags shook as we began to stage the pick. Not just any pick. Glenn's pick. The BIG pick at Cicada Vineyard.

Cicada pre-bud break

Cicada Vineyard, located just west of Fulton on River Road is home to an old vine, California sprawl, dry farmed Zinfandel vineyard that my boss purchased some eight years ago. Meticulously farmed and maintained, the vineyard stands out in the area among Chardonnay vineyards on the valley floor. Floored, might be the proper word to express my reaction upon first seeing the gnarly old vines post pruning and then watching the heavy crop load the vines have carried throughout the growing season.

Farming is and will ever be filled with risks, good days and bad, heartaches and jubilant harvests. There is no doubt though that a farmer must calculate his/her risks and make educated decisions. Due to heavy rains this past week and the emergence of rot on the tight bunched Zinfandel clusters, Glenn made the decision to pick on Saturday, even though sugar levels were still below the average of previous years.

Walking alongside a muddy patch of grass between the vineyard and the road I asked Glenn if he was a bit dissapointed by the result of this year's harvest. "Yeah, it's a bummer," he replied "a BIG hickey."

'A hickey, eh?' I thought to myself. No one wants to show off a hickey, but everyone wants to give one at some point in their life. Maybe it's a way to mark their territory or give an ephemeral reminder to a parting lover. Needless to say Glenn's hickey marred fruit was being picked before the botrytis could completely consume the fruit. When farming you have to roll with the punches and make educated decisions. Picking early and saving the majority of a vintage is better than loosing it all.

***

The big pick might be better characterized as the "big sloppy pick" due to a soggy topsoil that caked everything and anything. The Antonio Carraro (as seen below) chugged and fumed, sinking its tires deep in worn territory and picking bins wheels refused to turn as they were pulled behind tractors, skidding along like stubborn mules.

Halfway through the pick I could see the exhaustion in the boys eyes, their hearts yearning to haul ass while their legs heavy with mud began to fill with lactic acid.

Four crews descended like a plague of locusts upon Cicada

***

Much of my afternoon was consumed running fruit to the winery in Kenwood in the hulking International, the flatbed that chugs along at it's own pace setting off a furror among fellow motorists. Lightening the load on Dave, I hauled two truck loads of six tons to Sonoma Valley, banging gears along the way. The drive wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that you have to cut directly across Santa Rosa and a stretch of strip malls on Farmer's Lane to get from one valley to the other.

Two picks, nearly fifty tons, one routed taco truck and five hours later we wrapped up at the vineyards. The crews were dragging but I can't imagine too unhappy as they made bank and chowed down for free.

I know I was deystroyed, my knees a-painin' and my stomach upset from the grease bathed, assorted pig part Torta Cubana I picked at between trips. Apparently fried hot dogs are an integral part of the sandwich. For posterity sake I will be planning a trip to Cuba in order to verify hot dogs are indeed an ingredient in the real deal.

Time for a whiskey on the rocks.