So I
have a confession. I love wine. You know that. But more than I love sipping
wine, I love sipping the winemakers. I love reading about the adventures of
those who dare trade their nine-to-five gigs for the long shot, the jagged
dream of making money as grape juice hustlers. These aren’t descendants of
centuries-old wine families. They are everyday people who stumbled into a
bottle that inspired them in the same way that music inspired Aretha and poetry
inspired Plath. Helen Turley is the winemaker behind labels like Marcassin,
Bryant, Colgin and Peter Michael. Wine Spectator Senior Editor—James Laube
wrote in a 2010 article that Turley is a
native of Augusta, Ga., where she grew up Southern Baptist raised on a diet of
fried chicken and meatloaf. Not exactly a foie gras-Sauternes background,
is it? In 1968, Turley and her man drove
a VW bus cross-country, hippie-style, ending in California. It was a 1980 Sea
Ridge Pinot Noir that changed her life. Mac McDonald came from a family of
Texas moonshine makers. Laube wrote in a 2004 Wine Spectator article that MacDonald’s mother, Elbessie, along with her
brother and sister, made sweet wine from apples and cherries. But that didn't
pique Mac's interest. It was a 1952 red Burgundy that changed his life. When he
was a teen, a group of doctors hired his father to take them hunting, and one
guest left Mac with that '52 Burgundy. About eight years ago I met the
Michael Duncan look-alike in downtown Brooklyn where he rose from the Lafayette
Avenue subway stop wearing overalls and a straw hat. I got goosebumps when he
explained that he aged his Pinot in Hungarian oak. Are your dreams aging? I
know sometimes it feels like mine are. Afraid to take that long shot? Maybe
it’s not that long. But are we willing to do the work, pick the grapes and see
what ends up in the bottle?
