A Visit from Home

A very long time ago, in grade school back in my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, I played on the school soccer team for a couple of years with my buddy Chris. We both lived a very long way out in the county (and at that time, country) and were destined the following year (tenth grade) to attend Albemarle County High School, located on the outskirts of town, a 45-minute bus ride for me.

The student population was overflowing the high school, so the County built a new school much closer to Chris' house than to mine. The County then had to divide the students between the two schools. Chris was a lock-in to attend the new Western Albemarle High School. My situation was up in the air for some months: the dividing line would be right next to my house, one side or the other. Ultimately, the County decided that I would stay at the old high school. 

Had I lived another couple hundred yards down my country road, Chris and I would be be both headed for the new school. But fate would not have it so. The issue quickly became moot however, because at the end of my ninth grade year, just before the high school split, my father took a job in Alabama. Adios Virginia and all my friends.

Fast forward three years later, when I headed back to Charlottesville from Alabama to attend the University of Virginia. Who would be in my dorm but Chris? How crazy that we should both select the same college and be assigned, out of 20 or so freshman dorms, to the very same one! College being what it is, after first year, we developed different interests and went different ways.

Now add another 30 years or so to the tally and you find me in my restaurant in Winchester, Virginia. A customer of mine approached me about a friend of hers who made chicken pot pies to sell and who needed a commercial kitchen in which to make them so as not to fall afoul of the Health Department. My customer asked if her friend, Perrin, might rent my kitchen on Sundays when I was closed.

We set up a meeting between Perrin and me and I was already working at my desk on some paperwork when I heard the front door chime. Perrin walked in, introduced herself in her over-the-top ebullient manner, and said that her husband Chris would be coming in.

In walks this guy, totally backlit in the doorway with the dining room lights off. But something feels very familiar about him. He walked into the light and I looked at him and he looked at me and boom! Chris and I were together again. And it turned out that he and Perrin lived not five houses away from mine, not that I would know it, working all day and all night every day at the restaurant.

Perrin ended up renting the kitchen for a short while and then I ended up hiring her and one of her great friends, my next door neighbor Shawn, as lunch line cooks. Some time after that ran its course, Perrin and Chris decided it was time for a change and moved to Whitefish, Montana. They became friends there with Robert, my next door neighbor from grad school at Texas A&M. Clearly you can tell that this is a story about intersecting lives and fate.

After Whitefish, Chris and Perrin moved on to Portland for better employment opportunities for Chris, a school teacher. Then I retired from the restaurant business and decided to get into the wine business, as a pretty easy transition from the restaurant. After surveying the wine producing areas of the US, Ann and I decided on the Willamette Valley in Oregon where we currently live, about thirty miles south of where Chris and Perrin live.

Although Ann spent a decade in Winchester, she never got the chance to meet Chris and Perrin before they relocated west. But Ann and Perrin did manage to hit it off on the telephone. The two of them are very alike, two peas in the proverbial pod. In terms of outgoing personality, they could be sisters. Chris and I are much more reserved and let our wives handle the communication and planning.

Now that we are all four living in Oregon, we see each other when we can, which has been impossible during COVID, but is easing up now that Ann and I are retired.

Living in wine country, we get lots of tourists from all over coming to sample our world-class wines. Everybody wants to visit us and coming to wine country provides a great excuse for Perrin, Shawn, and I, old neighbors and colleagues, to get together and relive the old days. And drink a bunch of great Pinot Noir!

In July of this year, with COVID loosening its grip on the country and air travel, Perrin planned a girls' vacation for several of her friends from back home Winchester, the town where I lived for 25 years and in which my two daughters were born. Naturally, the girls planned to rendezvous with us in wine country where we would taste some wine, then head back to our house for more of the same and some munchies.

Maysara Winery Tasting Room Entrance

They left the choice of wineries up to Ann and me. Given that they were coming to wine country on a Monday, many wineries were closed. Add to this that many wineries are short-staffed because of COVID and even more wineries than normal were closed on Monday. Fortunately, we have hundreds of wineries within a short drive of the house.

We chose to visit Maysara Winery. They always do a nice job with their tastings and are a good introduction to Willamette Valley Pinot Noir for visitors. And they are located in a picturesque hollow between lots of hills, many planted to vines, others allowed to be what they have been for a very long time, a wildlife haven of Oregon White Oak savannah.

Maysara Tasting Room

The Weather Was Gorgeous

Shawn, Ann, Perrin, Catherine, Bridget, and Kelly

A Charcuterie Board

Perrin and Ann, Two Peas in a Pod

On the Patio in the Shade of Corkscrew Willows

Wild Turkeys at Maysara

After our tasting and catching up for a couple of lazy hours while sitting under the trees on a beautiful day, we went inside to buy some wine and have some shipped back to Virginia. And then we headed the 20 minutes back to our house in McMinnville to drink more wine and eat some munchies out on the front patio.

Dips: Artichoke Tapenade, Piquillo-White Bean, and Black Bean

After getting out of the restaurant business, I have finally figured out that it is way more important to me to spend time with my guests rather than to spend all my time in the kitchen cooking for them. What good is it if people come to visit you and you're stuck in the kitchen the whole time?

Accordingly, the day before, I made three different dips that we served with pita and tortilla chips. I put them out on the counter before we left for Maysara so that they would be at room temperature when we returned. They weren't high cuisine, but they were just what the doctor ordered for an informal afternoon gathering on the porch.

Charlie Took Right to Kelly

It was really great to catch up with everyone from back home and to show off to them our fantastic Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.