Love Potion #9

So I'm sitting there on my favorite bench (quick get away, good breeze and all that) at the Olympic Music Festival and I see these two middle-aged couples smooching away. Then I spy the ostensible cause of all this lovey dovey behavior - a bottle of red hooch, so I says to myself, I gotta find out what dat is. So I goes up to the couple, tells them I'm a wine writer, and ask them what they drinkin' . From the bottle shape I woulda guessed some kinda Napa Cabernet. Got the Cab part right, but one of the guys, Patrick Coleman by name, tells me he made the wine himself and been doing so for some thirty odd years. So he offers me a taste, and it's really good stuff. So is the Syrah. Name of the 200 case unbonded winery is Desperation Ridge. Not sure if that is quiet desperation or the noisy kind. In any event, hey, man why you keeping it to yourself. I know why. Same reason, my expert winemaker friends in Sebastapol, King & Bim don't go public either. They don't want to ruin it! Try to commercialize your passion and you acquire a whole bunch of headaches. Who needs it, especially when you own "homemade" wine doesn't give you a headache.

I'll let you in on a secret. the Olympic Music Festival @ Quilcene is a major wine event, each of eight weekends in July and August. Picnics to the right of us, picnics to the left of us. all the way from a blanket on the lawn to an elaborate over the top baroque/ rococco groaning board elaborately tricked out with damask  and colorful wine glasses. I'm tellin' ya, these retirees and retiree wannabes, know how to do it.
Ahh, wine and music, somebody once said, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Well writing about wine is like writing about music - like a Beethoven Symphony, like a Mozart Quintet, like a Chopin Polanaise, like you should get yourself to the Olympic Music Festival. Support the arts, enjoy the arts, drink wine, enjoy wine!