For anyone who has been following my posts these last couple of years, it should be readily apparent that I am biased toward Oregon wine. That said, this bias may not exist for reasons solely associated with my subjective taste preferences. In the last year, I have come to realize my personal journey with wine, especially that comprised of Oregon fruit, may be just as much about my past as it is about my palate.

While I am a Texan by birth and an Okie by childhood, both branches of my family tree have firm roots in the state of Oregon. My father and his family moved to Portland in the late thirties to escape Depression-era Kansas. My mother and her family, originating from Montana and Wyoming, settled in Portland after WWII.

Dad went to Parkrose High School while Mom attended Grant, but it wasn't until both were at the University of Oregon in Eugene that they met on a blind date. After marrying in the early fifties and living in various locales throughout the Pacific Northwest, my parents and two oldest siblings moved to Texas in 1960.

Ten years later, the nine of us (seven kids) moved back to Eugene, where my Dad attended graduate school for little more than year before we returned to Texas. That short period in Oregon left a lasting impression, one that did not come into complete focus until recently.

During the last few years, I have returned to Oregon in search of learning more about Willamette Valley wine. Along the way, I have enjoyed reconnecting with members of my extended family of origin who live in and around the Portland area. As a result of these visits, I have realized a deeper connection to the people and places that comprised my family's heritage.

While Oregon wine has been the primary reason for many visits to the state, I wonder if it is merely a subconscious catalyst for my desire to better understand my heritage? Or is it the other way around, in that there is some deeper connection between my family's Oregon roots and the fruit of Willamette Valley vines?

I would have never considered these questions were it not for the following passage in Randall Grahm's book, Been Doon So Long:

"We are all metaphorical beings - that is to say, not everything we understand is apprehended neutrally or in a vacuum; everything we experience links by association with our personal (or perhaps suprapersonal) history. A rich experience is one that resonates with earlier experiences, and perhaps nothing resonates with us more than "tasting the earth." Maybe it is in the ashes-to-ashes, dust-to-dust, knowledge we carry inside us - the knowledge that, in the end, all we are is dust - that stimulates in us a unique sympathy with vin de terroir."

A few sentences later, Grahm states:

"The sense of mineral "earthiness" - not quite an explicit taste, like a fruity raspberry ester, but more like the originating conditions for the expression of a taste or its subtext - is perhaps an expression of the lower frequencies, the rumbling bass that we don't so much hear as feel in our solar plexus or in the soles of our feet."

"The experience of a vin de terroir floods us with associations, memories, and emotions linked to something beyond our direct experience - to archetypal forms that seem to antedate our individual short-term tenures on this earth."

I am really fascinated by these connections and the mystery surrounding them, especially when an intersection occurs like the tie between the first passage above and Ash Wednesday which is nine days away. It helps me appreciate why wine has been around for thousands of years, for there is an enticing mystery in the fruit of the vine, one that might very well connect us to something deeper about ourselves, that is as long as we remain open to its revelations.

With Oregon wine, I feel an important path has been created, one that will hopefully reveal connections to my past, present and future. The journey continues...

Related Links
Beyond the Bottle's Connection Series
My Review of "Been Doon So Long"