Blood Into Wine Page #5

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to follow me everywhere?

In the early '90s,

I graduated from Prescott College

with a degree in ecology.

But I specialized in riparian ecology,

or river ecology.

One of my first big contracts

was to do an inventory

about perennial streams

in the Prescott National Forest.

Within two years, I must have hiked,

you know, thousands of river miles.

Without error, there was always

a quince tree, apple, or pear there.

At that time,

I was already making beer.

And I just took

an initial interest in the fruit

because I got excited about the idea

of getting some of these heirloom apples

that I'd come across in my hikes,

hiking them out,

pressing them andmaking an apple wine.

I took the apples,

went through the whole process,

and I'll never forget

the first whiff I had of that apple wine.

It brought me back there.

I could smell those grasses.

I could hear the little babbling brook.

I could smell the ponderosas.

And it was really epiphanous for me.

This was the moment

that made me into a winemaker.

Winemaking is something

that helps us understand

our relationship

with the earth and with each other.

There's a lot of situations

where we disrespect the earth.

We manage our resources poorly.

We litter.

We over-extract resources.

It all comes down to whether

we really understand

what's going on around us

and whether we're sensitive to it.

Do we have a responsibility to the earth?

Do we have a responsibility to ourselves,

to attune our senses

to all these things around us?

And I know this almost seems hokey,

but that sense of taste and smell

brought me to a deeper level

of understanding

of myself and the planet.

It's like somebody saying

God spoke to them.

And to me, the earth

is really kind of my church, is my God.

And that was my religious experience.

My name's craig Martinsen,

and I'm the vineyard manager

here at Page Springs.

When we prune the vines,

we're really setting up

the vineyard for this next year.

I know I want to set about three tons

of fruit per acre in this section.

And so, based on vine counts,

if I leave two buds per spur,

and I space the spurs about the distance

of my hand apart,

I know I'll get that.

l'm also pruning the vines,

and I'm leaving my buds here.

They're all concentrated

right along this cordon.

Sometimes we'll taste--

Like, here it's bleeding.

Taste that to see if it's sweet at all.

There's no sugars

really flowing in the vines, and...

I guess that's the Farmers'Almanac way

of testing things,

seeing how far they're along.

My name is Feather Jones,

and I am an herbalist,

a land journey guide,

and a ceremonialist.

Grandmother, Grandfather,

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