Eight Hundred Grapes

“I wavered between the two worlds, neither feeling like it fit exactly right. I was self-conscious about my lifestyle in Los Angeles—a lifestyle on which I felt I had a tenuous hold at best. And when I came home, the put-together version of me who seemed to have it all together felt myself judging, in a way I never used to, how unrefined and rural local life was. I didn’t like being judgmental in that way, but I was having trouble stopping myself. I was still trying to find the balance.”

This passage describes the dichotomy in Georgia’s characterization, specifically the division in her identity that she struggles to reconcile. By leaving her fears about Financial Instability and Career Choices unchecked, she has come to compromise on who she is in order to feel safe and protected from financial worries.

“I looked out at the vineyard, everything my father had spent his life building. I never felt more peaceful than when I was out there with him. It wasn’t just about the grapes, the wine. It was about the land he had kept safe to make that wine. It was about the farm and the house and how proud he was of what he had built here. And it was about the people he was giving that to—the last people who would appreciate it.”

The relationship between a winemaker and their terroir is one that requires an outpouring of love and commitment from the former. Though Dan has conflicts in his relationships, the one he holds with his vineyard showcases the quality of care that he puts into his passion for winemaking.

“He had no business doing what he was about to do.

‘I’ll take it,’ he said.

And he looked out at nothing. The beginning of his life.”

Laura Dave uses the irony of “nothing” as everything to highlight the inherit risk of winemaking in general. As wine production is arduous and unpredictable because of external factors like the weather, mastery of the process is hard earned and decades in the making.