A handful of years back, I’d convinced my parents to set aside a small portion of our fermenting wine barrels to me, strictly for my experiments. They only agreed because I told them that if I could create a new flavor blend, we could produce and market it as a limited edition, never to be re-created again in the same way. I informed them that it would make the wine fly off the shelves, that customers would flock to our tasting room to try it before it sold out, and that making anything a limited edition instantly added value. My only formal request had been that they had to let me use the grapes from our south side vines.

The South side was the one part of our winery that frankly didn’t make any sense, and we never understood how the vines had even gotten planted in the first place. My great-grandfather must have been insane when he came up with the idea. La Bella land was made up of gentle, rolling hills, but there was one small section that had a steep drop-off, making it extremely hard to harvest. It was basically a cliff—minus the falling to your death part, but still a cliff nonetheless.

That section of land produced our best grapes. For whatever reason, that steep hill got exposed to a different sort of weather climate than the rest. The sun seemed to shine a little longer there, and the rain tended to fall a little harder. In return, resulting in a slightly different soil content, and the grapes were unlike any of the other grapes on our land. As a matter of fact, the grapes there were unlike any other grapes in the entire valley. No one was able to replicate what we had created with the South side vines, and trust me, they tried. I always assumed that you couldn’t replicate what Mother Nature gave you, but I never blamed them for trying. Those vines were the ones that kept winning all the awards, long before I’d ever started experimenting with them. The South side vines had put La Bella winery on the map, but we’d still be a success without them.

“I really like how you can smell the cinnamon before you can taste it. It’s like your nose knows it’s there way before your taste buds ever do.”

I grinned because that was exactly my plan—making the scent known, but only recognized long after you swallowed. Food pairing was an integral part of running a winery, and it was something I respected and spent a lot of time researching for our customers and business. We had a menu in our tasting room, specifically designed for wine and food pairing—the most popular being what to drink with different types of chocolates and cheeses.