It's February 2020. I'm one of the people who hears the stories about this new flu and thinks, "It's just like SARS. Whatever."
We plan to prune at Lone Wolf. It's incredibly daunting and exciting— the vines have not been pruned regularly for 70 years. Christina flies in from London. 20 of us gather for 3 nights and 2 days of Noachic rain in Temecula. No one falls ill. I will document this pruning mission separately.
After pruning, I am back in New York. Things are getting worse. I finally read a scientific article. I realize, somewhat late, that our lives are about to change profoundly. I grasp that I need to get back to LA right away and bottle our 2019 wines before it's too late.
And keep this in mind. I put fund-raising on hold during Harvest. I am just about to make another push, and try to bring in the other half of the funding that I project we will need. The business plan is premised on filling the awesome space you have admired— filling it with literally hundreds of people gathered together, milling about, drinking wine.
It's the middle of March. I feel lucky that the planes are still flying. I am in LA; Raj comes down from Santa Barbara. We taste the wines. At 5 PM, just as we are wrapping up, lockdowns are announced for California and New York. Only essential activities will be allowed. I find 6 volunteers. I come up with a bottling plan that keeps us all 6 feet apart. I call the Sheriff's Department and get permission to spend 2 days bottling. The guy on the other end of the phone says, "If you don't bottle it, the wine spoils, right? Go ahead."
The pandemic was wonderful and terrible for us. We lost our space and nearly lost the winery. On the other hand, we put together a team of beautifully happy workers, on the crush pad, in the vineyards, sometimes masked, sometimes not, always striving blindly to do the right thing. The vineyards were the perfect place for all of us: green growing things, unafraid of contagion, full of open space and fresh air.