I hope that these pictures are not to disturbing or graphic. They are meant as a pure art piece that I did serendipitously and am happy to now have and to share with you. Hope you like them and the stories below.
Here I am grinning at the end of taking all these close-ups of myself ( just before my shower to wash away all the evidence on me of this crushing/feet-stomping of grapes ) with my artist's eye and intuition at work to record and preserve this spectacle of myself after stomping the grapes. I like preserving moments, especially moments like this that are perhaps for me " once-in-a-lifetime ". Funny, I'm looking at almost every moment today as being once-in-a-lifetime. I'm enjoying trying to live in each moment and make it mine as well as share it. I'm intense, perhaps more than I should be but intense no matter what.I have included a few pictures before the stomping here with the preparations ( getting the music set-up to churn out pulsing rhythms, the candles lit by Sebastian's assistant winemaker, and John Morrison checking out the old cement vat filled with the grapes to be stomped, and the picture I took of those grapes before the stomping.
As you can see by these photos some of that grape juice and some of those skins of the grapes still clung to me even after Val had hosed me off for at least three minutes after I got out of the cement vat!
I like that I have a glass of the current port-style red wine in my hand in a lot of these pictures. I had taken it with me back down to the cottage before changing into the white t-shirt and the faded khaki torn shorts that I had brought especially for this task-labor-or-love. Sebastian had said to bring clothes that could be thrown away after this mission.
There's a starkness and a grittiness - a pithiness to these close-ups. They do bring back some of the exaltation and grime and fatigue that I was feeling then. I did not drink any more of this port-like red wine. I was too tired. After the stomping I was wet, a bit cold ( I warmed myself by the fire outside ) and drank two glasses slowly of the dry BEAUMONT rose - the Raoul's dry rose I believe that we will get shortly. It was just right for me after these intense moments of stomping.
Pictured here is Vivian with me the morning-after. She and her friends had camped-out at BEAUMONT and I saw them ready to leave so I rushed over to wish them well/thank them and snap this picture of Vivian before she left. We talked some while we stomped grapes and then afterwards around the fire with her young German lady friend that was studying to be a doctor in Berlin and that had come down to work at an Aids clinic in Cape Town.
I have also included two pictures of the sketches that I drew to leave with black water color as " thank-yous " to the Beaumonts for their hospitality and kindness. One's of people stomping grapes in the cement vat and the other is a written " thank-you ".
I also took pictures of what I believe in their small cellar by these cement vats of older vintages of this port-style red wine of theirs? I like the colorful labels: and the bottle-shape they are in remind me of port bottles ( though their current bottle shapes are different).
The bottle may be visible on the table in front of Jayne Beaumont with all the glasses and other bottles ready to be poured as the guests ( some eighty or so , I was the only American in the crowd I believe ) : I hope it is. That's why I included this picture, to show the event from start to finish - the whole circle so to speak.
I was a damp, sticky mess after stomping grapes at the BEAUMONT Winery's Annual stomp to make their small amount of port-like red wine that we now have been selling at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 202-363-4265, sales@clevelandparkwine.com ) for two-three years. I will have to buy some of the 2009 that I worked so hard to stamp this Friday evening just a month ago. Wow, that was a first-time-ever experience for me that I will not soon, if ever forget. Thanks Jayne, Sebastian, Ariane and John. I loved it, really I did. Just look at me and my clothes and my smile and the glass of it I have in my hands later after all the activities and I return to my lovely room in the old white cottage there by the old mill at BEAUMONT. I loved staying in this fabulous old cottage.
Enjoy these photos. I will talk more about them as time permits. In the meantime I want to post them and call them the " art of the moment " - me, too. What a sticky wet mess - what fun it all was! Cheers, TONY
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