Excerpt No. 0016

The Rest Is Written in Dirt

If you've made it this far...

Thank you.

You've listened to me talk about the vineyard.

Now I'd rather show you.

Everything I've written in these first pages comes from the same place.

Not a classroom.

Not a boardroom.

Not the internet.

A field.

A tractor seat.

A pickup truck.

A pair of muddy boots.

And twenty-seven years of waking up before the sun because something out there needed my attention.

I didn't write these pages because I think farming has all the answers.

I wrote them because farming has taught me how to look for them.

The vineyard has a way of stripping away everything unnecessary.

It doesn't care about opinions.

It cares about results.

It doesn't reward shortcuts.

It rewards consistency.

It doesn't ask you to be perfect.

It simply asks you to come back tomorrow.

There's wisdom in that.

From this point forward, the Almanac changes.

The pages ahead won't begin with reflections.

They'll begin with questions.

Real questions.

Questions I've been asked in tasting rooms.

Questions visitors have asked while standing beside a vine.

Questions my kids asked from the passenger seat of the truck.

Questions I asked myself after a long day in the vineyard.

Some took five minutes to answer.

Others took fifteen years.

I don't expect you to agree with everything I write.

I don't even expect future Keith to agree with all of it.

The vineyard has changed my mind more than once.

I suspect it still will.

That's the beauty of an Almanac.

It's alive.

If I learn something tomorrow that makes today's entry better...

I'll come back and add another page.

Knowledge isn't finished.

Neither am I.

So this is where the foreword ends.

Not because the conversation is over.

Because it's finally time to get our hands dirty.

We'll talk about grapes.

Soils.

Weather.

History.

Wine.

Faith.

Family.

The Santa Ynez Valley.

The mistakes that cost the most.

The lessons that lasted the longest.

And the little things that most people never notice.

Those are usually the ones that matter most.

If one day someone finds this Almanac on a dusty shelf...

I hope they don't think,

"He wrote a book."

I hope they think,

"He left us a map."

A map of a vineyard.

A family.

A life.

And maybe, if I've done this right...

A better way of paying attention.

Now...

Let's go to work.

Filed Away

The first sixteen pages taught you how to read the vineyard.

The rest of the book teaches you what it has to say.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons