Excerpt 0001 - It Begins Here

It Begins Here

Every Almanac entry starts at 0001.

This page exists before the first lesson.

It explains why the book exists.

Some of the greatest things I've ever learned were never written down.

They were spoken while fixing a fence.

While walking vineyard rows before the sun came up.

Over the hood of an old truck.

At the kitchen table after a long day.

Or standing beside someone who had already made the mistake I was about to make.

That's how farming has always worked.

One generation teaches the next.

Not because they're trying to become famous.

Because they're trying to make sure the next generation starts a little farther down the road than they did.

I've often thought about what I wish my grandfather had handed me.

Not money.

Not land.

Not even wine.

I wish he'd handed me a stack of old notebooks.

Maybe they were worn-out phone books with dirt on the covers and coffee stains on the pages. Maybe there were notes scribbled in the margins after a long day in the vineyard.

"Watch this block after a dry winter."

"The cows taught me something today."

"Don't rush harvest because you're tired."

"Trust your nose."

"Larry was right."

Not polished.

Not edited.

Not written for anyone but the people who came after him.

I never inherited those notebooks.

So I'm starting them.

People say the best time to plant a tree was thirty years ago.

The second-best time is today.

This is today.

The Saarloos Almanac isn't a blog.

It isn't a collection of marketing articles.

It isn't another winery trying to convince you that their wine is better than someone else's.

This is a living record.

A place to preserve the lessons that are too valuable to disappear.

The observations.

The mistakes.

The victories.

The questions.

The stories behind the bottles.

The stories behind our family.

The things you only learn by paying attention, season after season, year after year.

Some of these pages will be about farming.

Some will be about wine.

Some will have nothing to do with either.

Because life has a funny way of teaching the same lesson in different places.

If you spend enough time farming, you realize something.

The vineyard is always teaching.

Every season leaves behind another lesson.

The problem is that too many of those lessons leave with the people who learned them.

I don't want that to happen here.

If I learn something worth remembering, it belongs in these pages.

If I make a mistake worth admitting, it belongs here too.

Maybe someone else will avoid making it.

Maybe someone will make a better one.

Either way, the conversation continues.

This Almanac is first for my family.

I hope one day my children add to it.

I hope someday my grandchildren read it.

I hope they argue with me.

Correct me.

Improve on what I've written.

Because that's how families grow.

No one generation finishes the story.

We simply write the chapter we've been given.

If you're not a Saarloos, I'm glad you're here too.

You're welcome to walk these rows with us.

Ask questions.

Challenge assumptions.

Learn alongside us.

Everything in these pages was earned the slow way.

One sunrise.

One harvest.

One mistake.

One season at a time.

I don't know how many pages this Almanac will one day hold.

Maybe one hundred.

Maybe one thousand.

Maybe it'll outlive me entirely.

I hope it does.

Because if these pages accomplish anything, I hope it's this:

That someone I never meet learns something from someone they'll never know.

Just as if an old farmer had finally handed me those notebooks I'd always wished existed.

This is the first page.

Let's see where it takes us.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons