Part IV - We Might Just be Getting Good at This...Chapter 11 - Good Karma

Part IV – We Might Just be Getting Good at This…
Chapter 11 – Good Karma

Captain America: In May of 2006, we planted the 1 1/2 acres just outside the doors of The Enoteca. We also made our first wines using our own grapes which had finally matured to the point that we could harvest. 2006 was our first harvest. In the Fall of 2006, we bottled our first three wines. The first was our stand alone Merlot. The next was an Italian style blend that Dave coined "Classico". Finally, we had a light dry red that tasted like nothing we had ever had before.

I was afraid it was so unusual it wouldn’t sell. As I tried to think of a name, I thought about everything we had been through, the breaks we had gotten when we needed them – Ross’s plow, Don, the Professor and his transit, Everett, even my dad in a weird sort of way - and that we had listened to our inner voices, did what they told us to and how when we did that, the sympathetic universe (call it what you want) helped us along. There was truly a good vibe, a good karma, surrounding this endeavor, one that I had never experienced in anything else I had ever done. And so it seemed appropriate to call our weird, wonderful misfit of a wine "Good Karma".

Joey did a masterful job of designing our logo and labels. They were fun and colorful and classy. Amazing guy, Joey. He’s the man’s man Dave and I wish we could be. He can do electrical work. He can fix a tractor. He lifts all the heavy stuff for us. He helped work the transit (in fact the Professor wouldn’t let either Dave or me near it). Yet he has an eye for color and the subtle differences in shade and hues. He is an artist – a truly creative guy. And he’s a pretty good bass player too, which is still cool.

We spent the next year completing the build out of the pole barn, the expansion of the road, the installation of lighting and parking, tearing out fences, planting bushes in front of trees, planting trees in front of bushes, landscaping and planting trees in forests because I guess there weren’t enough.

And Dave and Shannon continued to have children – little Hallie came along in the summer of 2007.