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Feature Article
Here ye, Here ye. Our Rule is Simple: You have to grow your grapes in Cab Valley in order to label your wine Cab Valley. Period. The End.
Goldfarb’s Fables:
The Tale of ‘So near, but oh so very far’
by
Alan Goldfarb
June 24, 2008
here is an old man who has a farm. Eee eye, eee I owe so much.
And on this farm there are prunes that the old man wishes to convert to grapes.
Eee eye, eee I owe so much.
But just across the road from this farm is the Cab Valley.
Where all the other farmers go eee eye, eee I make so much.
So desperately does the old man farmer want to be a part of Cab Valley, he’ll do just about anything to be a part of one of the world’s great – and richest – wine grape growing regions.
But he’s, oh, so close, but, oh, so far.
He’s so far that some years his prunes shrivel on the vine even more than they usually do. And the few rows of wine grapes that he grows either bring in a mere pittance, or rot on the vine altogether. Compared to his neighbors across the way, the old man is as poor as an empty pocket, and as unrecognized as a pink pig in slop.
That’s because the old man’s farm is what they call No Man’s Land, even though, alas, the famous and beckoning Cab Valley is, in reality, a pebble’s throw away.
If only his land could be in Cab Valley, the old man pines. He’d tear out his prunes, and plant gobs and gobs of Cab vines from which he could make a fortune, and live happily ever after.
But the government says no dice. “Your farm is in No Man’s Land,” they declare with unquestioned authority. “And unless you can prove to us your home land resides in Cab Valley, and unless your farm is suitable to be even considered worthy of Cab Valley, its prunes for you, bub, until all eternity.”
Oh, so close, but, oh, so very far.
The old man scratches his head and thinks about bribing the arbiter who decides who gets in and who is out. The old man scours maps looking to see if a possible mistake was made by the map makers who decide who gets in and who is out.
He even entertains the notion of sneaking across the road in the shank of the evening and digging up tons of soil from his neighbor’s vineyard so that he can deposit it on his land so that those in charge will see that his land is their land.
In desperation, he goes to City Hall to seek an injunction that would force the Cab Valleyians to re-draw their appellation map so that his land would be within the boundaries of the Cab Valley.
Oh, so close, but, oh, so very far.
To no avail, the old man decides to wait it out for the next several months, until a possible new administration takes over the kingdom.
But in one last-ditch effort, the old man coaxes a few bottles of wine from his few rows of vines and submits them to a competition, which inadvertently places his wine into the same flight alongside several Cab Valley wines.
Lo and behold, when the wines - tasted blind - are revealed, the old man’s wine is awarded - you guessed it - a solitary gold medal.
“We thought the old man’s wine was a Cab Valley Cab,” said one of the expert panelists, whose palate heretofore was considered beyond reproach.
“The old man’s wine was more Cab Valley than Cab Valley,” said another big shot palate.
“It had that unmistakable Cumberland Dust,” said a third, cleaning the detritus from his mouth with a dust cloth.
From that moment forward, it was determined without caveat that the old man’s farm was indeed, within the gold-laden hilly confines of the Cab Valley. He ripped out his prunes faster than they can work their way through a man’s system, and he planted Cab vines in every nook and cranny of his farm, including in crevices and on slopes that would challenge even a Billy goat.
And at long last, he made oodles upon oodles of dough because now he could place on his wine’s labels the magic words, “Cab Valley,” instead of “No Man’s Land”.
The moral of our story is: Politics be damned. Also, It’s what’s in the bottle that counts.
(The preceding allegory was written with apologies to whoever wrote “Old McDonald Had a Farm”; and was inspired by the political brouhaha surrounding the 100-year-long Calistoga AVA fiasco (see “The Calistoga AVA Approval Controversy Just got Hotter,”: AppellationAmerica.com, June 20, 2007). And the political shenanigans of the proposed expansion of the Champagne district of France.)
But he’s, oh, so close, but, oh, so far.
He’s so far that some years his prunes shrivel on the vine even more than they usually do. And the few rows of wine grapes that he grows either bring in a mere pittance, or rot on the vine altogether. Compared to his neighbors across the way, the old man is as poor as an empty pocket, and as unrecognized as a pink pig in slop.
That’s because the old man’s farm is what they call No Man’s Land, even though, alas, the famous and beckoning Cab Valley is, in reality, a pebble’s throw away.
If only his land could be in Cab Valley, the old man pines. He’d tear out his prunes, and plant gobs and gobs of Cab vines from which he could make a fortune, and live happily ever after.
But the government says no dice. “Your farm is in No Man’s Land,” they declare with unquestioned authority. “And unless you can prove to us your home land resides in Cab Valley, and unless your farm is suitable to be even considered worthy of Cab Valley, its prunes for you, bub, until all eternity.”
Oh, so close, but, oh, so very far.
The old man scratches his head and thinks about bribing the arbiter who decides who gets in and who is out. The old man scours maps looking to see if a possible mistake was made by the map makers who decide who gets in and who is out.
He even entertains the notion of sneaking across the road in the shank of the evening and digging up tons of soil from his neighbor’s vineyard so that he can deposit it on his land so that those in charge will see that his land is their land.
In desperation, he goes to City Hall to seek an injunction that would force the Cab Valleyians to re-draw their appellation map so that his land would be within the boundaries of the Cab Valley.
Oh, so close, but, oh, so very far.
To no avail, the old man decides to wait it out for the next several months, until a possible new administration takes over the kingdom.
But in one last-ditch effort, the old man coaxes a few bottles of wine from his few rows of vines and submits them to a competition, which inadvertently places his wine into the same flight alongside several Cab Valley wines.
Lo and behold, when the wines - tasted blind - are revealed, the old man’s wine is awarded - you guessed it - a solitary gold medal.
“We thought the old man’s wine was a Cab Valley Cab,” said one of the expert panelists, whose palate heretofore was considered beyond reproach.
“The old man’s wine was more Cab Valley than Cab Valley,” said another big shot palate.
“It had that unmistakable Cumberland Dust,” said a third, cleaning the detritus from his mouth with a dust cloth.
From that moment forward, it was determined without caveat that the old man’s farm was indeed, within the gold-laden hilly confines of the Cab Valley. He ripped out his prunes faster than they can work their way through a man’s system, and he planted Cab vines in every nook and cranny of his farm, including in crevices and on slopes that would challenge even a Billy goat.
And at long last, he made oodles upon oodles of dough because now he could place on his wine’s labels the magic words, “Cab Valley,” instead of “No Man’s Land”.
The moral of our story is: Politics be damned. Also, It’s what’s in the bottle that counts.
(The preceding allegory was written with apologies to whoever wrote “Old McDonald Had a Farm”; and was inspired by the political brouhaha surrounding the 100-year-long Calistoga AVA fiasco (see “The Calistoga AVA Approval Controversy Just got Hotter,”: AppellationAmerica.com, June 20, 2007). And the political shenanigans of the proposed expansion of the Champagne district of France.)
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