My kind of vintner

At the memorial service we held November 1, we featured wines from Quady, vintners here in Madera County. Andrew Quady has a sense of humor I admire. When he tried to get his port wine exported to Europe, he was told that port only comes from Portugal. So he played with the word Port and called his wine Starboard. Above is a cork from one of their wines, Viognier, which is produced by their branch, Quady North, in southern Oregon. Or, as the cork says, in the State of Jefferson.

In 1941 seven counties in southern Oregon collaborated with twelve counties in northern California to form a new state called Jefferson. The reason was that those counties were so far in the boonies they had no real representation in either of the states’ capitols. The movement is still alive, though its success is doubtful. Still, acknowledging the rebel individualist nature of such endeavors appeals to me at a fundamental level, and I applaud those who keep such dreams alive.