🍷 Mellow Goals & Delayed Gratification


deep dive into harvest 🍇 ♥️ 🍷	View in browser

No one was expecting a very exciting harvest this year.

The abnormally rainy spring created perfect conditions for the peronospora fungus that devastated one of our vineyards (along with vineyards across Italy).

Meaning scary low yields, a total lull of a summer, and biggest bummer of all I couldn't make my own wine.

I had spent hours researching, talking with winemakers at every fair I went to, and tasting all kinds of wines that were the color and style I wanted... but it just wasn’t possible and I had to make my peace with that.

This year, we were just going to have to do the best we could with what we had.

It wasn’t a wildly ambitious goal, that’s for sure, but it was a possible one.

But then when harvest arrived, suddenly there were two rows of sangiovese that were available if I wanted to use them.

It wasn’t the varietal I wanted and the timing was way off for what I was hoping to make but the opportunity was being handed back to me and you bet your ass I was going to take it!

Two weeks of picking, pressing, and fermentation later, I stood over a metal cage containing 337 beautiful rosy pink bottles of my wine. MY wine.

I decided when to pick, how to press, and what to do when a challenge came up. I had help with the monitoring and pumpovers because of mom duties but all the decisions were mine, for better or worse.

I felt so proud as I watched my partner take the forklift and move the cage to the back of the cellar where the bottles would sit until February, waiting, resting.

But I knew we weren’t even close to done...

Eight months of vineyard work went into growing those grapes…

One month of harvest, picking, pressing, monitoring, and fermenting…

Four months of resting…

Then in January, a day to taste the finished wines and craft the blend to use for degorging…

Four literally freezing cold mornings of degorging in February…

Three more months of resting in the bottle…

Then FINALLY my wine will be ready to drink.

That’s 16 months!

Things could go wrong at literally any moment during that time and I won’t know for sure that I have something worth drinking (or selling) until next spring!

And even then I know that the bottles won’t be at their peak until mid-summer.

Talk about a lesson in delayed gratification…

But of course, the lesson goes even deeper.

For years I have been operating on a common belief that I have the power to change whatever I don’t like about my life… and it was exhausting.

The truth is, Italy’s an awesome place for vacation but living here is an entirely different story and the novelty gave way to reality a long time ago.

Fortunately, working in the vineyard and winery this year has taught me that not only is that belief painful, it’s not true.

Like making natural wine, there's an interesting, unexpected alchemy that happens when you just let go and stop trying to control or manipulate everything to get the outcome you want...

There’s a fine line between believing you have agency, can make an impact, or are capable of changing yourself, and believing you are capable of changing whatever isn’t making you happy.

The truth is, we often don’t have control over...

our circumstances,

our environments,

the resources or opportunities available to us,

the timeline of grief or healing,

how our creations are received,

or even our relationships with the people we love…

We don’t always have the ability to change the things that we don’t like…

and we can run ourselves ragged, wondering wtf is wrong with us when we believe that we do.

What we do have, is the power to decide what we’re going to do with what we have. And I promise you, it makes all the difference.

There are hidden gifts, unexpected opportunities, and more chances to experience genuine gratitude when we accept the realities of limitations.

And the miracle is, those limitations that felt so frustrating, so heavy, so constraining… they loosen. They expand.

Possibilities that did not exist before, suddenly do.

It’s not a very popular sentiment to work within your limits, be grateful for what you have, and be patient with the process.

In theory sure, but in practice, not so much... because it's effing hard.

We want to believe we can change things because that means we don't have to live with mistakes, grief, discomfort, and pain.

But there is purpose in everything we'd rather reject. And we miss out on so much and just make ourselves more miserable when we do.

Maybe you’re not working in agriculture or making a product that takes 16 months to finish, but I promise you…

The mellow goals and delayed gratification of doing the best you have with what you’ve got and letting it unfold in its own timing… it’ll change your life.

Or at least, it’ll open up some possibilities that didn’t exist before and in those unexpected moments of new possibilities. that’s where the magic happens...

Love,

Jillian

PS If you want to follow along on the winemaking journey, I made story highlights for part 1 and part 2. We still have most of the white grapes to harvest so we’re not done yet!

PPS our wine is available in the US (mine not til next year) but we don’t know who our distributor sends our wines to and which states. Best bet is to google “buy corvagialla wine” and see what comes up. You can try corva gialla as two words too since half the time they write it wrong lol

Jillian Bright Writes

Via G Marconi, 23

Lubriano, Italy

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