What could have been, may have been, must of been

I was sitting and pondering what could have been, may have been, must of been my first experience with wine. It came to me as a distant image that certainly must have been stored deep within assorted jumbled memories of a day long past. I was with my grandfather walking amongst the trellis as the vines hung full.
I remember him taking a small pair of what appeared to be small shears with a pointed end and he would move with system and method down each row cutting away at the clusters of grapes still green but with ever so slight a blush of blue and purple. I can step back into that moment and feel the sandy soil around me feet, the buzz of wasps and hornets, the sounds of a bluejay high in a old apple tree that sat just East of the small area of grapes, too small to respectfully be called a vineyard. But here we were tending to what would eventually become wine. Homemade of course, large dark bottles of it,not those 750ml baby bottles you find today. They were hefty, dark, solid and seemed at least in that moment 5 lbs each. I suspect looking back now they were far less impressive than I had imagined. Tasting the grapes from the vine to sipping a swallow no more of delicious, aromatic nectar from an old jelly jar began my journey some 40 plus years later.

...Marcus Padulchick