A city that never sleeps as regards enjoying our wines.
The news started to spread, and came to cheer us in the final stretch of harvest.
Just like in the mythical song Sinatra repeats the City’s name for emphasis, so Aphros Loureiro sees 2 consecutive harvests (2020 and 2021) appear in Eric Asimov’s list of 20 recommended wines for all seasons.
In my mind it is something magical, mysterious and up lifting that a small winery from the village of Padreiro, Lima Valley, can be publicly valued and highlighted in the most iconic metropolis of Western civilization. And on a deeper level, to acknowledge it has become part of the joys, celebrations and intimacies of its daily life, even in minute scale.
That right in middle of a permanent, colossal flash flood of traffic, mobs, sirenes, neon lights and skyscrappers… where the human race for achievement is fiercest and faster than life… even there there is a space to embrace my valley, the greenness of soft hills swept by the Atlantic breeze, the brooks where spring waters flow with no hurry or sense of time…
And I am reminded me that our World is One.
I fantasize that perhaps Woody Allen (who has been inspiring me all my life) could one day inadvertently come upon a bottle of Loureiro in meeting of friends, and that somehow that subtle, light filled, joyful fragrance of granite and flowers might, even briefly, percolate through his soul, discreetly inspiring some delightful movie scene.
And this reminds me that we are all One, that wine means sharing our lives wether we make it or just love it, and that it is good to grow grapes in our valleys, wherever we happen to be.
