Stolpman Vineyards: Estate Grown Syrah

Disclosure time – this wine is a bit outside of the normal $20 price max.  It’s so good, I couldn’t not put it in the blog.  Super dry, lots of big, dark berries like blueberry, oak (but not too heavy on the oak), and chocolate.  Ugh!  Amazing. 

I’ll get back to that.

My husband has a saying that the grass will be green where you water it.  If someone spends most of their time writing, then they will become a better writer.  But if you talk about being a better writer without taking time to water the grass, you won’t get better.  The grass will wither.

Being good at something takes time and effort. 

I see it frequently with naturally talented kids.  If a naturally talented child isn’t taught how to water the grass – how to practice, study, work hard, learn work ethic – that naturally talented child will have a ceiling.  Other kids will surpass them someday because those other kids have learned how to do all the things necessary to get better.  The “naturally talented” will only be as good as their natural talent allows without those skills.

Easy concept, right? 

Now try to explain that to a sixteen-year-old.

Next concept for today – there are no mistakes.  Destiny, fate, god, whatever you believe in will put the people and things in your path that you need.

Last night, I’m reading Time Untime by Sherrilyn Kenyon.  Somehow, I skipped this book when first reading the Dark Hunters series.  It’s been on my shelf for months and I finally picked it up yesterday.  Pages 14-16?  A Cherokee Indian myth that has the moral of “the wolf you feed, wins.”  In the battle of good and evil, whichever wolf you feed (or whatever grass you water) will survive.

Cue creepy Halloween music.

I’m not sure what the Powers that Be are telling me, but it’s a story I’m going to recount for my students.  (The cooler legend from the book, no teenager wants to think about watering and mowing grass.) 

I ask you, what grass are you watering?  Which wolf will survive in your heart?

I’ll continue reading tonight with a glass of this amazing Syrah.  I’ll probably break open the Hersey’s chocolates for the trick or treaters while I do it, I’m pretty sure a chocolate bar will be simply divine with this wine.  It’s $30 per bottle and worth the splurge.