Talking with a Grape Man.

The view was pretty good really. I was sitting on the deck of a client’s house overlooking what is known here as the Mackinaw river valley. We were talking business but I was distracted, not just by the miles and miles of corn and bean fields that lay before me but by the pungent, sweet smell of freshly pressed grape juice that filled the vat directly below me. I was at a vineyard and winery and at that moment financial planning felt trivial compared to looking at rows of grapevines with all their eternal implications. I just kept seeing Jesus walking among those vines with a glass of wine in his hand, laughing and saying: “Come down here and let me teach you some things about vines and grapes that will make your head spin more than anything they got bottled in there!”

Eventually, we got past the work part and I began asking our gracious host some questions about growing grapes. Here is some of what I learned….

The juice from every variety of grape is always clear. It gets color from how long the juice is in contact with the skins of the grape while fermenting. Wine that has a blush color like a Rose’ means that the juice had contact with the skins for a short time. The dark red wines means the skins of the grapes were with the juice for a long time.

Grapes are still picked by hand, cut off the vine using scissors or a knife and it takes a lot of work to get a vat full. Cutting your fingers is expected.

Birds like grapes too, especially the smaller varieties-of grapes not birds. Some vines are covered to be protected against the birds.

If you would like to have a vineyard in the future you should plant it now.

Grapes do better under stress, like drought.

Wine isn’t instant.

Vines must be pruned after every season. Radically pruned. Cut back to where they look like dead sticks, with just a little bit remaining. Grapes only come from new growth. In other words, you can have a beautiful looking vineyard, with rows of thick vines and leaves and not have fruit, because grapes only come from fresh, new growth!

A few acres of grapes can make a lot of wine.

Wine tasting can be very fun.

You have to love grapes and vines a lot to do the amount of work it takes to have a vineyard.

If you need to see a real miracle to help your faith right now, go look at a cluster of grapes, preferably at a vineyard and not a supermarket.

Jesus can teach more about real security holding a vine in his hand than all the financial planners in the world put together.

If you are reading this, I am glad and I hope it has made you want to read John 15.