To Produce Great Wines

I ate some wild grapes yesterday.
I read about them in a foraging book the day before,
and while my sister and I talked about foraging,
and looked at the plants and trees on the edge of the woods,
we looked up, and there they were.
It was an exciting discovery.
I saved a few seeds, because in my opinion, these were escaped concords.

I opened another book I am reading about homesteading last night.
I had reached the grapes section of the book,
and thought I would read a little about how to grow them from seed.

"All great wines have four important elements:
first, the grape; second, the climate;
third, the soil; and fourth, the skill of the winemaker -- in that order."

There I was, humming right along, when I came to this:
"To produce great wines, the vines must suffer."
I caught my breath.

"I am the Vine," He said, "and My Father is the vinedresser."
And it is His suffering that produces fruit in us.
"Abide in Me, and I in you."
And His Father's care for us--
to do the washing and the directing of the growth,
and the tending of the soil.
And fruit is what glorifies Him.
Vineyards gain fame when the wine is good.
What fruit does He want to see?
"That you love one another."
Because that is what comes of Him.

When I was a little girl, I visited people who owned vineyards.
We were allowed to run in the vineyards,
which to a small child appeared to stretch to the ends of the world.
It was a large-scale operation.
We were allowed to pick as many as we could eat,
and to make raisins in the sun.
It really was glorious.