“Oh, Dave. Why does it always have to be this way? Why can’t the convention go on forever?”
“Barbara, please. You do this every year. You know we can’t be together. Can’t we just be thankful for the four days of amazing gadgets and unbridled passion we have?”
SLAP! “How dare you mock my pain!! You know these silly trinkets and gizmos they send us here to shill mean nothing to me. It’s always been you that keeps me coming back. And now I have to watch you get on another plane and fly back to your wife while I go back to nothing? I can’t take it anymore, Dave! I just can’t!”
“Get a hold of yourself, Babs! You know as well as I do this is all we have and this is all we’ll ever have. What we want deep down in our heart doesn’t change that. Who we are, these creatures of commerce and technology, it’s the only thing we have that’s real. This thing between you and me is just a fairy tale, kid. You gotta see that.”
“Oh, just because I see something doesn’t mean I have to like it, Dave."
“Well then, look here, Babs. Look at this empty bottle of Zahtila 2007 Dry Creek Valley Zin. We shared this bottle on Day One of this year’s show. Seeing you there in your tight little booth babe outfit… it brought a lot of memories flooding back, just like the flood of aromas in the wine.”
“2007. That was the year your company dressed you like a giant panda and had you passing out keychains! You were so mortified, but I thought you were the most adorable vendor on the whole floor. I can almost taste the bramble now, can't you? The memory of the red berry and black cherry aroma against the scent of your cologne is something I’ll be taking back with me to Spokane. That’s a promise.”
“In that case, maybe you should take a little something extra to go with it.”
“You don’t mean…”
“I do, Barbara. There's one last bottle left, you know. Maybe on one of those lonely 361 nights until the next convention, your can catch the exceptionally food-friendly nature of this wine and think of me.”
“But the soft and supple mouthfeel won’t be the same without your arms around me. Perhaps I’ll save it until next year as a kind of promise that you’ll come back to me. It’ll be my way of knowing that no matter how bad sales get, no matter what lack of innovations in technology there seems to be, we’ll always have each other.”
"Uh. Sure."
2007 Zinfandel, Dry Creek Valley 750ml 3-Pack
Laura Zahtila Swanton knows the many challenges of establishing a boutique winery dedicated to crafting small quantities of fine wine in the Napa Valley. She has experienced them all in her demanding, yet delicious, journey from fledging winery to award-winning Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel producer.
A long-time wine enthusiast, Owner and Proprietor Laura Zahtila Swanton purchased the Calistoga winery estate that would become Zahtila Vineyards from the Traulsen family in 1999. At the time, Laura was a sales specialist with Cisco Systems in San Jose. It was a career that required intimate knowledge of high-tech product application. Knowing how the technology worked was critical to her success in selling the product.
Today, Laura's tenacity for learning systems and science is directed at running her small winery and vineyard estate dedicated to limited-production, premium red wines. Since 1999, Laura has managed all winemaking processes from grape sourcing to the logistics of launching and operating a winery. Her zeal to understand winegrowing at its root has her pruning, picking, irrigating and collecting soil samples in the vineyard. A thirst for winemaking knowledge encourages her participation in crush, pump-overs, racking and bottling.
"I do it all," says Laura. "It's so important that I work alongside every member of the Zahtila team from the temporary harvest help to my associate winemaker. I'm not one to stand on the sidelines, and fortunately because we are as small as we are, I can be actively involved in every aspect of this business."
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