Cretan Wine October 8, 1971
I was up before dawn. The morning was not yet real. Pale buildings, pale leaves, pale light. Mist in the vales, dew on the grass, breath on the air. The smells of autumn: thyme, burnt weeds, wild onion, basil, dill. As I neared the kitchen, the smell of lamb and bread merged with the musk of a sheep pen and the sweetness of a bower of mallows. Inside, the workers’ eating table was gouged from years of sliced loaves. When I picked up the knife to cut my own piece, somebody threw me a glass. I wasn’t expecting this and bobbled the catch, luckily trapping the glass against my stomach. Later someone informed me that everybody who sliced their first piece of bread for the day had a glass thrown to them. I filled it from an earthen pitcher on the table and was surprised that it was red wine. I looked around for a water bottle but didn’t see any. The wine was musky and tart. It went well with the traditional harvest breakfast of hard-boiled eggs mounded in bowls, crusty square trenchers made with barley and rye, bowls of honey and yogurt. Wedges of cheese. Coarse salt in metal dishes. Trays of olives, oranges, lemons. The lamb was served in chunks rather than slices so the workers could spear a piece with their vine-dresser’s knives and chew it off the blade. As they emptied then refilled their mugs, the dozen or so workers spoke of the day ahead. Someone muttered that so-and-so was planting vineyards. Someone else responded that vineyards always get planted when the future looks good, while olives go in during times of doubt. An enormously moustachioed old man in a weather-beaten hat made a doll’s head out of an apple, twirling the knife
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