Sedona WineFest Day 2 bits and pieces

   I'm going to break this up into shorter posts over the next few days as there's so much to talk about that it's kind of a categorical nightmare. How to organize it all so it doesn't take pages and pages to tell? Sunday was a much more relaxed day all in all. Fewer people than Saturday and a lot more locals, which necessarily meant slower bottle sales. I had the extreme pleasure of spending the day with Ray Freitas, the owner of Freitas Vineyards, whose wine I was selling. I got to be her bottle monkey most of the day, pouring samples while she did the talking.

  Most of us have known a person or two in our lives who is a true master at something. These folks, no matter what it is they do, share some characteristics:
  Their craft, whatever it is, often borders on obsession.
  Their path in pursuing this obsession has often been fraught with serious obstacles.
  They're not "dabblers", but are usually single-minded perfectionists
  Their path is not monetarily driven, in fact it's often costly; a labor of love.

  Ray Freitas is now on my very short list of those people. She and her husband started their vineyard on 5 acres in Cottonwood 12 years ago. This makes her vines the oldest in the valley. She's now a widow, works a full time job in health care in order to continue her real passion, which is making wine. Her wines were arguably the ONLY truly estate wines at this show. Virtually every other winery present was using at least some grapes sourced from someplace else. Not Ray. A question that often came from the samplers who came by the table "where do you source your grapes?" was easily answered by her, "My back yard".

Here's a picture of Ray and two tasters from yesterday. Ray's on the left.