A cluster of green grapes, bound for my white plastic bucket, landed gingerly in my gloved hand. I tugged on it to finish the job and extract it from the vine, but it wouldn’t budge. Pushing away mottled leaves, I moved closer with my headlamp and saw that one tender thread was still holding on.
Clipping it free, I tossed it in the bucket with the others. I plodded my black Wellingtons through a row of alluvial and gravel soil as I collected heaps of thin-skinned Glera grapes; soon, I realized that the people I’d been working with had gone off to dinner. I kept at it alone among the vines, mesmerized by my search.
