THE NARRATIVE ARC

Working in a Winery Makes Me Question Everything I Thought I Wanted in Life

Could this be the start of something new in the Portuguese countryside?

Image courtesy of author. The Açor mountain range and view from the winery, Dão, Portugal

Every week for the past six weeks, I’ve asked my husband the same question. He is interning at a winery in the Dão wine-making region of central Portugal. I’m spending as much time as I can there too, as the official intern’s intern.

Every week, I ask him:

Does this experience a) make you want to be a winemaker b) put you off being a winemaker or c) it’s too early to tell?

For six weeks, his answer was c).

The sun is setting as I put out the wine glasses for dinner. A big pot of ragú stands on the stove waiting to be spooned into bowls smelling of the laurel picked from the tree and the tomatoes gifted by a local farmer.

When we sit down to eat, I ask him for the seventh week in a row. Do you want to be a winemaker?

“Yes,” he says. “I want to be a winemaker.”

I never doubted I would hear those words eventually.

We’re outside. The moon is nearly full and illuminates the vines just metres from our table. Small villages on the nearby Açor mountain…