Yet another one for the team.

In my mother's day, school children were expected to know the name of every last piece of fabric in the parish church, from the priest's vestments on down to each and every linen that adorned the altar and the chalice, et cetera. This wasn't the case in my school days, but I did know that the decorative 'tablecloth' on the altar was called the fair linen.

The fair linen that bedecks the altar in the St. Helena Roman Catholic Church is, as one would expect in the Napa Valley, decorated with grapes. Today, as my adorable baby nephew was baptised, I allowed myself the time to reflect upon the loving workmanship that went into embroidering this particular fair linen, and the symbolism that had been captured with every faithful and careful stitch....then it was home for lots of dead cow paired with copious amounts of Vinomaker's wine.

Life is good.

One more for the team.

Today began with Vinomaker and me crushing and destemming some Cabernet sauvignon from a friend's vineyard; I did a little leaf-pulling in our vineyard, Vinomaker did some punch-downs on ongoing fermentations, and then it was time to get scrubbed up for our baby niece's baptism.
The St. Helena R.C. Church is a small, picturesque stone structure that just underwent six months of earthquake retrofitting...it's all better now and thus was the perfect setting for one of life's rites of passage...if you're Catholic.
It was a beautiful, joyous day filled with close family, well wishes, good food and of course, good wine...which was just as well, seeing as sacramental wine is no longer an option due to the threat of swine flu. I swear to God.