In an earlier post, I talked about how a poetry contest for Gundlach Bundschu served as the impetus for me to start writing again.  I’d like to say that I continued to write on a regular basis and now have volumes of poetry, documenting my years of wonder with my little ones, but that’s not the case.  Instead, I continued in a sleep-deprived fog for the better part of a year- barely getting through each day and taking my frustration out on my poor, patient husband rather than on paper.

Now, every year, the fine folks at GB take some of their lucky members on a “revel.”  They take a city by storm and explore, eat, drink, and generally make merry.  This year, they were going to be in Austin.  Yee haw!!!!  Even though we weren’t members at the time, we were invited to attend.  While corresponding about the luncheon, the super wonderful marketing director dropped the-“we look forward to your entry this year” bomb.  Yikes!  What would I write about this time?  I had already written my emotional response to GB wines…now what?  Maybe I couldn’t write anything worth reading again, but, I had to at least send in something.  So, I got to work.

I began by reading the history of the family and the winery.  It is an amazing story, inspiring, for sure, but I was still not sure of the angle.  Then I read about the vine cycle and couldn’t help but make the connection between the phases of growth and hardships, changes, and legacies at Rhinefarm (the Gundlach Bundschu estate).  That would be my approach.  With only 153 words to work with, I wasn’t able to talk about every generation or every event in the vine cycle, but in the end, it told the story I was hoping it would.  Apparently, they liked it too….(to be continued)

http://www.gunbun.com/2011FIRST