Pair of Pears Wine

Randy ran the local food coop. He specialized in organic food. He especially loved providing high-quality produce for his community. Every year when the harvest was ready Randy would drive hundreds of miles to the orchards on the Western Slope of Colorado to bring back wonderful boxes of organic peaches, pears, apricots, plums, and apples. Most of the members of the co-op preordered the fruit, but Randy always worried there wouldn’t be enough for everyone so he brought extra boxes home with him.

One year, he couldn’t sell it all. He had boxes of fruit going soft and while most of us canned and dried all we could, some fruit was not going to last.

Well, Randy never let anything go to waste. He bought a book on winemaking and some basic supplies and went to work.

He didn’t use a recipe, not Randy. He was an awesome cook and herbalist, so he made wine the same way he cooked, he went by instinct.

The difference with winemaking is that you can’t taste it as you go along like you can with a pot of soup or a jar of herbal tea, so he went by smell.

Every time he found a pear, peach or apple, or any other fruit going a bit soft, it went in the wine processor. This was a huge five-gallon jar that bubbled and talked as it fermented in the corner of the kitchen. When that jar was full and had to be left to its own devices, Randy set up a second jar.

We all watched in fascination as the jars of burbling, disintegrating fruit turned into wine.

A few months later, he pronounced it ready. He decanted the now golden liquid into clean bottles and invited us over to sample his creation.

We sat in his living room and watched the snow fall outside the window and tasted sunshine. The wine tasted like an orchard smells in the summer sunshine. One bottle tasted more like pears, the other more like peaches and both had interesting notes of berries, plums, and more. We called it a “Pair of Pears Wine”.

Sliced winter apples, pears, cheese, and sweet banana bread soaked up some of the alcohol. This wine had a kick for sure!

I will never forget that wine. It was sweet without being cloying and took us all back to lazy summer days of sunshine and fresh fruit on a cold, snowy evening.

Randy never made wine again. Health issues made it impossible for him to make the long drive across the mountains to pick up fruit and fewer people canned or dried it each year. He didn’t sell enough to make it worthwhile to send anyone that far away. He ordered in a few cases of fresh fruit from the local growers, but it wasn’t the same as the variety to be found from the orchards on the Western Slope of the Rockies.

Randy is gone now. A car accident took his life one Fall Day on his way home. The food co-op died the same day. Most of the community has moved on, grown old, or forgotten. The once-thriving little farming community is barely sustained by a school and a post office and not much more.

Pair of Pears Wine was summer sunshine in a glass on a snowy day. The taste of summer fruit, especially pears, will always bring the memory of that day back to me. I miss sitting in Randy's kitchen. Sipping wine with friends, eating good food, talking about books, movies, and the state of the world.

Randy's little food co-op brought a community together, provided us with good food, good friends, and one summer he provided lovely wine. His death left a hole in our world that will never be filled. He was a creative cook, winemaker, herbalist, and friend. I miss my friend and am grateful for the memories he gave me of community, and sunshine in a glass.