Cleaning.

that's it, that's the title.

I spent the morning cleaning the winery.

Not because harvest is coming. Not because anyone is visiting. The winery doesn’t get visitors, not really, not yet anyway. I cleaned it because the cobwebs had taken over the corners and the leaves had slipped under the door and something that resembled a small civilization of bugs had established itself in a corner I have spent too much tmie pretending not to notice.

We’re still in that eternal 98% finished stage of construction, which means there’s always a reason not to clean. Always something more urgent. Always a better excuse for the mess.

But I cleaned it anyway. Scrubbed things back to zero.

It didn’t sell any wine. It didn’t make any wine. It felt better than both.

The vineyard, on the other hand, doesn’t really work like that. I prune, but the vine decides what it wants to do with that. The importer might love the wines or might not return the email. The buyer in London forms whatever opinion they form.

Most of the variables I care most about are the ones I have the least control over.

The winery floor is not one of those variables.

We built this place with oversized windows. I always do that. Transparency, bringing the vineyard inside. It matters to me in a way I can’t fully explain. Big enough that people comment on them sometimes, like the windows themselves are the statement.

But depending on which way the wind blows, they fill up with grime. The shades we use to protect them on the outside get torn up by the weather.

Windows aren’t supposed to be noticed. When they work, they disappear. When they’re dirty, they’re all you see.

I’ve learned if I keep the shades drawn tight, most of that doesn’t happen. And yet there’s nothing better than throwing them open.

It turns out Bordeaux is a strange place to choose if you care about attention. The systems and structure makes the region hard to read from the outside. It’s easier to tell a story about a tiny hillside in other parts of France than a place this large where everything is either anonymous or expensive. But that doesn’t mean the story isn’t there.

The temptation, of course, is to play the games. Scarcity. Unicorns. Prices that signal to groups that only understand the language of money.

I don’t blame the people who do it. Everyone is trying to survive the same weather.

But not me. What I chose was this: a place most people scroll past, an unassuming vineyard that still needs work.

Sometimes I look around and see other wineries or wine regions whose frames seem perfectly tended, photographs of sheep in spring vineyards and rows meticulously tended by horses. It’s beautiful. I admire it.

But vineyards aren’t pictures.

And I know what the sky looks like.

The floor gets dirty again. The windows cloud over. The leaves find their way under the door.

And every now and then I clean the place back to zero.

Not because it changes the weather.

Just because someone has to keep the windows clean.