Life Cheese

There are certain experiences that one by one make the trip worthwhile. These are the things I came here to do: taste wines made from a single grape variety grown on a single hillside, walk through local farms with an expert on organic agriculture, eat homemade pastries for breakfast and go hiking up a mountain, finally learn how to properly salt the water for pasta. These experiences and lessons are priceless; I came here to get them.

But then, there are also experiences that one by one, make one's life worthwhile. These are rare, few and far between for most people, especially as they get older. Last week I had one though, and I didn't see it coming. We visited a small producer of goat cheese, and I slept the entire bus ride and woke up in the foothills of the mountains. The man in charge of the cheese operation said our bus couldn't take us where he wanted to go.

So they took us in a tractor, a big tractor that pulled the same trailer they used to transport goats and hay. They took us up the mountain, way up the mountain, and we could feel the air quickly change and see the valley stretch out behind us. The road stopped past the tree line at a cabin and a barn where they keep their goats and cows during the spring and summer.

We saw the goats. We saw their cows. We saw their dogs. We breathed the air, took in the view. Then they fed us: cheese, bread, and big jugs of rustic red wine. It was everything we needed.