Monthly Archives: March 2008

Unpacking the car in the humidity was sticky work. The damp air made me think of wine. The cabin was dark and cool with a poured cement floor and a small countertop we covered with food and drinks. Dinner would be roasted whole chickens and garden fresh pesto but not before a paddle across the deep blue water of Devoe Lake and into a backwater choked with lily. The backwater ended at a portage to the river proper where startled trout shot like squat arrows upstream beneath the canoes. The trout made me think of wine.

Before we reached the shelter of the cedar bank behind our cabin, four thirsty doe emerged from the woods. They drank and watched us paddle toward them and then leapt back into the woods when we were close enough. We grounded the canoes for the night. I rinsed my sweaty face in the cold water of the Rifle River and ascended the bank to eat.

A bottle of Cascina degli Ulivi Monferrato Nibio was opened while the pasta boiled on a camp stove. Though the sun had fallen behind the high birch that surrounded the cabin the air was still thick with heat. The Nibio knew no better. It could be thick too, thick with grapes and a sweetness that wasn’t really sweet but the memory of it, thick as it was and drinkable and even a healthy sip behind roasted chicken and pesto.

When the sun rose again we were in a meadow casting to slow rising trout. The tall grass behind us sparkled with dew. Warblers sang morning songs. Then a car spot and a long paddle down the river that was deep and sandy when it wasn’t flowing over gravel beds. The river made me think of wine.

It was a fine, long day and back at camp we devoured whitefish roe and smoked salmon on cream cheese and crackers. A crisp Duval-Leroy was popped. The cork was lost in the woods. The champagne was notably dry and clean and gone before the small tins of caviar. A Clos Roche Blanche Sauvignon finished the job. Out of the cooler it was tight and thin grapefruit. It warmed and bloomed into liquid applestones and yellow butterflies. Our backs ached in a satisfying way and we floated for a moment looking down at ourselves. We were obviously having fun.

Four pounds of Delmonico were thrown on to a white-hot grill. An Altos las Hormigas Malbec filled glasses. Rich and plum-fruit forward the Malbec synchronized with fat bites of steak. A Caprese salad built from homegrown basil and heirloom tomatoes tasted foolishly delicious after all. We slept like royalty on bare mattresses.

We spent the next day touring the Au Sable State Forest through Jack Pine wilderness, ate lunch at a south branch access noisy with drunken midday paddlers, and patted an orphaned fawn named Lucky. A Houghton Lake pizza dinner later we gathered fallen cedar for our last campfire.

2003 Duboeuf Fleurie Domaine des Quatre Vents made the rounds. Perhaps a bit too subtle for camping wine it nevertheless drank quite easily and offered aromas of purple flowers and cherry skins. The wine made me think of wine. A bottle of Chateau D’Oupia and a fire late into the night finished us off. The D’Oupia added pepper-spice to an assortment of olives and comradeship. Down at the cedar bank our canoes set for the morning and one final adventure. In an upstream pond two loons cried out into the night.