I starting making wine a couple of years ago with a bunch of guys who know far more about the ways of the grape than I do. Between the crushing, racking, barrel-tasting and bottling we talked about wine and sports, women and sports, politics and sports, and maybe some other things that I can’t remember, and sports.

One day I said I’d be absent from the next round of tasks at my friend’s garage. We were getting ready to blend three different reds, the best part of the alchemy of winemaking, but I would have to miss it. My mother was sick, and I had to go to her house on the Olympic Peninsula, across the sound from Seattle.

“How sick?”

“She’s dying,” I said.