A Labor Day Tribute to an Unknown Vineyard Worker
“Vendimia con comportones en 1920.” Photo courtesy Bodegas R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia.
In just a matter of days, CIAprochef.com, the Culinary Institute of America’s online home, will launch “Rioja: Tradition and Innovation at the Frontiers of Flavor,” a webcast/DVD that represents the culmination of nearly fourteen months of collaborative effort between CIA Greystone in Napa and Vibrant Rioja, and a production to which I am proud to say I made a significant creative contribution.
One of the most painstaking but ultimately most rewarding tasks I was assigned was the sourcing of still images to use as cutaways during the voice-over narration between interviews. Countless individuals, governmental organizations, and bodegas sent us a treasure trove of visual material, enough to turn our humble two-hour production into a multi-part Ken Burns-style video document if we had the time and resources to do so.
As befits a wine region with such a storied past, the most compelling images were largely those captured long ago.
I still recall with great clarity the day in April when I received a package from my tireless colleague Kelly Bucher containing a CD with a stunning collection of archival footage sent to us by María José López de Heredia, whose saint-like patience with our multiple requests for images was superseded only by her obvious passion for her family’s–and the region’s–past.
When I came across “Vendimia con comportones en 1920” (”Harvest with poplar baskets, 1920″), I was stopped dead in my tracks. Apart from the crystalline focal clarity of both its main subject and the Sierra de Cantabria in the background, quite separate from the photograph’s impressive formal composition and the sense of impending action frozen in time forever, I was struck by the extraordinary dignity and stunning beauty of the field worker portrayed.
To anyone with even a passing knowledge of Spain’s agrarian society in the early part of the 20th century, the woman’s humble garments should come as no surprise.
What is remarkable, what draws us in, what transfixes us and renders us speechless, is the woman’s face (see detail, below): her dead-on, dark-eyed stare; her regal cheek bones; her angular jaw and Roman nose; the tilt of her neck, both delicate and strong. Her mouth is slightly open, and the great mystery (and part of what makes her such a great subject) is that we don’t know if it’s merely because she’s breathing deeply from exertion or if she’s is about to say something (snide? flirtatious?) to the photographer.
I wish I knew her name, because I’d like to pay her and her family proper tribute. Perhaps I’ll make some inquiries when I am in Spain next month. Nevertheless, I salute her and her work and her dignity. I am thankful for the day in the autumn of 1920 she threw a look to the camera, a gaze which nearly a century later would make an impression on me I will likely never forget.
I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to María José López de Heredia for so generously opening up her family’s tremendously valuable photographic archive to me. It is truly the kind of discovery that makes my work a joy.
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I am about to take a trip to Sonoma, Ca. Do you have any suggestions on what wineries are good to visit?