Wouldn’t you love to fill your swimming pool with bunches of grapes, take your shoes off, and just jump around in them with your friends? Imagine. Me, in my own back yard, actually making a world-class wine and being sought by wine tasting experts for my opinion. And I’m not even Italian.

The reality is that it  isn’t supposed to be about the wine. It’s supposed to be about the creative process. It’s about the passion you should have for life. That is what I told my husband after I bottled about 100 bottles of reds, whites, and rosés. I was determined to transfer my cooking skill and love of wine into something delectable that could not be bought. After tasting really good homemade vintages in Italy, I decided that if they could do it, so could I. My husband on the other hand, couldn’t understand why I would want to invest so much time in something that could often be mistaken for lighter fluid.

This passion capped itself off one day with a wine contest between 12-15 local winemakers from our community. One by one, the judges tried all the bottles, and cast their votes.

The results were tallied and the moment of reckoning arrived.

“And the winner is…Wendy McGee.”

Wow, I had won an academy award and proven to my spouse that I really was as good as I thought. Maybe wine making was in my future.  However, when I was presented with my little trophy, I looked down to see the inscription on the front. Very proudly I read the wording, “cheapest white wine.” Cheapest wine??? They must have confused mine with the rest. No, I had managed to fool the group into thinking that my wine was the closest in taste  to  cheap store bought white wine.

“Aren’t you glad you exercised those creative juices?” my husband asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“I have to go to bed. All that wine gave me one heck of a headache.”

Discovering your passion in life often correlates with the degree of happiness in your life. Have you discovered your passion? Maybe you too should think about jumping into a pile of grapes. When you open the door to your creativity, good things are bound to overflow.