If integrity were a picture. What would it be? I guess this one doesn't make a lot of sense to most people. It does to me. What is integrity anyway? The word is used frequently without reference to its true meaning. The trusty dictionary says, "firm adherence to a code of esp. moral or artistic values: INCORRUPTIBILITY 2: an unimpaired condition: SOUNDNESS."

First. I am there. I asked a winemaker on my recent trip to Italy about writers and the press. I awkwardly tried to sympathize that entertaining the onslaught of writers who visit continuously must be a akin to a full-time job. The response was this -- "Yes. If writers or journalists wish to come, we definitely accommodate them." A lengthy pause. "But", she said, "How can so many people write about our wines and our winery if they have never visited?" Precisely. It isn't easy to journey to the source. Sometimes, as was the case on the day of this photograph, it feels like the world conspires against you getting there. Reaching the final destination. But the point is that nothing that is real or reaches the truth is easy to achieve. Which is the point. The special group of people -- and they are special and limited in number -- who choose to sacrifice in order to create an expression that is moving and who are incorruptible deserve to have others move mountains to witness it.

For me, this place, appointed with these stones and crinkled leaves, is the epitome of Integrity. During the afternoon I encountered a truly stalwart wine maker who shared his philosophy in his own words--no polishing, no positioning...just absolutes. Simplicity. I tasted from barrel, one vineyard alongside another from the same vintage. This provided the truest expression of terroir. A destination for me that was finally reached. Every wine is vinified precisely the same. Precisely. It is here that I realized how it is so easy for the market to get away with creating and perpetuating the illusion (delusion) that terroir does not exist. In the absence of facts...of presence...this false truth, a fable if you will, is able to take hold. This is the stuff of urban legend to be sure. 

For this and many other reasons, Integrity is my current theme. I get those. Running themes at different states of my journey. The problem is that to be incorruptible and to speak with soundness, some people's feelings can get hurt. Even when that isn't the point. And it is no mistake that I didn't share where this picture was taken. The point is not where, the point is the journey taken, the truth found through presence and the the purity tasted in something that's real.