It was 5 o’clock on Saturday evening. This meant karaoke night was about to begin. We had seriously considered singing Bill Withers’ “Just the Two of Us.”
We joined the stream of people in the parking lot of Black Mesa Winery in Velarde, New Mexico. Everyone moved towards the patio nestled between vineyards and a one-story building that housed winemaking facilities and a tasting room.
Every table on the patio was already taken. Inside the tasting room, there was a long bar to the left with a dark-haired woman happily chatting with customers while her arms were grabbing glasses and wine bottles and tapping on the computer. There were a few tables open inside.
We checked in as a Harvest Host member. We picked a bottle from the menu because it was suggested that if you were spending the night in their parking lot, you should make a purchase. The woman pulled out a black-and-white map that had five big red stars scattered across the property. These were our options for where to park.
Instead of joining the other partygoers, we made our own patio on a small dirt road behind the Syrah grapevines, far enough away to relax and eat our own cheese plate but close enough to see the stage and hear the first song start to play. Bruce opened the bottle of Vouvray and poured it into our plastic wine glasses we got from a tasting when we were in the heart of Sonoma. We said, “Cheers, to just the two of us.”
This wine tasted crisp and unremarkable, which was better than the half bottle of Chardonnay that had been sitting in the refrigerator from a vineyard in northern California.
Then someone came on stage and sang a Stevie Ray Vaughan song that was impossible to distinguish. Bruce and I looked at each other and cringed. At the end of the song, a dog howled.
Another gentleman came up and this was clearly not his first rodeo. He sang “Dirty Laundry” by Don Henley and we nodded to each other. A woman got up and greeted the crowd with absolute energy that exuded fun. She sang “Sin Wagon” by The Chicks and she was fabulous. We cheered from the field and people clapped while the dog barked excitedly.
Then, we had to endure a rendition of “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen that could not have been a worse sound in our ears. Bruce said, “Even you could sing better than this.”
We had no impulse to get up and sing. However, we were glad when they extended the music for another hour until eight o’clock. We enjoyed listening to people put themselves out there. I was always disappointed while in California when tasting rooms closed promptly at six so people could make other plans for dinner. Here, dinner was forgotten and laughter and music filled up the space.
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