On “being local”, the terroir that—like food and wine—imparts unique character to us all

Field Blends is a story that both revels in localness—everything occurs in real-world places—and wrestles with the idea of home. These are such important questions, and they form part of why I used wine as a metaphor throughout the story. For wine—and all the rest we eat and drink—like people, is fundamentally rooted in place. Though often exported and passed around the globe, wine is a reflection of the terrain in which its grapes grew, the climate that surrounded it and the hands that tended it when it was young.