If there were one taste, one flavor, one true thing that would define our slice of the world here, wouldn’t it be the grape? The little clusters are beautiful dangling on the vine in fall, a deep and iconic purple, a powerful scent, a part of nature steeped in ancient history and tradition.

Traveling to Westfield last week to attend the Wine and Grape Festival, I started reminiscing about what a big part of my life grape juice had been as a kid. Here’s what we had on offer to drink in my childhood home: grape juice or water. My parents would buy the big cans of grape concentrate and make pitchers of the stuff and that is what we lived on as kids, since water was boring and only for hot days and out of a hose.

I hadn’t had a glass of grape juice in decades and the first thing I wanted to do in Westfield was to drink a pure glass of the stuff. They were giving it out for free at one of the booths, and after I guzzled the whole thing in ten seconds, I said out loud, “This tastes like my childhood.”

And I’ll tell you, grape juice is delicious, and I think we should all reintroduce it as a staple drink at home. There’s no added sugars; it’s just pure juice. And it’s as good as anything else hanging out in your refrigerator right now and probably better for you.

The festival was held in two places: at the park in downtown Westfield where the farmers market was in full swing, and at the Grape Discovery Center just down the road. A trolley took visitors back and forth. We had such a wonderful time, sampling juice and wine, buying fresh vegetables from farmers, and talking grapes with people.

At the Discovery Center, I ran into Bob Patterson, who sat with me in the really well-done grape museum and told me some stories about being a grape producer for sixty years. I have to say, I’m a bit jealous of anyone who has spent their life tending to grapes. It’s a beautiful fruit, and much more interesting than, say, a beet. We romanticize grape growing–we conjure up pictures of Italy and Napa Valley, of gorgeous barns filled with oak barrels stacked tall to the rafters. We imagine grape farmers eat charcuterie everyday for lunch and dance with their wives in the vineyards as the sun sets on September eves.

But then Bob told me about last April’s frost that destroyed 2/3 of the vineyards’ bounty in Chautauqua County. Bob said he hadn’t seen anything like it in all his years of grape farming. It was a killing frost, since early warm temperatures had caused the flowers to bud on the vines and the frost came and became nature’s thief. I imagined Bob and his son standing in their vineyard that early morning, powerless to do anything about it. That kind of sums up the downside of farming.

Bad news aside, Bob told me about grape harvesting in the modern age, which is all done by machines that are connected to satellites to help with accuracy. And while I know modernity helps farmers create better yields, I remember a family relative who used to pack up and move to Westfield for a week to help harvest grapes back in the day. She loved it–being out in the fields, filling up crates of grapes, enjoying the fall sunshine. She looked forward to grape harvesting every year. But those days are long gone. It’s another industry that needs fewer people.

Bob said his son came home from college and told him he wanted to take over the vineyards when he retired. That’s something you’re seeing a lot of these days–young people realizing the fruits of their parents’ labor was hard won and worth saving in a world where starting a business is a lot tougher than it used to be. I know several families where their young adults are eager to take the reins of the family business, which is a tide change in our country. “Go West young man,” is now second to “Stay home and prosper.”

We took a walk behind the Discovery Center to sample and look at the grapes that had survived the frost in the vineyard. If you look closely at a cluster of grapes, you realize how beautiful the world is. Nature provides. Farmers tend. And we enjoy fall days standing in the sunshine and marveling at it all.