Page 65 - Lubbock Senior Link Magazine Summer 2022 - Online Magazine

HONORING
SMALL BUSINESSES

Jim & Barbara Irwin

Good

FRUIT

by Sarah Timmons

hen I bring friends and has been a
visitors out to my parents’ communal
Wvineyard and winery in family effort
northeast Lubbock County, they and a blessing
arrive there as guests, but by the to all of us. In
time they leave, most feel like the early fall
they’re members of the family. of 2011, when
They’ve listened to my dad, Jim the vineyard
Irwin, tell countless stories (some was still
relevant, some rambling) about comparatively
time spent in vineyards all over the small, I
High Plains, his travel experiences, helped to
his kids and grandkids. They’ve hand-harvest
gratefully accepted the kindness and their award- work ethic and a commitment to
hospitality of my less gregarious, winning Primitivo grapes, while six doing a job right the first time are a
but just as welcoming mom, Barbara months pregnant with my son. My couple of the primary values they’ve
Irwin. And they have probably also parents have been proudly selling passed down to me and my younger
had my five-year old daughter climb their produce to numerous Texas brother, Garrett, who, since 2013, has
up into their lap and ask for snacks, wineries since 2008 and continue to been the vineyard’s very competent
as well as been impressed by my do so, although they now produce manager and viticulturist. There
ten-year old son naming all the birds their own wine as well. My children were years during our childhood
he’s just seen in the vineyard. love visiting “Nana and Papa” at the when I now know my parents
vineyard, riding in the tractor out to worried about being able to make
The 22-acre “Cerro Santo” vineyard the rows to inspect the developing ends meet, but Garrett and I never
my parents planted 16 years ago clusters, and learning about the hard had any inkling of this at the time,
work that goes thanks to my mom’s resourcefulness
into producing and quiet, capable resolve, my dad’s
fruit out of this unfailing optimism and humor, and
dry but patient the hard work of both, which lifted
land. us up and kept us afloat during the
lean years.
Hard work and
devotion to their I was thankful for the resolution of
family have been my parents again in the spring of
defining elements 2018, when they, alongside two other
of both of my couples who have been good friends
parents’ lives, for decades, made the decision to
and a strong expand their winegrowing endeavor
and found a new Texas winery,

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