www.lowcountryjoe.com: Newsletter

A View from the Marsh:

Give a Toast to Papy

Summer 1955 An excerpt from Billie Burns’s book “An Island Named Daufuskie” During Papy’s wine making days, he had repainted the Lighthouse kitchen so I went by to see how it looked. As my eyes circled the kitchen, I noticed two five gallon glass jugs of freshly squeezed scuppernongs perched on the wooden extension he had added to the sink, then my gaze lifted upward, and there on that freshly painted snow-white ceilings were bits of grape pulp and seeds where one had exploded. Shocked, I looked at Papy and said, Papy you didn’t!” He laughingly replied, that’s nothing, you should see the Winery. It looks like someone took a dose of salts and did cartwheels.” Spring 2007 Hilton Heads WineFest, billed as the largest outdoor wine tasting event on the East Coast of the good old US of A is underway. The event kicks off the Island’s Spring Season and hundreds of wine lovers from around the world are streaming thru the gates. They are holding tightly to prized 2007 commemorative glasses…..their ticket to taste over 1000 fine wines, ports and champagnes from all over the world. At the Silver Dew Winery® tent adorned with a big Daufuskie sign I wait with true anxiety….Soon the crowd will get to me and from experience I know that its about to be a proverbial “goat rodeo”. Last year I went through four cases in “little” pours and never stopped talking once. It don’t take long….the first aficionado appears, the crisp clean white tablecloth sops up its first “cab” spill, corks are popping and soon I will hear the first of many comments…. “I didn’t know there was a Winery on Daufuskie…… Now normally the only break I take is to visit the delightful Village of Job Johnnies aligned neatly in a row at the back of the parking lot….This year, however, will be different. You see, the “WineFest Program” clearly is marked …2:15 “Give a Toast to Papy” and I have been asked by the Hospitality Association to “Give the Toast”. I know this “toast” needs an explanation so please allow me to divert from the festivities a second for an explanation…..The phone rings…Hello Joe this is Ann-Marie from the Hospitality Association……I understand you own the Winery on Daufuskie and that the former Lighthouse Keeper Papy Burn was the first licensed vintner of wine in South Carolina….I pause…..Yes, I respond….Would it be OK with you if we were to give a toast to Papy at WineFest…..”paused controlled exhilaration” SURE…. I calmly say followed by the best set of cartwheels a 62 year old man “taking salts” can do. OK we are back on WineFest grounds where the grass is now stained in hues of ruby….You must remember no-one can drink 1000 glasses of wine…even though I saw a guy last year that tried….so the rest is discretely distributed on the ground….a great day to be a worm. Its 2:10 and I am met off stage by my friend and local esteemed radio personality Monty Jet. I have decided to let Monty do the toast with me “adding on” sort of like the TV commercial where the lady talks and the Celebrity does a professional retake. Its time….the band stops….we walk to the mike…all eyes are on us as the appreciative sea of onlookers raise their glasses in unison and proudly proclaim “A Toast to Papy”. I never had the opportunity to meet Papy but if there was ever a time I felt he was “Close” it was at that moment. Billie Burn said he “had the wit” and the look of Will Rogers and had a twinkle in his eyes….My eyes didn’t have his twinkle but they had a tear. It was so wonderful to have this fine Daufuskie man that I feel so close to, honored in this way. His beloved Silver Dew Winery was finally being recognized and appreciated by folks around the world…… and it was only fitting that the Silver Dew Cabernet Sauvignon we toasted in his honor had just won a coveted WineFest Silver Award. The festivities are over and I make my way across Calibogue Sound to “An Island Named Daufuskie”. I stop at what Pat Conroy called “an odd looking structure in the curve of the road”. The Silver Dew Winery sign he noted stands out in the moonlight and the bottle of Silver Dew I always leave in Papy’s honor stands alone in silent tribute. In the brick laden building he so loved I once again lift my glass in a “Toast to Papy’