Music, religious experiences, and wine near Heidi's valley

My friend D's boyfriend M comes from a small village in the canton of Graubünden, just a couple of villages away from where Heidi comes from. It's wine country there--his mother owns vineyards, and his brother is a vintner/winemaker. So, I was invited to the annual Malans Weinfest.

As we got there, the Salsizartchestra (a play on words--Salsiz is a salami-like sausage from the area, and the band played Latin/Salsa music) was in full swing. After checking them out along with a couple glasses of Malan's best, we went over to the bar that M's gymnastics club had organized. We stood around and D. explained to me all the local gossip (Malans is small enough that I knew it all after about a half an hour). But after a couple of glasses of wine, we were ready to sleep in M's mother's house.

In the morning, I met M's mother, who, in addition to owning vineyards, is a music therapist. She showed us her gardens, vineyards, and fruit trees (it reminded me of the tours my own mother gives me of her gardens). Afterwards, she showed us all her musical instruments she uses for therapy. She'd built a monotone herself--it's a wooden box with a couple dozen strings on one side, all tuned to the same pitch, producing overtones when played--it's very soothing. Since she'd been to Tibet, she had Tibetan gongs of several sizes so we all sat around and played these gongs.

Afterwards, we went to the official wine tasting. They were all very nice--it was difficult not to drink too much--although I like the white wines from that area much better.

Well, if you're ever in Heidi's neighborhood in September, I would definitely stop by....