Eight Hundred Grapes

The importance and yet personal cost of pursuing one’s passion in Eight Hundred Grapes is underlined by several character development arcs, namely Dan and Jen’s. For Dan, following his passion—that is, becoming a winemaker—is something on which he could never compromise. When he explains to Georgia the real way that their vineyard, The Last Straw, earned its name, he relates how he was given an ultimatum by his then-fiancée. His choice was either to keep his tenure-track position at the university and marry her or keep pursuing wine and lose her: “She told me she wasn’t going to sit and watch me live my dreams in some small town when she could be in London, Paris. She said if I insisted on making wine in a small California town, that was the last straw” (83). His decision to choose the latter lays the foundation for this theme.

While Dan’s career gamble proved fruitful, there is another significant personal cost to his dedication: his devotion to his wife, Jen. As Bobby points out when Dan is in the hospital after his second heart attack, “Dad has never taken it easy. Ever” (240). He is fully committed to the vineyard and optimizing the grapes’ growth, from waking in the middle of the night, at 2 o’clock in the morning, during the harvest season to keeping a meticulous spreadsheet on every vine, its origin, its habits, and so on. The conflict in the romantic subplot suggests that there is no space for his wife in such a commitment. In fact, Laura Dave conveys that Dan often sets his attachment to the vineyard on equal footing with—if not, at times, above—his family. After all, when he is working in Burgundy, he states that he misses the vineyard first before mentioning his children and then his wife: “But Dan missed his vineyard. He missed his kids, their voices far away on the weekly calls, Jen even farther” (133).

After years of allowing the vineyard to take precedence, Jen begins to feel unseen and unheard in their relationship. Eventually, it drives her to seek a separation and a rekindled relationship with Henry Morgan. Dave juxtaposes Dan’s pursuit of his own passion with Jen’s sacrifice of hers; Jen’s own passion for music has often been sacrificed for the good of their family and Dan’s winemaking dreams. Though good enough to play in the New York Philharmonic, Jen moves to a small town in Sonoma County and becomes a music teacher for Dan and their children instead of pursuing her music career. Years later, when an opportunity arises for her to substitute a cellist in Henry’s symphony, she must find a way to accommodate the vineyard first. She says to Dan: “I’d go next week. And we’d be back before the grapes finished coming. You’d only miss part of it” (168). But even after saying he would go with her and they could accommodate her decision, she realizes a vital distinction: Dan will go with her, but he does not want to go—or at least, not in the willing way that Jen has come to follow in his plans and opportunities. Their estrangement cements itself, and Jen seeks out Henry, a person who has always understood her through the lens of her passion, just as she had for Dan. Through this conflict, Dave highlights the patriarchal dynamics of a marriage in which a wife sacrifices her dreams for a husband to pursue his own. Dan eventually comes to realize that just as he led his family on a journey when he committed to The Last Straw, Jen deserves the same chance to write a new chapter in their lives, one in which she leads and he supports her dream. The novel hence ends on a positive resolution which breaks down patriarchal norms and gestures toward a balanced picture of the personal costs of following one’s passion.