Friday, September 30, 2011

93: Last Pours, First as a Winemaker -- Winemaking Day 1


Can’t wait for my Cabernet.  It’s almost too much for this stream-of-consciousness, in-the-moment, writer, this waiting.  But, Katie told me today in a text, “All in due time.  It will be great, don’t worry!” All I can now, at this point, research.  And pour for Self.  Sipping the remainder of last night’s Tempranillo.  Better posture tonight.  More moderated, less cranky.  The wine, me.  Last night, the herbaceous leather tosses were unevening, borderline unpleasant.  No such bend will walk in my wine.  Asked Katie about oak, but we haven’t approached that topic.  That’s when she told me to relax, for the time being.  That’s when she recited the above lines.  I’m eager, yes.  But, more important and imperative than my cinematically dramatic ambition, this intransigency has to be maturely, adequately, profitably channeled, especially if whoso cellars is to be opened before a later.  
Not sure how I feel about French Oak versus American.  I like both, yes.  but don’t know enough about both to say I’ll need one before other.  My tasting Room, I’m thinking, could be in downtown Santa Rosa, just as there are Room in Napa’s central streets.  The wine I’m sipping now, this Spanish varietal: Romantic, slow, aimed, colorfully charismatic, like the coming Cab.
What other varietals do I see in my winemaking writer’s nearness?  Not sure.  Definitely a Sauvignon Blanc, like Katie.  Cab Franc, Syrah.  Would love to produce a Pinot, and a Cab from Mt. Veeder.  I’m overly charged.  Can’t be like this, not like I am with the writing.  Wine demands professionalism, patience.  Hate both those words, so I’m sipping again.  More solar red fruit, tonight.  Writing like I’m a calm Cabernet.  In no rush to any word bullseye.  Late, right now.  Soldiering with this keyboard.  And a Tempranillo occupied stemless bowl.  Writer, winemaker, all autonomous.  Finally.  Little more of a smoky strut, this second night.  Interesting.  Training palate.  More pours, what a writing winemaker needs.  Especially in the beginning. 
9/30/2011, Friday  

Thursday, September 29, 2011

94/95


94:  Mike, Tenacious with His Tempranillo 
11 minutes left in this lunch writing rush.  Wine tonight, more than likely a Syrah.  The varietal and I have some conversation, well overdue, to tend to.  This café, crowding.  Cyclists, pedestrians, coffee addicts, even artists.  Saw a girl go upstairs with some facial sketches.  Wish I could draw, paint, like Kelly.  Maybe if I one night soon have an alarming amount of wine, I’ll somehow have illustrative acuity.  Could happen.  This current Wine Bar track, perfect for such an evening alone.  I don’t even know where to buy drawing materials.  An arts & crafts shop?  Drug store, grocery store?  Should I try?  Kelly wouldn’t let me not try such.  And... a biker just sat in front of me, on the bench.  He can’t see the screen.  Why would he sit here, so close?  Uncomfortable.  Now, because of this wheeling clown, I have to end my lunching scribble prematurely.  And, he smells.  Please go away, biker.  Go back to the downtown streets, or paths.  Too many around me, now.  Those with helmets, other.  Clocking out, to only clock back in, across the street.  Back to cubeNOTES, jumping journals...
10:04p.  Here with a hefty glass of Tempranillo.  Thinking I may be going about this countdown a bit monstrously.  I’m too engrossed in time itself.  Why?  Is that Nature, nurture, or unnatural?  This bottle, not even $10.  What an incredible unearthing in the wine isle of Oliver’s.  Cherry, slight mint, herb, light leather.  More than tolerable.  This, quite perfect for the sipNscribble, tonight.  Thanks to Spain for this glass, patronizing my pain.  So glad I crossed the street, for the 3rd Literary lunch.  Is the book close to completion?  Uh...
Wine Bar beats in sequence.  Only way for me to relax before morrow’s boxed nature.  Older, me.  And more agitated, with wine’s “industry.” Intrinsically, my in’s in three’s.  Meaning, poetry, only.  When the current me’s truly free.  Now, a winemaker, with family.  Where will this go?  Who knows.  The playlist, sending author to fantasy, thankfully.  Needed such musical rush.  Again, sipping, in my Wine spot.  Fine plot, with a full glass.  Spoken word, a slowing nerve.  Grateful.  Wine, a different shape take.  Sorry, Syrah.  Maybe another night.  Kelly knocking.  Should I fly down uneven stairs?  Only so from several sips.  Bed soon, elated.  Soon, her seen.  Only there.  Us, in florescent Spain.
9/29/2011, Thursday


95:  Run Rewind; Cabernet, that-a-way ...
Thinking about tonight’s intervaling, strained sprints.  As the days shorten, my jaunts evolve in ever-appreciating reflection, projection.  No wine tonight.  Just all in head.  Last night’s Albariño would taste masterful now, in this hot office.  Summer, refusing to let us, itself, its place in wine country, go.  Glad it’s staying a little longer.  The grapes need it.  Harvest, wholeheartedly here.  Listening to these electronic Parisian coffee house instrumental compositions, I’m can barely keep my eagerness anchored for my wine, the Cab Katie and I aim to make this harvest.
Need some sovereign wine mission to scribe.  And what more fruitful, for me as an artist, than making my own wine.  All these self-daubed wine authorities, experts, need to try making wine before acting like they know everything.  Especially those on the business, or definite “industry” side.  They may know how to sell, market, pimp and pedal bottles, but they haven’t veritably veracious expertise with wine itself.  The entity of wine; its innumerable shades, shapes, characters.
I see our Cabernet defying the varietal’s expectations as stereotypes.  It’s almost sure to be musical, graceful, playful.  My next title, winemaker.  Only allowing family, my sister to syncopate.
9:57p.  The temperature taunted him, his typing.  He closed the monster, went downstairs.  He thought about the chapter he meant to finish.  “I’ll do it tomorrow,” he said.  Wasn’t a winemaker, yet.  But he would be, surely.  Still just a fiction writer, he knew.  With an anything-but-complete-or-marketable-or-salable manuscript.  The day just wouldn’t end, he thought, the pages calling, dreams of book signings in New York, San Francisco, L.A., Ann Arbor.  He’d bring the keys with him to NewWineGig tomorrow, cross 1st to the Roasting Company, at lunch.  He was 2 for 2, hitting 1000 words, when writing at work.  He wanted to keep such a streak.  Get to shelves.     
9/28/2011, Wednesday

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

96


1:26p.  Back at NWG, just ticks from now.  1000 words to book, check.  Known date of release, can’t put a check.  This coffee does wonderful things to the radically rampant writer.  Ugh, now it’s almost too cold.  Ten minutes, now.  A little exhausted from my 1k sprint.  Don’t know what to write about.  My Parisian coffee house idea.  It’s still there, here, I assure you.  Hope to make it a reality for guests, so frequenters can have a reliably docile domain to relax, sip, read write.  But, I see it as a place for me to hang out.  My idealized spot.  Most of my motivation, frankly.  Should probably pack up.  Hate time.  More as I age, believe me.
Kelly.  What’s she doing this afternoon?  I’ll ask her later.  Clocking out, to clock back in, across the street.  Sip, sip ... 
9:54p.  Home from dinner with parents.  Engrossing canvass over a legacy, one wanting, wishing to impose a legacy.  Is it selfish if intended?  Can it still be philanthropic, genuine?  All over an incredible Spanish varietal, and an ’05 Médoc.  Back in professor mechanisms, with these discussions.  And they’re never more enriching than when with family.  Has me wondering, what I want my legacy to be.  For whom?  Family, strictly.  I’m not advertising it.  True, I’m divulging my intentions here, in MY pages, which you choose to read.  Please know, appreciated.  But I don’t address my “legacy” for the sake of acclaim.  Dad and I sipped the Médoc, tangling, then untangling only to re-retangle the topic.  Why?  To understand it, from where, when dare I say, the other was conceptualizing, shifting perceptive related addresses.
Looking over notes from the day, my cubeNOTES, and coffeehouse composition.   More than satisfied with my success in crossing the street to write during my free hour.  Now, in my bunker, with my night’s cap, I just pluck my vespertine, adjuring kinesthesia.  The book, even blog, hopefully advantageously augmented.  Perhaps my legacy self-remunerates by way of line, syllabically stretched strides.  Decided I don’t want to teach Creative Writing, Fiction, Non, anymore.  Want to trek with student in thought, idea construction, analysis of texts.  Thinking I should have majored in Philosophy, focus in Aesthetics, Epistemology.  And since this is a “wine blog,” I’ll feign to my seated’s what follows: “How does this idea approach your reflective sphere?  Does it resonate?  Translate what permeates.” Just as sippers respond to their pours.  Wine has a way of releasing reaction to others ideas, ideologies.  True, at times unfavorably.  But, among those sensible, with enriching peaks.  I could continue with this coiled disquisition, but I’ll clock-out.  For you, reader.  Couple more sips, of a random Cab, before bed.  I’ll innumerate its notes, never.  I’d rather dream.  Of just wine.  Writing.  Writing about wine, sitting cross-legged in the vineyard, during this harvest, gripped in production frenzy, plenty.
Kelly would probably be asleep, over there, on the couch.  If she were here.  Confusion, with her.  I’m at a point where I need answers.  For the work, the pages.  It’s not wrong if I’m a writer, especially a writer wined.  Aren’t I?  Not sure.  More ’08, please.                
9/27/11, Tuesday

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

97: My Class - New Varietal, Blend; Cognitive Cuvée [typos intentional]


I’m thinking because of my run, I sit here almost too spent to scribble.  No wine sips tonight.  Just pushed Self to somehow spill 300 words into my latest project effort.  Don’t know why I commit Self to projects I can’t afford to publish.  And I’m certainly not willing to send sample chapters to slimy publishers who surely will just toss it into a trash can beside their desk, or through a shredder.  But, I still have to ask my Self, continuously, “Where do these pages go?” Posing this every sitting, actually.  And I don’t come up with a specific response, one straightforward.  Most of the time.  Is this a problem?  I would say yes, but one quite fixable.  Just don’t know HOW to fix it.  Yet.
Taking the little monster to NWG again, tomorrow.  And this time, I will be in that café, typing, pages for a preferred project.  There will be vision, expediency in my lunch hour Literary leaps.  May write about some thoughts I’ve had for lectures, on everything from Literary Theory, to Epistemology, to Aesthetics, Creative Writing, Orwell, Plath, Hoffer, and I can’t even begin to list how much else.  Thinking that blending some of these offerings would catapult my students into indefatigable Idea Exchanges.  When I do return to the classRoom, at the university level, I plan to incorporate more student reactionary readings, from their own logs, on smaller excerpts, underscoring continuity of thematic addresses, redresses in a piece; an author’s true voice.   
Just thoughts, in my class, yes.  But, they have to be substantiated, tested, defended.  Notice I didn’t say proven, as how can a reader prove any “truth” when it comes to Literary efforts of another, even with Reader Response?  What does this have to do with  wine?  These ideas, the Literature begetting them, more engaging than any bottle of wine could ever prove.  More intoxicating.  And surely more meaningful, significant.
9/26/2011, Monday

Sunday, September 25, 2011

98: Greece, Another Glass




Kelly pulled the coins from her jeans’ right-front pocket, threw them into her purse.  “I should probably get home.  I have my first show with these glasses, in a couple days.  In the city, no less.  I’m beyond stressed.  I’m a bottle of stress.  You know what, do you have any of that Malbec left?” she said, looking at his generous glass.
“Here, you can have mine,” Mike said, handing the massed stemless to her, watching her small fingers wrap around its equator.
“Are you sure?” she asked, mid-grip.
“Definitely, please...”
Kelly accepts.  Sip.  Again.  “You should do more with your photography.”
“What do you mean?” Mike said, just watching her progressive settlement into their exchange, her vessel settle into cushion.
“I love your pictures, on your blog.” She sipped, in subtle gratuity sequence, her eyes drumming on his.  “I think you really have an eye for the shot, you know?  Especially the ones you took today, of the barrels.  I’m thinking, actually those shots have me thinking, of painting on barrels, selling them to smaller tasting rooms.  What do you think?”
“I think that’s an awesome idea.  I wish I could do what you do.”
“I the same, with you.  I can’t write.  At all.  And photography, no way.”
“What are you talking about?  I took those barrel and bottle pics today with my iphone.  They’re hardly quality, of any artistic merit.”
“See?  That’s your problem.  You analyze too much.  Just follow-through with them, with your writing of course, I know you only take pics for the sake of your pages, I read your blog.  But, I think you should just see what happens, with the pics, with everything.  You’re on the brink of something great, you know.”
Mike stopped.  Started listening after she spoke.  In the quiet.  He saw her sip.  “I need a vacation, with you.  To somewhere random.  What do you think?”
“Oh yeah, where are you thinking?”
“Somewhere random.  I don’t know.  Morocco.  Or Athens, Greece.  How’s that?”
“Could you believe the rain today?  Wasn’t it beautiful?” she said, sipping, again.  She stopped, held the glass in front of her, thought.
“What?  Is it bad?  I corked it pretty tight last night.  I think.”
“It’s different for a Malbec.  For me, anyway.”
“No, I think so too.  Kind of jammy, almost, right?”
“Yeah, like...Zin-like.  Right?”
Mike loved her palate.  Her surprise.  He innocence, brilliantly observant naivete.  He observed her observance, of the puddle in that thin goblet.  He would have paid to know precisely what her sight reflectively jotted, internally.  Plainly, he wondered, what was she thinking?  “So, do you like it?”
“I do.  I want some for my studio.”
“I wish I could do what you did.”
“Then do it.  Just quit.  It’s scary at first, but...”
“Yeah, I can’t.  I’ll be full-time with the writing soon.  I hope.”
“Don’t hope.  Just jump off the tightrope.” she said, taking out a small canvas book from her bag.  Mike saw her hand move with the black sketching pen, as if being led by it.  Those tired retinae of his, recharged by her nearness, her timely sweetness.  He knew she was right.  


9/25/2011, Sunday

Saturday, September 24, 2011

99: Back Wine Blogging - Martinelli Winery, Russian River


Everything I could have asked for on my first Wine Writing, or blogging, mission in some time, and after my 6k race this morning.  I love Russian River, as much of a mystery it persists to this writer, for its Pinots, Syrahs, Zins, scenery, micro and not-so-micro climates.  Back in my old swing of “wine blogging,” whatever that is, I began with a couple handfuls of pictures, which wasn’t at all arduous considering how gorgeous the grounds were, are, and how sexy and supple the grapes sat under their canopies.  I was rather startlingly intrigued when I learned that Martinelli uses all estate fruit, if I heard that right, and only 10k case production.  I, for some reason, thought they were more giant-ish.  Glad I learned the polarity.

My serenely magnanimous hostess, Julie, started me off with a couple Chardonnays: the ’07 Charles Ranch, followed by the Martinelli Road, save vintage.  The Martinelli Road showed more of a playful skip to its palate intro and subsequent skate of stony citrus staccatos.  Next, Pinots.  How I missed my Burgundian mistress, our trysts.  Julie poured two from ’08, one from 2009.  The ’09 came prior to its predecessors, if I wrote that write, I mean RIGHT.  She poured the ’09 first, more bluntly, clearly.  My medalist, the last Pinot put in glass, the 2008 Moonshine Ranch.  Mystifying song of a Burgundy interpretation, with its earthy raspberry tones, cherry melodies; suffusing foggy tannins.


The tasting closed with two ’07 Syrahs, and a royal stroll of a Zinfandel, the 2008 Vigneto di Evo.  The finish on this jammy jam session...hypnotizingly tarrying, to be modest.  This was one of the most engaging Zinfandels I’ve sipped in some time.  This is what we should, as I’ve always written in this log, embrace about wine--the learning, the Self-education.  Humanness, not status, self-indulgent elevation, anointment.  Chasing the curiosity, just driving around in Wine’s maze, sipping where you suddenly stop.  You might be expecting some banally simplistic rating from me, for this winery.  I don’t have a system of rating, so...sorry.  If this tasting Room, its wines, weren’t approachable, palatable, I wouldn’t write about it.  But since some may me ask, probe for some evaluative mark, I’ll for the record state, “Martinelli’s Wines were supremely astrological, only augmented, supplemented, by sapiently pleasant hospitality.  Visit once, only to visit more, more...” I know this penman will, believe me.  Glad to be back in the tempo of just venturing out, stopping in at wineries, wherever I elect, select.  Today’s visit, its pours, tastefully indelible.  Infallible way to conclude a day, after a taxing race; Or, run.  Before a more relaxed run.  In my car.  To an illustrious wine tasting lineup.  Sip, sip ... 



9/24/2011, Saturday   

Friday, September 23, 2011

100


All that was about, within, around his thoughts: tomorrow’s race.  Was 6k a race?  Mike didn’t know.  Either way, it was his first official run.  He had a number, a reserved place, or something, and a tracker--a device that was wrapped around the ankle, humorous, to track time and, he thought, distance.  To bed early tonight, he said.  Time, 10:24p.  He mandated before 11p.  He wanted to write, but more so he just wanted to think, pair his daydreams, or late-eve-mind-meanderings to Wine Bar tracks.  He knew he’d do well tomorrow.  Or he’d try.  3.4 miles, he recollected the lady saying when he bought his spot.
Today, he finally made himSelf do it.  Cross the street at lunch, pick a little, quiet circular table at the Roasting Co. and write for close to an hour.  Was a sliver short of 60 minutes as he had to cross the street, walk two doors down from the coffee house to register for tomorrow’s race.  Either way, he wrote, earphones in ears, collaborating with his vino-strumentals.  He bought a small black coffee.  No cream, sugar.  Raw, unadulterated writer fuel.  He chose a spot not near the window, as he usually did.  He wanted isolation, even in a crowded coffee tavern.  Would he do the same with every day’s lunch?  More than likely no, and he knew that.  But he did today.  A solid wave in the swell-swirled body that was his novel...-ish.  Not a novel.  Yet.
The heat was supposed to begin diminishing, Mike thought he remembered hearing on last night’s news.  Rain, maybe on the way.  Wine, surely on the way.  Tomorrow night, he’d open something impactful.  He’d more than likely select a blend.  Something with Bordeaux and Rhône.  And possibly some Zin.  A crazy bottle.  Truly separatist, avant-garde, oeno-Cubism.  He didn’t have a specific configuration envisioned.  But he would reunite with elevated wine in morrow’s latter hours.  Scribble, sip; Sentences, grateful to glass.
9/23/2011, Friday

Thursday, September 22, 2011

101: Wine 101


If wine is life, and 180, then I’m already a winemaker.  Not universally peaced by this recipe.  So changes are to be made.  And I’m tired of always stating that, making some declaration, affirmation in an entry.  MY blend will result the way I wish.  No alternatives, other options.  I’m aging before my eyes notice, so only actions, from here.  Only direct contact with my tapestry, my varietals.  Race in less than 48 hrs.  Should I be doing this, running when I should be writing?  What will this race do for me.  And more importantly, how will it help my pages.  Forgive my rattles, hisses, this evening, reader.  I’m indeed agitated, an angry winemaker before his instruments, barrels.
How did I find Self in this stance?  Have I set skewed strategies in amalgamating, this blend?  Hope not.  And if I have, I must be consistent with repair.  Not even in a mood to push these dull keys.  The beats speaking through these small speakers, more placid than this pained poet.  But maybe this uneasiness proves profitable for these wine pages.  All the writing in “the industry” is jubilant journalism, or medicinal reporting.  It has no soul; no Human movement.  We, from Literary leaps, write for ourSelves, hope to share in betterment of others.  Or at least I do.  And if I’m not curing others, I’m healing my heliocentricity, more crucially.  For this prose, poetry.
Putting mySelf in my Wine Bar, to end this mood lull.  Too old to be this way, like a sentimentally vacillating teen.  Picking a predisposition, then following with.  My apologies, reader, for these sentences.  This, ALL, soon remolds, refolds.  Vowing this veracity, for the blend’s safety, security.  Tomorrow, no mocha.  No money for such.  Yet another jeremiad from this bottle journalist.  Where’s my solace, care-package?  Wallowing won’t help.  Need to write my way through, out of this, as I advised students. 
9/22/2011, Thursday

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

102: NV [newVintage]


He didn’t like rushed writing.  It was already 9:33p.  He just sat down to his keys.  No drinking tonight.  That was last night.  Two beers, a glass and a half of Cab.  And that was it.  He was proud of himself, actually.  He sipped his Diet Coke, curved in confusion about today’s lunch.  He managed to isolate a lunch hour to himself.  But he didn’t write.  He tried to walk in the heat.  And he did, only a couple blocks.  Got some cash from the ATM, and returned early to NWG, his cube, where he’d continue to fill his legal sheets with NOTES.
Listening to his Wine Bar beats, he flipped through the pages of BOOK1.  He knew how he’d divide it.  As a winemaker used certain blocks of fruit from the same vineyard, for different bottle projects, so would Mike.  There was more than selective scheme and artifice to this long-awaited usage of B1’s pages.  Mike wished she were there, to share his self-education, see what he made himself see.  But it was all his.  She wasn’t there.  She may as well have never met him that one day in the winery, if she wasn’t with him right then.
Moving his thoughts forward, he read more of the pages.  He jotted ruminative ripples when invited by his consciousness rapids’ paragraphs, just as he advised his students do.  “Be an active reader,” he’d instill, or try.  He threw phrases at into his full pages like “expand on motive for detail lack, or justify...”, “embellish”, “make at least twice as long, then tie-in narration/response, or reflection”.  He took another shot of his caffeinated bubbles, read more.  He felt a student, again.  As his music followed in its obligatory augment of his office’s sensory semblance, Mike read on.  Just read.  No more penning.
He found another author to study.
9/21/2011, Wednesday    

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

103: Aging


Hot, this night.  Sipping a Diet Cherry 7, for cap.  Was going to have a beer, but I decided I need to revert back to mode training.  Napa run, only four days distanced.  Nice dinner tonight with family.  Saw one of my cousins, third cousin actually, whom I haven’t seen in years, her husband Ross as well.  And, all over wine, food.  More evidence: wine IS the occasion.  Tonight’s types: Old Vine Zin, ’07, and Sonoma County Cabernet.  2007, as well.  Quite disappointed that I brought my laptop to work, for a Literary lunch rush, and failed to cross the street, to the coffee house for my sitting.  But, in some leniency to Self,  I did need air dosages.  Some of outside’s side.  Sights of Humans, life, motion.
Keep pushing Self to finish, publish a book, but do I need to?  How would I afford to get a manuscript out there?  Maybe it’s these posts I need to push.  Need to stop thinking about it so much.  And just...write.  Almost cursed, for the first time in this log, in some respectable time.  My mind, not enough wined.  Which is beneficial, especially in this heat.  But if I had a Rosato, delicious difference.
My heart, not wanting these button pushes.  But, a mind stubborn, cursed with incurable conviction always trumps.  How am I supposed to sleep in this heat?  It’s hot, up here in the study.  Hot in every corner of this castle.  Not in the mood to interact, with anyone.  Anything.  Even this computer.  Speaking of which, why didn’t it make me cross the street, spend my hour with the intended strokes?  No, it let me relax, outside.  Blaming it, yes.  This stubborn, stuck-up little silver sliver of digitized sleekness.  I don’t know who it is, thinking it can ignore me.  It’s not Literary.  It’s a thing, composed of other bits, systems, money-motivated notions, promises.  Corporate capsule.  It doesn’t write, recite.  Sorry.  Cranky, me.  Must be getting old, peaking, like some of the 01’s.
Should I try again tomorrow, bring the this little monster to work?  Maybe I’ll actually cross the street like I did a couple weeks ago.  It is decided.  And, I place these buttons, this screen, in the black bag.  Again.  Within minutes.  Still have those small earphones in the little front pocket, by where I keep extra change, under the discrete zipper.  Can’t believe I found those little listening pieces this morning.  No, last night, found them just before sleep.  Now, off to sleep.  Transcending meditations.  Musical, multicolored.  Contemplative vision manuscripts.  For the next sips, after Saturday ... 
9/20/2011, Tuesday

Monday, September 19, 2011

104


Mike sat there, heavily confused from the day.  Why, though?  It was one of the most fluidly pleasant, propelling, enrichingly education, wondrously wine-wheeled installations in months.  Back from his run, his first in over a week, and best in almost a month, he looked over his cubeNOTES.  One of the final scribbles, just before his last sale, read: “Today’s been smooth, enjoyable, it’s unnerving.” Again thinking, why?  He returned to NWG with forceful fretfulness.  Circulatory, skeletal, muscular instability intermissions, from turning of key to that Napa parking lot.  He hated that day, the one where you return after taking a sick day.  But, within the first hour, he had a commencing sale more sizable than any other he’d sealed on a Monday, within the first couple connections.  And the rest of his day just danced to that tempo.  Disbelief he loved.  He couldn’t solve this day’s enigmatic terrain, situation basin.
Once home, Mike stuck to his exposition of wine’s absence, till his debut race, Saturday.  He sat there, chipping at another chapter.  As much as he was able to accomplish at work, he thought, he could surely do with his writing, self-publishing.  He had to save more healthily.  No more lunches out.  AND NO MORE MOCHAS.  He needed to thicken his upcoming release.  More writing, he thought.  Tonight, the laptop would be put in his bag.  It was coming with him.  Tomorrow morning.  To NewWineGig.   
“What are you doing?  Are you bringing it to work?” Kelly asked, watching Mike put his laptop into his black, sliding it parentally into the laptop slot, like a parent would their child into car seat.
“Yes.  I have to.  Finally doing it, can you believe it?” Mike said, not sure if he did, unsure if he was proud, desperate, lunatic, admirable, blend of.
“Careful you don’t leave it,” Kelly said, putting on her sandals, the ones with  purple soles, dark pink lacings.  “Isn’t it beautiful out tonight?”
“It is.  Best weather for running.  Tonight’s was awesome.  Reminded me of summers in Sunriver, when I was younger.  We used to ride our bikes along the river at night.  The air had this rich musty crispness to it.  Like a damp field.  It’s hard to explain, but it was beautiful.”
“You always talk about that place.  I’d love to see it sometime.”
“Yeah,” he said, zipping device into temporary den.
9/19/2011, Monday

Sunday, September 18, 2011

105: Kaz Log, Contemplative


All days in the Kaz Lab, impelling.  People from everywhere.  In this country, world.  Forgot that this weekend was a valley-centered harvest event.  Had the Room with Luke, Nate, Kristin (Little Kaz), Sandy Kaz, and Kazapalooza himself.  Wine, family, all positive.  Which makes me wonder why anyone would courier negative, sour, idiotically indignant senses into such a tasting Room, or around wine in general.  I understand analytics, a critical approach to wine, as there is with Literature, cinema, cuisine, what have.  But I’ll never understand bullying.  All the incredible people I met today, I can only hope they return.  We beg for such encouraging vibrancy to roam the Room, approach the bar.  I would love to pour for Liz, Amanda, Kristy, Julie, their friends, again.  All wineries need guests such.  Badgers, please venture far.  Peace to my new, gently melodied bottle believers.  


Wines from the barrel, especially the ’08 Zin, tasting with unseen coercive chords today.  Love the grimace of splendid surprise when I inform them they’re more than welcome to bottle their wine themselves.  And cork their bottles, additionally.  No one else in the valley does this, which I love.  Love telling people such a truth.  I’m sitting here, in my home office, after shift, sipping what’s left from last night’s wine thinking about the day, the valley’s event, Kaz’s cannon of varietal interpretations.  How humble they are in palate presence, yet persuasive in reactionary characteristic annunciation.  Most notably, I must say, the 2010 Stomp Merlot.  Yes, this is one of my reliables.  However, affirmations from guests confirmed and renewed my adherence to this new release.

Me, just a writer in a tasting Room.  More than in love with wine, other Humans that love wine.  The kind open mind.  Bullies, my belief, that duck-and-cover behind, within, some coward-coursed social media plate should avoid jubilant tasting Room portraits.  I want guests like those above cited, my new friends from NYC, Petaluma, beyond.  Antitheses, hug your gray cloud.  Avoid us positively charged characters.  I’m raising my glass to Kaz, his winery, family, the guests drawn to those gorgeous grounds on Adobe Canyon.  Oh, and before I clock-out, appoint yourSelf to try the 2004 Intrepid, a straight Alicante Bouschet.  Dark, mysterious, ghostly, comely.  Palate eroticism from first nose greeting to encapsulating finish spark.  Wineries like this, WINES like Kazzy’s, make me write.  Make me love wine, more.  Push me to Self-educate, especially during this harvest.  The next one.  And next ... 
Sip, sip ...     


9/18/2011, Sunday

Morning Mocha Note -- 9/18/2011


On way to tasting Room, slightly over an hour.  Can’t locate my little notebook, “Little Red.”  Is it...hold on...  Found it.  In my devilish, but chic work bag.  That thing has devoured more, to reveal later, than anything I can think of, in my existence.  Need to write a letter--well, email--to a former colleague this AM, before my separation from this manuscript bunker.  Didn’t get around to reading Faulkner as I wanted to, yesterday, last night.  Posted a quote of his to Facecrook.  But, as you’d guess I see, that doesn’t count for anything Literary.  At all.  Antithesis, actually.
Finished my letter.  In my return to the classRoom, I bring more thoughts, provocative Literary approaches, and questions for my students than I ever did before.  The wine world, as much as I love it, doesn’t charge such frenzied tenacity.  It doesn’t invite a true Exchange of Ideas.  As my Dad said, “If one is to be preoccupied with what others think, how could they ever truly be thinking for themSelves?” Wine’s “industry” holds more restrictive, uniformed interchanges, assemblies, that predicates their minutes on others‘ assessments, reactions, embraces.  I was raised, taught, to think for Self, as if I don’t, others will.
Understand:  I LOVE WINE.  Not “the industry.”  I love the consumer, and I enjoy time with my colleagues in wine’s industry that consider themselves eternal consumers, that don’t have some self-elevation about them.  My current set of coworkers, altogether Human.  Insightful, fun, inviting.  But I feel we’re in the minority.  Now, I could be wrong.  I often am.  But this observation I won’t self-censor.  Ever.
Looking forward to pouring 2day.  Poured last Sunday, but it seems longer than a week, for a reason odd, that I can’t articulate.  Separating from this keyboard, as much as I’d rather not.  Why do I write so much, want to write all minutes?  Crazy, obsessive.  Yesterday, I just tallied, yielded over 2300 words.  Beneficial “metrics,” as it were, is, will be.  Thinking of how I’ll describe the wines, today.  Need bizarre but enticing modifiers.  Meditating, waiting.  Deliberating, till pours launch.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

106: Developing Man-uscript


Past 1200 words, already.  Time: 1056a.  Tiring a little, as the mocha’s wearing off.  Tonight’s restaurant, to be decided, soon.  Have to see how the day evolves.  Something soon will determine selection.  There’s a thematic correlation to be told, soon.  Rarely do my hands pain this author, from typing, scribbling, but now’s one of those unfoldings.  Clocking out.  Returning...well, whenever I wish.  This isn’t the “real world.” I’m not on someone else’s time mandates.  I’m in my own.  Punning phrases quite contemplated, targeted.  Aimed.  At Them.  The Party.
But I don’t want that today, to go down that turbulently angst-angled trail.  Today, triumphant transition, trust me.  You’ll se why, soon.  Outside, beautiful.  Perfect to today, this flavor of Saturday.  Need to get my new cards made, those touting vinolit.com.  This issue of “business” card--artist card, really; writer card--to convey more simplicity.  Who I am, where you can find me.  Job title?  Okay, fine:  “Writer/Wine Blogger.” As much as I scorn the sobriquet, I do blog on wine.  So...
10:38p.  Night cap, full glass of this B.R. Cohn Cab.  A really full glass.  Rather aback by how much I’ve written 2day.  Another new project started, like a winemaker starting another sub-label.  “Poetry, Solely, Me” will let me speak how I truly do.  In poem, rime.
Tomorrow, in tasting Room, Kaz Winery.  Plan on taking more pictures than I should, as I ought be behind the bar, pouring.  Need to makeup for the photos lost.  It’s quite alright.  A new challenge, enriching and rewarding renewal for the wine writer.  This ’08 North Coast Cabernet Sauvignon, different than the courageous Bordeaux bulls I’m used to.  I love it, learning.  New characters in my glass, especially when I haven’t had a sip of wine in a couple nights.  Know that doesn’t sound like much, but for a scribe like I, living and dying by grape, it’s a period in history, two days without pour.  Go ahead, judge ...  Notes in glass:  Nose - chewy jammy blackberry, creme de casis; Palate - Herbal plum, animated earth, sweet inkiness, misty tannins; Finish - Wild berry, minty flirt, green tea.  Overall, this wine speaks, confidently.  In a tongue quite universal, which serves as quite the relief to many consumers, especially those like me, on a budget.
Closing day’s session with some more sips, more music, more dreams of my own shop, my book on shelves.  Don’t care about the order, although I would rather writing wield first.  Either way, I’ll be AUTONOMOUS.  Solo.  My sentences, forever motivated and pushed by wine, Life, My Wine Life.  Determined to be back in the classRoom soon, and 4ever.  All this, with engaged student minds, I’ll share.  Show them they should think for Self, that they don’t have to settle, that BB can’t determine their sequence.  
vinoLit.  
Sip, sip ... 
9/17/2011, Saturday