Wine Stills, Rediscovered

Love finding wine photos about which I forgot.  I stare, remember the surroundings.  The shift that day in the tasting Room.  In my glass, some sparkling, listening to random rain.  Wings of ideas frenzying like the bubbles I’m sipping.  15 days more, till I pass through another door.  Tomorrow, with cameras, the little notepad, which I finally got around to buying.  Went to a new restaurant tonight.  Don’t have the energy to write about it here, in this session.  It deserves a ready wine writer.  Not me, right now.  I stumble with sluggish sentence, spacing in stills.  Hope this rain’ll follow me tomorrow, to the vine views ...

[5/14/11, Saturday]

Wine Riming, Me, Randomly

Pour to doors.  No score, anymore.

Scared of this chair’s stare.  My poor 

sessions, tear anywhere.  Different 

bottle type, for Mike.  Hold pen and lined

sheet tight.  No reason to fight.  Resort to

insight.  Others manuscripts.  Others’ lectures

hand you slips.  All lies, I’m supposed to be the 

fall guy, the one writing about wine.  Define my time

in fined rime.

No picture for this post.  Just expression.  Relief, rejuvenation, replenishment.  Two days off, after the 12 day stretch.  Tomorrow, I promise a more textured, complex, entry from me.  That ’93 Sonoma Valley Cab, on my desk.  Staring at her right now.  And she returns lenses, not even for eyelash lap.  What do I sip in front of her?  That same Malbec I always do when at keys.  She, my gracing Cab, isn’t the least bit intimidated by this brief episodic interaction with the less-gravitated Malbec.  This ’93, knows what she’ll deliver to me.  Her magic appreciates; Her story compiles.  She’s confident, night, storm and serenading symphony.  Her voice slides in sequence from the bottle, without it opening.  How does she do that?  Can wait till she’s poured, and we truly connect.

Varietal of night, Merlot.  ’07, Santa Cruz Mountains, for dinner with Mom and Dad.  They told me the tasting Room isn’t far from the hospital at which I was introduced to stage.  Made me think.  About everything.  Time.  How this month I’ll be another more aged.  Have to be a Literary Wine Warrior.  Only way to appreciate, delight in, this day.  This 07’s profile: Melodically deep, raspberry, harmony tannins with exhibitive mint and cocoa chords.  Incredible resonance after sip.  I, as a pen mover, envy this wine’s stature, swagger. 

I think about a Chardonnay I had the other night.  Not sure why.  Wait, now I do.  It surprised me, with its tenacious tenor; its lees-laced play.  I remember thinking, “Why did I order this?” Glad I was surprised, unintentionally jolting Self.  Tired, after the day.  Still haven’t taken pictures of the vines, neither to nor from NWG.  And, as it happens, it is sure to rain, so sayeth the weather basket-cockle.  So I may have to wait for that morning forward of cosmic beams to deliver vineyard splendor.  I’ll have to wait.  Sipping more Merlot till then.

Script Grape Drip

Don’t want to wait for this camera to “sync,” for the photos.  Why does this “wine blog” have to have pictures?  Why can’t it be a book, with a URL?  Can’t believe I even addressed that in this entry.  Tomorrow night, opening a ’94.  Is it a ’94?  Can’t remember.  Could go into the kitchen and remove that tissue paper.  But I feel like that would be violation.  Want to be true to this writing of wine like makers of wine would be loyal to their samples.  Feel like I represent the world of wine like those in “the industry” for years aren’t able to.  Merging the Literary, the Oenological.  That’s how I’ll 4ever continue.  Just like the Exchange of Ideas with Dad, 2nite, all cerebral flashes slide through thrown corridors.  And the varietals, multitudinous, shield Self.  This moment, here, in the day’s last hour, why I desire a wine’s time, as it does mine.  Clocking out.  

7:19p, punching in, this tired writer.  This morning, on the way to NewWineGig, felt the urge to pull over, take pictures of brightened already-cinematic vines.  But couldn’t.  In return to this wine inkman’s hole, saw similar brilliance.  But no reaction, even with camera holstered.  Had to get home.  To the page.  Not fair.  No fun, responsibility.  Want to write, create, freely.  I remember a winemaker one time telling me he hated how he couldn’t make the wines he wanted, he had to follow a piggish self-anointing marketing department’s commands.  Correlations pulsating, to me.

Haven’t eaten yet.  Dinner, kitchened.  Pairing last night’s 2006 Malbec with a couple enchiladas.  Not trying to be a sommelier with this meal.  Just fed, content.  Not sure if this part of the night’s flight will make it to the blog.  But most permanently, the book.  The words, still fermenting, being added, to the despicable online barrel.  Shouldn’t say that.  I’m just impatient, and can’t wait for my bottle-bothered blurbs to be on collated pages.  Now, feeling free, finally.  With the exception of time’s constriction.  It won’t stop.  Need another Malbec malaise.  Tomorrow, need to force the Self to jump from mattress early.  What time suites?  5:50a, 6, 6:05?  Maybe I could keep the 6:15a set, but prepare things tonight.  But that will carve into my scribe time.  Time, taunting.  Malbec ...

Decided I do want to make my own wine.  With Katie, the ever-oenowizard little sis.  Cabernet, Alexander Valley.  Someone at the Pinot summit a few months ago told me that all I need to start my own label is $5.  Can’t remember the specific context, but I splashed in such optimism.  Still hungry.  Will think about this over some more munchies, muddled with Malbec.  Maybe I should produce a blend of Cab and Mb.  Not sure how that would turn out.  Maybe I’ll never know.  I’d be fine with a cult Cab.  A Sonoma County cult Cabernet.  First of its phylum.  Tremendous.

The Malbec. becoming timid, elusive, ghostly.  But still libidinous.  Love this character in the glass.  She swoons, swerves, switches mode to push my intrigue.  Now, all more liberated.  I’m colorfully chaotic, a reader might note in their response journal, or in the margin.  What is your pen putting to the paragraph’s side?  High grape tide.  This wine, begging help, from rain, of all movements.  That’d be good for the vines, in their staged stage.  I think.  I hope.  The weather idiot said, last night, that rain approached.  Soon, actuality told.  Just envisioning these Wine Lounge beats, a glass of AV Cab, or Napa’s, orchestras of pleasant precipitation.  Writing.  Seeing it, now.  I’m there.  But here, thinking about writing about being there.  Malbec ...

Time galloping by like angry drunk horses.  Write through it, Professor Coleman would order.  And I’d follow.  Wholeheartedly.  Earlier today, tasted some Syrahs and Pinots, and one SauvB, from Chile.  Average, collectively.  Nothing about the bottles’ characters taunted me, or even suggested a hint of discovery.  Well, there was one Syrah that had such a fiery black pepper nose that you had to sip, to meet what followed.  But, a lack of Equilibrium encountered.

(5/10/11, Tuesday)

Ideal Tasting Room: John Anthony, Downtown Napa

Another delicious dwelling in Napa’s downtown.  As soon I entered the sleekly chic structure, the eyes swim in the simplistically elegant aura.  Colors, shapes, acoustics.  And the hostess with a spell about her every syllable, Tessa.  She started me off with a Sauvignon Blanc, 2009, Napa Valley.  Luminous, luscious.  One of the most assertively resounding SB’s I’ve in some time sipped.  Tessa next set before the writer a cunning cosmological constant of an amuse bouche plate.  Cheeses, salami slices, crackers.  Next, to the reds.  Felt like I didn’t need anything else, as I was already catatonically afflicted with all surrounding ingredients.

I love wine lounges, as readers know.  And this is what I envision whenever I mentally escape to such a soothing Room.  Can’t believe it actually exists, I remember thinking.  And with such lasciviously layered wines.  I sipped.  Didn’t want to stop.  Reds, vixens, all. The Syrahs, the Cabs, the ’05 Reserve, with that incredibly entrapping label done by Tessa’s tasting Room-mate Rozi, whom I also had the delight of meeting that day.  Had another sip of the Coombsville ’06 Cabernet.  Dark with waves of chocolate berry supernovas, with a somehow subtle, yet lingering, summation.  Tessa told me more about the producer, Mr. Anthony, showed me around the Room.  Loved the aft quarters, intentionally removed for private tastings.  Again, this is what I’ve before fantastically constructed as a tasting Room of mine own.

Definitely returning soon.  Not just for the alchemically incomparable wines, my new friend Tessa, but the integrality of the experience, the tasting Room.  John Anthony’s base, deserving the capital in “tasting Room.” Downtown Napa, another escape, for the writer.  Thinking of that phantasmic Sauv Blanc right now.  Could use a sip.  This is a perfect after-work spot, mind you.  A treat for all of us loving Napa, fortunate to work in its aorta.  Places like this make me fall even deeper into this troublesome treat of tryst with wine.  A space, its symphony of nuances and notes, suggestions, provocations, the pragmatic panaceas in the bottles.  I don’t need anything else.  John Anthony, one of the producers that’s sure to keep your oenological infatuation, adoration, afloat. 

(5/9/11, Monday)