Knew right where I was going from the Petaluma Campus, I wanted something to sip of a Bordeaux bend and bravado and I had a certain centering in mind.  So I stopped at Bwise Vineyards, the little embracing tasting room right by Café Citti.  Started with the ’12 Pinot, insisted kindly by my longtime compadre Josh from around the AVA, Sonoma Valley.  Upon aromatic contact I was nudged by rich subtlety, almost to the point of befuddlement, but with a couple more swirls I was wooed by its inherent exposition; the story, the charm and the radiant roar of this Occidental Pinot, as Josh disclosed; 18 months 50% new French.  I this is what I know Bwise to show, tell, share.. so, no surprise for the ravishing start.  Then to the Wisdom, the bottle I nearly always take home when I visit the Bwise Room.  What is there to say but “loud engagement” in this bottle; provocative, voice, persuasion and sensory magic, beginning to finish.  Only reason I didn’t buy a bottle today, I had to get another notebook, as the current Comp Book heaps, and I have over 13 weeks left in the semester…  Then to the ’10 Trios blend, 59% Cab Sauv, 20 Syrah, 12 Cab Franc, and surplus split about PV & ME (Petite Verdot, Merlot).  And I could list and summarize everything else I tilted into my character but it was all uniquely resplendent and quite voluminous.  And approachable!  This is what anyone would deem a “luxury” or “boutique” winery, or “label”, and its approachability and universal feel and character, and song, make it inviting.  That’s why I stopped, right there, on the corner of 12 & Shaw, to have my connection, my appeasement, of Bordeaux interpretation–  “So why the pleasure with Pinot?” you might probe.  Well, curtly, they do it right.  In that ’12, there was assertiveness without the barbaric bravado you might meet from someone producing a Pinot but yet wanting to avoid its intended and inherent softness, ease, and artful acts.  I came to Bwise today to experience a wine producer with care, with respect for the varietals and that connects with sippers on a postmodern level, beyond simple definition and a dumbing-down of descriptor enumeration (and that’s how well-woven these wines are, and will present themselves to your sense and “palate”).
At the end of the visit, my good friends Josh and Sunshine poured me a flight of Bwise behemoths; the ’10 Monte Rosso, the ’10 Brion, the ’09 Napa Valley Cabernet, then as a show of welcome the ’03 Napa Valley Cab, to illustrate how the project will hold in cellar.  I was charmed, and not to much shock this was my leaner, or favorite, for the day, and to a writer/professor it blares character, all of these pours and the label inclusively.  I’m home now, in the nook as I always type in eve at day’s close, and think of what I should have tried again, again, and maybe taken a bottle of.  Next time, as I’m committed to again visit, and, again, if you know me you know I will.  I’m a Cab-chaser, and a Pinot-peruser, so maybe tomorrow or next week or sooner than soon.  We writers need be wise with our words and what better room than this little cove at 12 & Shaw.. do I have that right?  Who cares.  I know where it is, I know where I’m going…  Looking at my pictures, and can’t wait to they take me on that mountain/cave tour.. I find mySelf obsessed, consumed in thoughts of that entity and that bar and everything that Josh and Sunshine poured me.  Readying for bed thinking about these wines, and what I should have bought and that doesn’t happen too often; these wines, all of them, have voice and coercive qualities.  I’ll be there, at that bar, with Sunshine and Josh, or whomever’s behind that sleek counter, I don’t care, long as the Bwise wines are there… which of course they’d be.  I left rapt, devout, and thinking of my next visit, which could very well be next week, or sooner.