Sipping the ’12 Syrah, Carmel Valley Winery, that I sipped last night, only one glass.  Today at estate, tasted through several tanks with winemaker friend, showing wine developments, different stages, strategies, dilemmas during fermentation…  I should definitely make something this year, but where do I store it?  Should I start saving for custom crush, see if Katie has a connection somewhere?  Yes, and yes.. but if ‘no’ to latter, I need start saving more viciously, no more takeout like tonight with Alice…

The order change in tasting room, for reserve flight, and ‘estate’…  I don’t agree with it, but I think it’s an interesting exercise, see how tasters react to the new order, not that many of them would be privy to the former.  And “tannin”…  Why do people always have to remark on ‘tannin’?  How does the bloody wine taste?  What fruits, spices, textures, suggestions greet you?

Jackie upstairs, asleep with Alice.  Looks like I’m sleeping down here again.  Which is fine, long as my little Artists sleeps.

I have to concede: this wine, this 2012 Syrah, freezing me still with its seductiveness; its dizzying palate gusts.  This is not the first time Boekenoogen’s done this, so why am I surprised.  2243, time for the final glass, the night’s cap–  Poe, on brain, planning on sewing him into the already selected writers for summer session, as he’ll be one of the chosen study cliffs for Fall.  I want the students to truly find themselves; to understand what it is THEY want.. to free themselves as I wish to free my Self from the devilish wine world.  But I still sip, wavering never, entrenched as ever.. that’s the type of writer I am, have always been since those rainy ’98 afternoons at Foothill where I’d write the first Massanello poems in my ’74 Super Beatle, closer to what I am.

I sip, and envision mySelf on the deck of some vessel, in the North Atlantic, as Dad would always say he saw on his international flights.  But I imagine the odd, the ghostly, the mysteries out there, what we don’t know; what we can’t solve from equation, or prescribed mathematics.  Not sure if it’s the sun I see or the moon.  What do I want to see, from this wood border?  I don’t know, don’t what to over-think the time, so I just sip, look at that thin claw-like cloud, and paint pictures, scenes, write more stories…

Syrah, usually roaring with a repugnant gamy or meaty, or sludgy motor to its call.  But not this Boekenoogen bottle.  It’s of poise and a promising pool; thick blackberry and cherry, and chocolate (but I always look for that)–  A relief in the Syrah world.  I remember when I first came into the wine industry, meaning on someone’s payroll (St. Francis’), someone called me a ‘Syrah snob’.  Okay, well, if that’s true, then I guess it could mean something to someone that I spin so unhingedly in this project, these sips.