For some reason, hot downstairs in the Autumn Walk castle.. and me, I’m writing freely sipping a red blend from someone I appreciate and study and admire.  The whole day, today, my mood volatile.  The papers already stacking, part of the reason.  So I.. needing some reasoning in this, focus on wine, the story and how I want to write it and eventually make it.  The story of wine and, whatever I can think of.  I think I’ve reached the extent of what I can take on in terms of projects so I now I begin this great consolidation, an act I’ve been entertaining and writing about for years, but now it’s necessitated by all I’ve taken on.. Solano and Mendo.. why.. to stay out of the tasting room?  I don’t know, but I–  Nevermind.  Soon I’ll have my night’s cap and just meditate.  Going to throw away what I can and let projects come to fruition as they want.  And I won’t let myself get distracted from my perfect world vision.. the readers and viewers are the only ones I need please.. with this new startup, the ‘3v’ project I’m codifiedly calling it.

This wine reminds me of some of the bottles I sipped in France, at that little bistro just down the street from the hotel, Le Petit Journal– god I hate this anxious feeling right now.  Must be the heat of the house or something.  Need another glass of the red to calm me so I can think.  I obviously have accepted too much into this semester’s docket.  Living from my freewrites, about wine, and the startup idea, sharing photos and wine information and language about wine, and notes, thoughts.. but NO scores!  This will be a human/non-critical site.  For true wine embrace and centeredness.  I look left, to the floor where all my adjunct articles, be it papers or documents or syllabi, and wonder how I’d feel if it were completely gone, that was filtered out of my life.  No teaching?  Yes.  For a bit.  Just writing.  Walking from the car and into Whole Foods I thought of blogging, and writing and blogging about wine, and about Life, on this blog and this new site, and wonder if I could make it work, if I could gather enough a readership materialize a different life for my family and I.  I will.  I have to.  The wine will make it so and my story and trek to making my own wine.  I know that’s where I’m headed, getting positive feedback even from the two wines I made in ’12 with Blair.  I will make wine, and I will have my own room, but by appointment only.  Sorry.  Just being open to the public I feel makes you like a deli, or a hardware store– no, not to say that all wineries or tasting rooms that are open in door-philosophy are, just–  I don’t know what I’m saying.  Just poured my night’s capping and I’m relaxed.  I deserve this moment, thinking about my wine and the winemaking philosophy I want to execute, and how I want to be in the vineyards everyday, even during dormancy, go for walks as I do with my Arista friends.  And just think, feel what the vineyard is saying to me and if the fruit has been picked as it has in Two Birds and Harper’s (both Arista blocks), then I see if it wants me to measure the next yield, the next cascade of chapters and narrative, fruit and cluster prominence and what the wine’s to be seen as, vineyard or vintage reflective?  That’s the end to these written and adjunct’d means.. the wines I make and sell.  Going to email Kaz tomorrow and see what he has to say, see if he can offer some sagacity.  Or maybe I should do this on my own, wholly.  That would make a better story anyway, the adjunct professor leaving the profession or at least partly to make his own wine, start a family business and be in the vineyards and translating the fruit.  My own Beat– and speaking of which, I wonder how many words I’m at for the day.. just took another hugging sip of the blend, now it shows more rich dimensionality than the first couple glass-tilts.

Today, Day 1 of no Starbuck, just like Alice, though I’m not as disciplined as she, I’m set on changing my character and saving money for my first two barrels in 2016, one red and one white– or maybe I should have typed that reversedly, and more specific– Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot.  “Why not Cab?” you’ll ask.  “Aren’t you a ‘Cab guy’?” Yes, but I want to produce, again, the varietal that pulled me into wine’s Road, that brought me to the pursuit of wine and its voices and dimension and what the whole business and story set is all about.  Have my eye on this one winemaker from.. I think Cloverdale.. anyway, want to interview him for writing purposes but also to learn about how to start, how to get off the ground with the bottles you produce.  This all has to happen now.. so all the mmc prospects that could call, and if they do, will be quite disappointed when I tell them, “I’m at a full client-load now, sorry.” I’m going to pour my entire Self into my classes this term, and my writing clients, save, and start to scout my vineyards.. I know enough people to I’m sure get a deal, but I’ll see.  The SB, I want divided, 50/50, one part free-run, the other kept with skins then pressed soonafter, then tanked for a bit, then barreled.  And the Merlot, I want purist, dirty and earthly, a terrestrial taunt–

Just had an idea, on wine and writing about it, how some call me a “Wild Wine Writer”.  Why not embrace that, be like a, funny I’d say this, “Howard Stern of wine blogging”.  Why not?  I should take another sip, go piss, and come back to this couch and meditate on that.. no?  And no, I’m not drunk.  I wish I was!  I’d be writing much more provocatively, I’ll tell you.

(8/31/15)