11/20/17. Woke this morning to alarm and went to gym, finishing with 6.34 miles and disbanding 743.7 calories. Think those were the final totals but I can’t be sure. And this morning, Monday, motivated by the prospect of new wines to taste and write about— last night my brother Chris’ 2014 Russian River Pinot, on his mother’s label. The wine went right into its recital, she speaking in newly known philosophies and rhymes, everything from the rounded berry speak to the layered terrestrial and pepper-thrown dialects. The wine had its own language and perspective about herself, telling me to explore more, and not just Pinot. To write more wildly about wine and to not see any blocks— disarm them, these perceived stops, of their meaning and significance. She more to me spoke, ordering more literature, more readings, more of my own writing and to throw myself into the musical hues of wine— the jazz, the spoken word— the percussion and euphonious atmospheres in each pour and sip, bottle and vintage.
I’ll give the wine its own five hundred or so words at some point, but I need to be in this moment here, in the cubicle cloud, with the coffee I took from the hotel, poured into black tumbler. Giving self about 35 minutes more to my sitting. Behind on book progress, but I think not about that now. Seeing myself as a Romeo to wine writing, to wine— my highest of loves in this particular breath set. Today, focusing on reds, and drawing ideas for sales of reds, on both distributed labels and DTC/wine club offerings. Wine… my Juliet… she’s always there for me, in vineyard form and from pour to assure me of which way to go, and how to answer that goddamn annoying inquiry ‘what do you write about’. I write her. I follow her. In everything she does. Vines now changing their colors forcing me and others to stop on Chalk Hill Road and in other AVA’s to take a picture, capture it, capture it all…. And why not. You’re here once, wine reminds us. As a winemaker, you get, what at most… 40-something vintages, maybe. Oui? So I’m doing what I said I’d do…. Write wildly. Get back to France. Like my blogger ami the other day wrote, “…at a certain point it’s time to do it.” I’m doing— writing— wine calling me from all sides and tells, pulses and metaphysical measures.
The crush pad bombinates, on the other side of the wall left. I have to see more than just what’s on the other side of the wall and now I notice I’m doing what I said I wouldn’t do in this sitting— wishlisting. No more promissory notes. So… I’ll start with the Pinots, today, in the same key as what Chris last night me gifted. Re-reading my notes on his bottle… “profuse and gentle helix of texture and sense; light leather and floral luminosity; iambs and dactyls, poetic steps in all clefs, into my perspective her voice voraciously etched—“ I follow with what he set, to Pinots…. May even open the Sonoma Coast ’14. So that’d be 3… or then I can pop the Chalone, so 4.. why not? I’m opening the Pinots not to be one of those varietally driven, annoying consumer, but to see the several songs Pinot is capable of singing, sewing in my senses.
09:05…. Notes from yesterday on this one guest, who had a comment about everything, about the Chardonnay from Carneros and how she KNEW it was from Carneros…. “I knew it, see, I can tell a Carneros Chardonnay, any day.” She said. “Cool.” I said. “What tells you it’s from Carneros?” I responded, very gently and as if I genuinely wanted to hear her explanation which I did not. “Just the feel of it, you know? All the flavors… you know this is Carneros when you sip it.” She concluded, sniffing it more as if all eyes were on her. Her husband’s were, for sure, as he barely said a thing and followed all her orating, but my lenses and senses, sensibilities were into another Chardonnay from Santa Rita Hills.
This novel writing month, I’m following wine, all aspects of the business from the corkscrews to the corks, to the foil (and I fucking hate foil, with all parcels of my inner-rattler, its venom), the counters and how we have to wipe them down I don’t know how many times during the day— counting the cash (which I have to do this Friday), inventory (don’t forget to order the ’15 Sonoma Coast Pinot and ’15 RRV as well), to the glasses we have to infinitely wash… then the wine. The wine, wines, wine showing my character that everything is wine— What situates in the glass embodies all that can be embodies and straddles Philosophy, Psychology, Fitness, Wellness, Metaphysics, Mathematics (speaking of which, had a dream last night that I was back in school and missed a Math midterm ‘from being out tasting wine with my buddy, Robert, Master Somm’ for Foley, later finding out I was failing the class but I didn’t care as I scored a torrent of new bottles, all free, to write about and review if I wanted)…. Language, Poetry, Theatre… LIFE. This is all wine. This coffee is wine, if you must know.
How.
It gives the wine writer fuel he can pin in any other tangibility. It helps bee garage the page and stay focused and anchored to wine’s hold. She’s everywhere, right now, around me, speaking and singing again, tirelessly like she has nothing else to do but be there for me and ensure I keep writing, finally finish this goddamn book.
09:15. How did ten minutes pass like that? All day, only eight hours, if that, will be noting on wines… collection of my own descriptions. Some will be silly, of course, ‘cause that’s just fun to do, and others informative, and others just what comes to the penman’s cognition. I’ll remain, and not just for this book, an agog denizen in wine’s stretch. The wine last night, reciting— “Cherry code, varied notes, pulsing in dimension and unknowns— darkest of gothic chocolate sets abet a more venerated and self-effectuated charisma; no dilemma, only assurance, no burdens…” Everyone calls Pinot ‘poetic’. But to writers comme moi, it’s different. It’s heard, it’s felt, you’re coerced to your own verse.