Tag: Journalism

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Me, Wine Industry

Wild Wine Industry Freewrite

IMG_492408:57….  Just freewriting with the time I have left.  On my way to the winery, and so eager to narrate wine, the wines we have there that my thoughts are impossible to be corralled right now.  I see my shop, I won’t allow myself to be in any other mind mode than ‘my shop’.  Going to taste through each wine and note where it is now, today, the 6th of March.  Going to get as meta into and about wine as I can.  Starting with the wines on the flight.  And, the wines I had shipped to the winery for me to study, from K&L.  May even order some more.  Or.. should I hold off.  Or, should I buy some wines from the winery and study them even more.  Yes… meta meta meta.  Taste them at beginning of day and at end.  There is no such thing as fucking house palate, I find.  Look for new voices in the wine, for new maths and new character, new stories and notes and hints.  For a wine blogger and writer like myself, time is my most applauding rooter, coach.  Even though, it won’t be there one day, nor will I.  So many wine people, in and out of the industry want to find some new wine, which is a rewarding urge, but sometimes all you need are the offerings in front of you.

Today, start with the ’15 Pinot Gris, in its apparent simplicity there’s an atmosphere, a travel, a flight and a love song that you don’t find in other PG interpretations.  The Chardonnay, even for Chard’ opponents there’s engagement and charm.  She continues to change and lecture me on Burgundy’s resplendent integrity, always inviting me to see more about her and her home on the other side of the Atlantic— she tells me to come back, visit more, buy a home or condo, or some writing studio close-by.  I might, I might…

The reds….  Where do I start.  Pinot, Cab, blend, having me recite verse I didn’t even know I was apt to do.  The reds of my winery continue to not only evolve but educate me and show me that I’m doing the right thing in my story, writing about wine from my literary holdings and roots, from my studies in poetry and nonfiction, essay and even short story from high school to under grad then grad.  I’m a literary bloke in the wine put.  Here I am, and in this freely written writ or manifest, I’m going to keep writing about wine as freely and tireless, poetically and fearlessly as I’m able to self-shove.

Nine minutes till I have to pack up from the Windsor Starbucks and head to Roth with my music and notebook, readiness to taste through each offering, and maybe see what else I have in those cages that I can play with, sell.  I want to learn more, see more, write more.  I want to find more in wine’s stage and collectivity.  Then, I think again of the Pinot Gris, remembering that we have a ’16 as well.  More to write, more to excavate…. I’ll be an oeno-archeologist, this day.

(3/6/18)

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Me, Wine Industry

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Me, Wine Industry

Barrel tasting…

The more notorious and potentially scattered and volatile of the Wine Road events. But I’m optimistic this go-round. Up early this day, 05:21, not able to fall back into any form of sleep with anticipatory images jabbing at my thoughts. About what. Not quite sure…. How busy it could get in the tasting room, how the barrels will show, how much we’ll sell…. Wine Industry, my thoughts are everywhere. Everywhere. Opened a Napa blend last. One that didn’t want to say much to me, no matter how much a swirl I gave her, or how patient I was. Decided to return cork and let rest her for tonight after what’s more than likely going to be a ten-plus hour day. Still have to shave, find clothes that I don’t care if they get a little tattered, stained. Barrel Tasting. I literally can’t believe it’s here, already. And, the first seasonal party later in day, right after. Going to record everything. My job as the journalist is to be the who what why when where, and maybe a little how, gatherer. Wine story hunter and gatherer.

The last time I worked BT, let me think…. that’s right, 2011. At that shitshow of a Dry Creek winery. Was rather manageable, I remember. But this winery is a different dimension. No sense thinking and overthinking. I’m set on enjoying myself like any of the people with those bracelets, glasses. Just, and a penner, a capturer. Gatherer.

On the couch writing on my phone with a container full of iced coffee. Need to make these words fly faster. Delight and fold myself in this time to myself, wrap self around it. Later, my time belongs to the industry. No, I shouldn’t say that. No… it’s mine I’m just not composed like this, situated at my beckoning. I’ll be here, there, moving quicker, quickly, sped with my pouring abilities and talking about every offering we have to offer. Barrels…. people walking up to them, animated and agape. I wish I could just walk around and talk to people, ask them why they’re here and what they want from the event aside from futures, if they are actually buying futures. Then I understand I don’t have to. They come to me. My notes will have to be more than quick. I won’t have time for full sentences. Just little jots, singular words, if that. Maybe even some sort of symbol set, or wine journalist markings. Just write in between conversations and when I’m done pouring.

Seeing this as my assignment. The one. The one that will send me to others. I’m a soldier on the field with a notebook lashing at the little pages with details and sights, the sounds of people giggling as they get off the bus with their glasses and weird hats, costumes some of them. My assignment, to not just paint a picture of Barrel Tasting, but put myself there over and over every time I read through my notes. I’m Raul Duke, today. Not so much looking for any American Dream, but the ‘why’ to Barrel Tasting. Is it just a party, that show? Or, is there something else both business and consumer realize. My realization in this early early sitting is that wine makes its appearance and then sometimes is forgotten. The people don’t want wine at all, but an excuse to party, or be with no cares, or to be in wine country and forget about where they’re from… pretending this is their home and that every day is perfect, that all you have to do here is watch vines grow and drink wine, and if you work at a winery you do even less than that. Wine becomes only a scenic ingredient, if that. The wine becomes something other than wine with events like these, and I want to know why.

05:42. I’ll be out the door at around 0730. Head to the Windsor coffee shop and write a bit more for about 30 minutes then shoot to the scene. The scene of wine and barrels and those people with their ridiculous getups and bracelets… the groups that come off the bus with their chatter and smirks, giggles and stumbles. I said in a meeting the other night that Barrel Tasting is about buying futures, and education, wine education, after everyone around me after being asked what they think of when they hear Barrel Tasting voiced shit show, and getting drunk, throwing up in the parking lot, college kids, and other doom accounts. I was optimistic, in delusion. Truth is, I don’t care what I see today, long as I see the why. Why do they do this, seek this event principally.

Heater comes on in my house, I sip my coffee again and understand I won’t be back in home like this for well over 12 hours. Today, Barrel Tasting and the party directly after, will demand from me. A test, as a journalist. Not a blogger, today. Not a writer. But journalist. In the trenches of a winery on a wildly busy day, people surrounding me and me the one journaling either using my coded notation system or having to sentence more than so so much to inner board. A test, maybe not so much. I’m a tad of nerves, presently, but more eager to find, and SEE, the why. After they taste wine from a barrel, and even if they buy futures, or one of the bottles or even a case of the featured bottles, then what. I’m not even sure I’ll find an answer today or tomorrow or Sunday. Or next weekend. (Yes, it goes two weeks.). And if I don’t, I hopefully have something to record, report, what they all did tasting from the barrels and asking me the questions they did.

Relax, I tell myself. Have some coffee. Enjoy the quiet. It’s the last you’ll experience for over 12, 13, maybe more hours. Today’s the day, wine “journalist”. You’d better be in your character, tuned and primed and constructed for your composition.

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Me, Wine Industry

a thousand wines project

14

img_1713

Escapist…. Geometric and ontological tryst.  Letters and letters, reactions and reflections.  Rich, complicated and poetically precise and composed Pinot speak.  Ghostly raspberry and maple intermingle.  This character is for people seeing their taste as sophisticated as well as those just curious about wine, about Pinot, what all the fuss is about.  She instructs you, this Pinot apparition, shows and tells.  There’s music in this bottle, clouds and limits of jazz and funk, ambient and a certain trip-hop envelopment.  Elemental and constitutive codes as her expression intensifies.  As more of the room’s air in the settling glass, verses are disclosed.  Planetary and syllabic.  Musical.  She repeats her recital with those rose petal percussive pulses, light but enough assertive to land her thesis.  And impression, and cognition.

Eager in saunter of bright spice and berry prominence.  Track after track, in each sip.  Sip, sip….  And I do, revolving in Burgundian vocals and chords.  Centered and meditative in her rile.  I’m a bit lost with this bottle, this song, this character and what to say about her.  This is when I, the wild wine writer, yes self-knighted, gets a little frantic and may sip again, again, soliciting sagacity from he bottle itself.  She, this positive wave of Pinot aura negates any nihilism about my eye, scope, frame.  She reminds me that wine is for the positive of positive-positives.  There is no room for nay.  The Russian River atmosphere and phantasm situates right next to me, watching me write about her, watching me stress over words next— stumble then rhythmically perambulate down my cognitive tributary.  I write more not knowing what I’m writing.  This is an escape, and maybe I’m merely a diarist escaping the pattern, the normally.  No more mundane badgering.  She’s here singing to me, this 2015 Russian River sphinx, minx.  She repeats her verses and stances and stanzas sip after sip.  And I stay stunned—  Sip, sip…

Watch my watch, and I’ve not only lost time but separated myself from it.  I’ve escaped.  It could be the wine or… no, it’s her.  The wine.  The Pinot in my glass.  Stemless, here on the counter next to me while I listen to Miles Davis and think of my day in the Roth tasting room, how I’m contracted to see her, hear her, taste that shape, voluminously.  Look at my watch, turn it upside down, pour this writer another glass as I need one after such day. She’s there, here, here for me to hear my entries and verses of question, frustration, confusion and simple observation.

I stare at the color, what’s in that little vessel next to this keyboard.  MY wine writing takes turns other and unexpected, just in this sitting— more cherry, more vanilla, and more  of us.. here in this Now.  Like a death and rebirth commingled in the day, end of day, me in my kitchen writing and her wondering when I’m going to stop and just enjoy her, her company, her song and notes, and solo sequences.  Now… that’s what I do now.  Pour more.  She, the mentor.

(2/23/18)

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Me, Wine Industry

Wine Industry Maintenant

Lady from South Africa doing a tasting, her husband just observing, walking around the room and looking at the walls, rotating photos on the screen, then the shirts trying to find one that fit him. While tasting, this vocal and particular wife, she let me know that certain Pinots agitated her, that they weren’t for her, that they just didn’t speak to her or appeal to her. I’ll write more on this later, but the tasting room dimension and personality, collectively, tells me to go further, as far as I can into the wine industry’s grip and sound– the music of it all. When I poured her my favorite, the AV single-vineyard Cabernet I saw her eyebrows go sky high, elevate with intrigue and impression, space-stare and wonder.

Now on break, in kitchen, leaning against a steel island table and looking at what I type next to an empty glass rack. Those that get disenchanted with the industry have the wrong scope, sensibility. See it as yours. Right now is my topic, here in this kitchen and when out there with the S.A. woman.

I’ve tried a couple of the wine’s today, but not many. Have the Cabernet tasting across the street later, and I know that woman’s voice will be in my ears and thinking, what I see and next to me in the next chair even if someone’s sitting there. What will happen up there, I think looking down at my lunch which embodies a couple crackers and some port mustard I the other day bought with points accumulated. Looking at water jugs…. should drink water before going up there, hydrate, tasting’s had fucking work, oui? Another cracker… need eat. Hear more people walk into the tasting room and express their assessments so everyone in the world can hear. Lovely.

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autre

Night. Cap.

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Me, Wine Industry

Shadow

The day propels one, but it eventually fades. Then I sip and think of the day next. All a question mark, canvas blank, wine’s business and world talking to me over and over and telling me to write more, talk to what’s in the glass as it talks to us. Finally seated, after today, wine with a friend, more friend that “co-worker”, and only wanting what’s in the glass.

The day taught me to listen more, but I’ve been taught that already… It told me to listen more, listen with more placement and arrangement. Wine teaches. Something new, all days. Just when I think I have anything in wine’s picture even slightly measured and assessed, I’m further tested. To write more, see more, be in her vocal.

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Me, Wine Industry

a thousand wines project

11 & 12

Both these Zins defy the jammy, gelatinous paradigm. They profess art, deserving of readership, forcing anyone to look closer at their presence and anatomical verse. I’ve always seen Zinfandel as a problem grape type, and I know that’s my flaw, not the varietal’s. So why these two? Why did these personifications provoke me to write, tell me to speak, recite? Curtly… coherence. All parts of the characters’ visibility and tangibility, and the years’ echoes being earnestly set. I was humbled by both, and now see self again as a Zin pursuer. Had the Arista the other night, and now this nuit the Porter. This is why I’m with wine… she always has a lecture hidden, one I’ve never heard or felt. I’m always learning and these two sets remind this writer that he had no aim of being an expert. The less I know the better– Or, maybe more appropriately, stay a learner. Stay a recipient of instruction. Arista and Porter pulled me from my rejectionist blip of Zin.

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Me, Wine Industry

Long as I’ve been up,

the wine writing daddy needs this. No TV, everyone upstairs asleep. No voices. Me fixated and concentrated on my wined thoughts. Decided to open a ’13 AV Cabernet. Discussing with co-workers earlier what we wanted from this business, from our careers. First such multi-character back-and-forth I’ve had in longer than I can now deconstruct. Some time, since such. I know where I’m going, that’s all I know. She tells me to enjoy my visions, this Cabernet. She also tells me to stop worrying. About anything. “You’re in control, don’t you get that?” She hammers. Think I know what she means, then other times I just pour self into self-doubt’s cup. I don’t feel like working tonight. Just freewriting. Being me, and as freely as I could and can ever see. Wish it were raining. Could use those drop sounds. Would pair more than well with this Cab.

My own wine. My own winery… Goddamnit, I’m having these thoughts AGAIN? Take a breath… just enjoy the thoughts. An adjunct English Instructor, starting a winery. Or do I want a wine shop? Or both? One of the participants in the after-work talk said her cumulative promise was to be self-employed. No boss. No one telling her what to do. Simple, but I agree. My aims are a bit more anatomical, so maybe I disagree. What if I can have both. Shop, sell my wines in the shop. Then… have the shop be a client of the larger creative marketing and media verticality… This postulating wine and I having a much-warranted discussion, after this day type. I have to stay in wine, no matter how moody I get. It’s never the wine business or industry, or the tasting room… it’s me, trust me. My biggest problem is my attitude. This Cab reminds me, tries to help. Hear daughter cough, then cry… pauvre fille. Cry stops, but I wonder if I’m wrong for collecting as I now do. Glass gone, and I remember what Mom told me ’bout them. To cherish them. All from my late-Aunt Terri. Life and death accentuated in tonight’s sitting on this hard floor which now pains the writer and suggests that maybe I look at the wine again. Capping of night, sit on the couch… think of tomorrow’s lectures. HST, Plath… life, death… my love of other artists’ work that furthered into the inescapable connection to that end. There need be more poetry about me, with wine, with the shit in the industry I still scrutinize and cite, jab and stab.

This morning, up at whatever hour, I was concluding the day would be a demon-day. Testing me– no, more. And it did. So… the writer celebrates with his aunt. Can still see that grin… the teeth.. hear that laugh and feel her hand in mine dancing at my wedding in ’07. What happened. Why. What will happen in my story. And… pourquoi? Too much for this floor, and having an empty glass as I do. My wine diary… need submissions and just scribble. I’m deciding more wild ways, more poetry in my vinified haze…

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Me, Wine Industry

In 2

Behind the counter you see things.

Songs told and radiciform, romantic circulation and flown to where she wants us to go.

Lover. All ways, paces, places and placements.