wine, knowing now, pages and pages, FREED
waking early to write. Brewing coffee now, or about to, and seeing me now. A father. I have kids. They look to me for… something. What. Maybe everything… coffee in front of me. Like the morning. Meetings and possibilities. New pages and people. This last glass, Cabernet, telling me to slow, not be so quick to know.
And she tells me to wait, collect, enjoy the thoughts.
In house today. For some reason. Keeping self busy with projects and note-taking. Writing plan for day. Plan to run at lunch, taking lunch early, hopefully. Not too hot, I checked. People around me talking, wonder how much work they’ve done so far today talking about movies as much as they are. Makes me want to write a script. On working in a tasting room. Didn’t I have a project on that, at one point. Yes! It was called Tasting The Room. What happened to that? I remember I started writing it while at St. Francis.
Opened the Tin Barn Syrah last night. Not bad. Certainly not impressive or inspiring or convincing of any new Beat or Road, in any way. But I did have a couple glasses. The Syrah in my tasting room will be far more expository and loud than the Tin Barn. I can taste it now.
Plan for day—Run at noon. Write notes throughout day. After clocking out go to nook and write, a thousand words for no specific project. Post it all to the bottledaux blog.
But what about a book.
What about one.
Just keep writing. Everything in this office this morning and for the stretch of the day will push me to my There as that’s what I demand it do.
Sparking water, latte done. Everything is to be written. Everything is something on the Road, in the book. THIS book.
9:33…. Need a break, soon. Sooner than maybe I’m perceiving and formulating in my A.M. head.
10:04, and I’m in a circle pattern, holding pattern, some pattern where there’s no real pattern being established or reiterated.
2:36. After run. 7 miles. Not hungry, but a little tired. Thirsty again. What’s the next thing in the day…. The next… thing. What’s happened so far. Not much. Make something happen. I know…..
3:25, coffee. Didn’t do what I wanted, the ‘what next’ dilemma. I know now, though. So… here I go.
Started a new haiku stream. Just wrote one, but will write another soon. Maybe in a minute. All work done. So now what. One of those things, thoughts, sip the coffee that’ll help.
3:58 and two haikus done. Will type later. Or I’m hoping to. Coffee absolutely helping. Will revisit that Syrah tonight. Not excited about it, but I will do so and write about her and the Pinot I had… Raeburn? Is that how you spell it? Feel my mood getting rattlesnake-like. Hunger, hungry, could use something. What. French fries and Pinot? Warriors game on tonight. May watch with Alice and babies. Know little Kerouac will want to see game, his favorite player Mr. Curry.
Starting bills, with day, or day with bills. Budgeting the winery in my head. Am I getting serious about this, about having my own little label, or wine shop, selling and talking about wine, writing about the Road there. Yes. No need for question marks. Question rhetorical, or if not rhetorical then antagonizing.
Paid credit card, which is all but done. Money aside for tasting room, the Merlot I want to make this vintage…. Two barrels of Merlot, same everything, just to show how each barrel is its own life, voice, world, “ecosystem”. Its own beat. And what better than with Merlot.
Pinot from last night, still some left. Thinking about bringing in, but would rather keep here for my own experiment to see how it lives, survives the 24 hour rest, any oxygen sneaking in through sides of cork and bottle’s neck’s inner face. That’s what I’ll do.
Getting in shower in a bit, then up to Jimtown to write, walk a vineyard…. Start my wined day. Take notes for meeting tomorrow with sales exec guy.
Back to money doc…. How money just flies away, as Dad joked with me long ago. Joked but wasn’t joking. Have always seen my dad as sort of a money master, and he’s proven to be such, as long as I’ve known him. Wanted to move us to San Carlos, build house, he did. The Sunriver home, made happen. I’m 40 now, time to be more stringent and lone with money, singular projects. Why not just have one, be lone. With my wine Room…. Thoughts and thoughts, watching my babies on the couch watching Sandlot, a film that rewinds my mind so many years it makes me harshly realize where I am, at fucking 40.
Wine gives me a second start, a re-start. Focus on her, what she wants, what she’s drawing, what light she discloses and words put to page. Nothing can hurt you with her songs playing, with her scenes queued.
…not just about wine, but this, life, what I’m to do and how to be a more consistent and found character for my family. Family… this is all for them. Not for me, at all. Sure I enjoy wine and writing about it, but it’s more than that. Like the time when my friend Chris and I went to John Ash and had each a red, he a Cab I think and me the MacPhail Pinot. We tasted back and forth, shared, discussed and deconstructed as Chris at the time was the Lab Lead at Roth, while I was the tasting room narrator helping manage the room and just selling. Titles didn’t matter, we didn’t try to eclipse the other. We spoke, we listened. We lived in that moment at that table with people around us, pairing what we ordered with wine with our small bites. I see that happening in my Room, the tasting room I eventually have. People in, talking, about wine or not. As long as there’s life present, there, to its own music and beat.
No new wine, last night. St. Francis Cab, I think the ’16. Need to be better about noting vintage, I know. The wine was more gripping and seemingly aggressive and with its own loving growl and scratch. The oak and “varietal” character didn’t and still don’t matter to me. IT was the wine and me there in the kitchen, again, like the Chardonnay the night before. I saw the wine and felt her walk, communication and order. Cabernet conversation, from the pen and paper, the walls and counter. Everything was where it should be. Like the piece I wrote yesterday on Dave, I was just thankful to be alive, there, in the kitchen with the Sonoma Cabernet realizing I’m alive and that I’m sipping that with intention. The story clearer to me as a writer of wine and nothing else. Wine is the definition from denotative and connotative peaks for me and my Now.
Coffee, I mean latte. Feel something with today, and that’s the decision to re-write ALL negative presence, sentiment, tell, pulse, anything in my story. First sip confirming. The book, my book, from wined thought and wined possibility, my eventual bottles, telling my story and having my babies and family help with everything from the wine itself to how it’s told, narrated, not sold. Part of my message, as wine teaches me, is to be about dispelling naysay. Or, re-writing it. Using the existing momentum to reach what you see for self. To be free, as I am with this write. I’ve definitely assumed such an act and walk more so getting older, with writing and everything. To just create, act and move. Be free in flight and when on ground. And those bringing that scowl and lowering tone to your standing, accept it and love it, wildly embrace it. Then, you RE-WRITE IT.
Not sure how much I’ve written this morning, but it’s up there. Thinking about wine and what I could do with it, with her story. Making wine eventually, maybe, but writing her story and definition, her theory and philosophy and pages, her narrative, my vin-sown story…. All of it, from the vineyard, from walking between rows, meeting new people in the tasting rooms and doing those tours where I ask them about their relationship with wine and what brought them here… taught. I’m being taught.
Wine is an education vehicle and ideological map. The best thing to do, explore. Study if you want, buy tons of wine books or go on Wikipedia or whatever, but explore. Buy some bottles, and write what’s said to you.
…like, “chocolate” for a Cabernet, and “wild berry” for a Sonoma Valley Zin but I thought it sounded so lazy and effortless, like I didn’t care about the wines I was tasting. Like the wine deserved more than that. And she did, does. I do, too. If I were a wine right now, I’d be not exactly engaging, inspiring, or even drinkable. So I continue to play the game, first changing the music I’m listening to, some Lo-Fi Hip-Hop instrumentals on Spotify, some playlist I found. Actually I think it’s more trip-hop, or ambi-hop. I don’t know, but it’s not helping my temperament. Ugh, neither is this new track.
There. Thievery Corporation. Much better. What I see playing in my eventual wine room, MY tasting room, pouring MY wines. So… the descriptions, I’m still there, wanting to play with them, yes play the game but be more playful and not in any dote predictable with what I write about wines I’m tasting. The other day actually tasted a bottle of DuMol Pinot that a girl I work with at Lancaster brought in from the night before, an even she worked at the Mayacama club or whatever. The wine was realized in its identity, with busybody cherry and berry layers, promises of cherry and mint, some rich and compact rain-told soil. Not like “forest floor” as so many of these rusty bot wine “writers” put to page about Pinot, but with a nearly palatable terrestrial seduction to her. The DuMol reminded me what I need to be doing, and differently that all these others assembling paragraphs about wine. If you could call them paragraphs. If you could call them assembled or coherent, convincing or even alive.
I have been advised, told, suggested, even taunted to write about wine. Only wine.