wine world

wine sketchez

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Truett Hurst Winery – 2015 – “Queen Bee” – Gewurtztraminer – Russian River Valley/Sonoma County

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I remember thinking, “A Gewurtztraminer?  I’m going to write about a Gewurtztraminer?” Well here I am doing just that.  This bottle has no sugar to speak of, or none that you can detect, and boasts with tropical and florally capturing chimes from contact one to any finish.  But that’s one dimension to this wine I found inspiring, is that there was no “finish”.  I tasted it yesterday before 11AM, I’m pretty sure, and can still recall every suggestion, from the apricot, to the line, to the wet stone, forest air, tangerine…  This wine just stays there and communicates with you.  Has not intention of fleeing.  Doesn’t necessarily demand a food pairing, but would welcome something spicy or with a little pepper, some kind of heat.  I know, you’ve never heard of such a pairing for Gewurtz’, right?  Well, just had to put it in my notes, maybe to remind myself.  But, honestly, the structure and pervasive placement of this wine is so playful and flirtatious that I would just leave it alone, or only “pair” it with something before dinner, like veggies and hummus, or some aged cheddar., or a chair on a porch, or by a pool.  But, back to what I said, I was smitten leaving the tasting room.  And it was a rainy day, and I kept thinking “This would be nice for just sitting inside with and sipping, feet up on a coffee table in front of a fire or to some Sonny Rollins.” But, had to work.  So, to more of the wine’s testaments, it had me fantasizing, wishing, envisioning myself with just a day off— me, a bottle, a view.  Simplicity, sequencing more seduction.  And from a Gewurtztraminer.  Huh…..

Sbragia Zin, a stop

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I needed a wine, a Zin actually, that had voice and conviction, command over my sense for sakes of calming, and it was there.  This 2013 Sbragia La Promessa Zin.  Have had it before but only in the tasting room and a couple ounces, at maximum estimation.  I’m here in my office, home, now more relaxed—  It’s euphonious blackberry and blueberry chocolate taunts have me more composed and calm, forgetting about day’s stresses.  Of course stress will try to come back around for another pass to unsettle me, but the Zin is there, with its foggy texture and bright jump of a shapely song.

Another sip confirms its woo.  And me, not much ado.  Just enjoying.  This is a cure, a delicious yield to a cosmos larger than my immediate stage.  I could get lost in this red but I halt and sip in measure as I have to run in the morning, but it cured me of the day.  And I’m thankful in many a way.  I needed a wine and I was with the right one after a day like this.  Thinking, meditating as it shed its jammy a-typicality and happily concedes to a more texture-purposed poétique.  Zinfandel and I have never had this conversation, where I orate with such loftiness and praise, where I’m such a Lilliputian, a dazed follower of this Druidic fluid.  Sbragia’s been there for me on more than one occasion but this night’s the more memory-promised of all them.  New ideas, new affirmations, all from that base on Dry Creek Road, with the valley view, atop pedestrian pace but welcoming everyone.  I need another glass, but don’t.  Save the remainder for morrow.  Best that way.  New chapter and song, removing nay-say in any day.  Should stop by and buy a bottle, for the next time a day like this strikes.

Ainsi, le Vin

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Reminded today that wine is about life— a tidal wave of vivacity and expression, music, love, and communication.  Lunch with Paul M., sandwich I’d never before had at Dry Creek paired with that Pinot Blanc from Michele-Schlumberger, and the interaction that transpired, following more reflection in head that precipitated on ride to the delicatessen.  My vision was full, as it is now, love and life in this log, this essay of a writing father trying to fit everything in— sitting on floor or living room while wife and babies upstairs sleep, me with this gifted Pinot from PM— huh, just realized, ‘PM’, time of day I’m most essayist, and most internally narrative.  Haven’t seen my friend in over five years, we agreed, when I once saw him out on a town night in Napa of all places— and I say ‘of all places’ postured to me, as I’m never there, PM’s home enclave.  Nothing abbozzo in my life, currently.  All I sketch or paragraph I need release, not just from the interstellar adoration of wine and sentences, but from the commitment, my immovable sight in the atmosphere around me— from when I walk the vineyard on other lunch breaks to when the writer’s seated on the wood floor of his Autumnal Walking base, sipping a Papapietro Perry Pinot, listening to music at the end of an other wise carousel humdrum day.

Also reinforced with the 16th of août, my afflicting affection of so many things in being alive.  All around me.  As stated with those walks in the Chardonnay and Cab, and Rhône blocks, at Dutcher, wine directs me to certain certainties that are difficult to delineate give the qualification I’ve imbibed this eve.  Love and living in this page, and all from where the writer lives, what he sips, the music listened— some mix tape from Thievery Corp’, if I’m not so off.  Quiet down here for the writing father— another sip.  This write is free, I’m free, and that’s my right as writer.  Consider this a direct and staunchly tied reverberation from the conversation with my brother Paul.  Sipping the Pinot again and as I tilt back and the light from this laptop extends to the bottom hemisphere of the Govino glass and into my eyes, hearing this obscure track, I think I’m on the Road, traveling, somewhere, writing about wine and all the yay-saying tellings of its voice and cultured angularity.  “This doesn’t have to be a ‘dream’.” Wine says.  And I agree.  Wine with its love shoves me to a savory reality— romantic Hemingwayan notions and Plath pulses, my Feast so Moveable and my Bell Jar fuller than full.

And it’s again reiterated my the components of my moments that this is the mode I’ve chosen.  Writer in and of wine.  So.. recite more.  Keying my notes for the next noted key in my fermented free.  If I would have had more time at lunch, who knows what we would have webbed.  But that’s a wish.  Wine’s at my right, or left, or right, to actualize.  No need to act in a guise.

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(8/16/16)