outward projection from a small brooklyn room.

"Sometimes the house grows and spreads so that, in order to live in it, greater elasticity of daydreaming, a daydream that is less clearly outlined, are needed. "My house," writes Georges Spyridaki, "is diaphanous, but it is not of glass. It is more of the nature of vapor. Its walls contract and expand as I desire. At times, I draw them close about me like protective armor... But at others, I let the walls of my house blossom out in their own space, which is infinitely extensible.""(bachelard, "house and universe", 31)

Bachelard, Poetics of Space, "house and universe"

""Winter is by far the oldest of the seasons. Not only does it confer age upon our memories, taking us back to a remote past but, on snowy days, the house too is old. It is as though it were living in the past of centuries gone by. This feeling is described by Bachelin in a passage that presents winter in all its hostility, "those were evenings when, in old houses exposed to snow and icy winds, the great stories, the beautiful legends that men hand down to one another, take on concrete meaning and, for those who delve into them, become immediately applicable. And thus it was, perhaps, that one of out ancestors, who lay dying in the year one thousand, should have come to believe in the end of the world."

For here the stories that were told were not the fireside fairy tales recounted by old women; they were stories about men, stories that reflect upon forces and signs. During these winters, Bachelin writes elsewhere,"it seems to me that under the hood of the great fireplace, the old legends must have been much older than they are today," What they really had was the immemorial quality of the tragic cataclysms that can presage the end of the world."" (Bachelard)

This book continues to surprise me in its depth, its cross-references, its intuition about places, its descriptions of how it feels to live in a structure of any kind. Memory and nostalgia have become wrapped around the physical reality of places we live, places we have inhabited in our youth. These things like the quality of the light falling, or the sound of rain on the roof when we were children have infiltrated the timbers and beams of the house because they have become wound together inextricably in out memories.

I have never heard anyone else articulate this, but it resounds with me fully. When storms would roll over the Front Range in Colorado, at 12 or so, I would take my stack of books and a blanket, candles, and swaddle myself into the swing on out front porch. The house I grew up in was just the right kind of "old", 1907 I think, reddish orange brick, creaky wood floors, and the swing was pretty rough and splintery. Why I felt the need to rush outside and watch the entire storm is kind of strange, or why I was so deeply drawn to it as an event to be witnessed. I remember the smell of ozone/creosote in the air, darkening clouds through tree branches, thunder.... these sensory memories are now the shell around my childhood house. I don't remember one with out the other.

On the cusp of Spring here in New York, I feel like saying goodbye to winter, with this above passage, with gratitude to its sentiments, with memories of reading John Berger's 'Labors of the Earth' trilogy, of reading Colette's early books about her childhood home (Sido, My Mother's House), old Nordic fairytales, and a nod to the magic and alchemy of the things I have learned this winter. ***Post-note: I just learned that Rene and Agnes Mosse plant stag horns in their vineyards for certain parts of the season**** magic****!!!!!

movia 'lunar' '07, grits/gravy/eggs/pepper/night

bird & bowery

J'en veux

Goddamn if NPR didn't make me cry a little just now,,,,, interview with Amos Lee (collaboration with Willie Nelson !!!), Amos talking about growing up working in a record shop and realizing the power of the ALBUM, the A and B side. In our world of instantly available singles,,, damn if that sentiment didn't bring back my hours spent in dusty record shops, or the visceral thrill of listening to Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' from start to finish. And MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC, the power of whole albums that rolled on in your parents house afternoon, damn.

Good combination with the copious amounts of fresh thyme I just rough cut all over my potatoes, mustard, salt and pepper, olive oil bath.

The wine ('J'en Veux' Ganevat Jura field blend of almost 30 (?) red varietals) is getting more savory, though it could be the fit of almost tears, and the thyme smell all over my hands. It started out so light and acidic, of course, strawberry, current, maybe un-ripe lingonberry,,,,and now has taken on some savory rhubarb bramble, currants but slight cream?, little bit of cherry pie and crust on the end????

Am I losing my mind? I hope so. This radio episode has made me commit to getting all hundreds of my albums out of storage and setting up an actual sound system, with all the glories of my 4 foot tall 1970's speakers from one of my best friends in the whole world. I also need the original Richard Brautigan books that his father mysteriously got from a library in Amsterdam (??).

Cheers Saturday and home cooking. xxoo

Savennieres

Having a blog can be the most ridiculous thing in the world, even writing these words makes me cringe a little. Yes, a truly selfish pursuit, or is it? I don't know at this point, but I think the argument for or against has pretty much played itself out. I have this tiny little cyber-place where I can scribble things down, where I can at some point connect to others with ideas. I guess I am admitting that it is selfish because writing things down helps me remember them.

I have a bizarrely visual memory (all the time I spent studying for spelling bees with my dad, damn flashcards), we begin to see the true dork at the center of the story (me), BUT my rambling point this morning is that a connective, cohesive narrative of my recent days (even if its sloppy and not perfect and doesn't even hint at my original idea), is a lifeline to me.

It organizes these experiences and thoughts I have every day into some sort of matrix or scaffold, and I can SEE it. This is also why I obsessively take photos of wine I drink, bottles I drink (and lately obsessively post to my facebook page, sorry everybody). Yes friends, there is an educational component to my compulsive wine photos, even an emotional one, a needed one.

I'm not sure if I am trying to expose myself as the dorkiest kid on the planet (I did win quite a few elementary regional spelling bees, but got trumped at the last minute by the word 'thief'......) I think I even won a three musketeers candy bar in third grade for spelling the world's longest word (duh....).

But now what do we have, well,, it seems I have an obsession with words. And that is an alright thing for a writer, a necessary thing. When I was a teenager, going through my most "artistic" phase, wearing dad's army coat, layers of thrift store slip dresses, I was still sitting hunched on my bed writing words I didn't know onto the pages of W magazine. I think the best list was over a Guess ad with Drew Barrymore's face on it. I wish I still had that list.

This past weekend I met some of the most beautiful and warm people on the planet. Yes, they were French (and Italian) winemakers (LDM). For someone who has her head in the clouds too much, nose in books, it was nice to be jostled around a little by happy, physical people that had their hands in the earth most of the year. I am not romanticizing farming, or the difficulties of working a vineyard by hand, but my God these were all truly happy (drinky) people. Warmth.

I wasn't expecting that Senore Vergano would pour me a glass of his own chinato, adding ice, fresh cut orange peel, and a splash of soda water to his 'Americano', or that the lamplight would fall on his face just so when he was laughing. I managed to remember my favorite Italian phrase 'Me piace da mourire',,,, and this made him laugh ALOT ('I love it to death'). Or me trying to speak to Jean Paul Brun about something entirely too serious and Damien Coquelet putting a piece of ice down the back of his shirt.

Right now I am realizing that the things I hoped for, the feel and textures of my life that I hoped for, just last year, are starting to take shape. Some of the most traumatic events in my life happened just over a year ago, and they razed me. They burned my life to the ground. This created a brand new, wholly new open space. And I began to think (very generally at first) about what I wanted my new, eventual life to be. Some of the words coming through my mind at the time were 'wine', 'France', and then just images,,, images of landscapes, maybe green, maybe grapevines.

What has astonished me is that my life has taken on this very shape. I returned to New York, worked my way back through wine, found an amazing wine shop (UVA), a job with a wine director (Levi), and now the French is coming back. I can think in it again, even if its a little bit of a rusty struggle.

I am really excited to see where I end up next year, hopefully speaking fluent and torrid French, hopefully some dirt under my nails, hopefully a trail of papers behind me, bound, and hopefully centered at the middle of a beautiful life I created from my own brain, but helped along the way by so many people. I also hope to have the world's most beautiful paperweight collection (like my heroine Colette),,, and maybe one or two pairs of shoes, a stack of well-thumbed books, and brightness in my eyes.

From Kermit Lynch's 'Adventures on the Wine Trail' (perfect book), in the Loire section: "If Vouvray has the chalk, Savennieres provides the blackboard, and the two wines are strikingly different. The change in the wines is first evidenced as one approaches Angers. In the blink of an eye, heavy black-rock-shingled roofs begin to predominate. The stony soil here contains schist, which splits into layers quite conveniently for home builders. It also accounts for the nerve and firmness at the heart of Savennieres wine, for its finesse and the attractive tinge of bitterness in its aftertaste." (48)

Last night I had a glass of wine at Terroir with my friend Allison, and damn if I didn't go for the Savennieres..... it was an entirely new experience tasting it after reading those words just earlier in the day. This is what I appreciate about writing, this is what I need from reading, this is how we change ourselves on a cellular level, on an atomic level......and understand things in-the-round, brain wires clicking away but bloody confirmation through senses, through enjoyment,,, yes a good Savennieres has a nose of "gunflint, that is subtle and fine"(50).....

LdH

At David Bowler yesterday I had the pleasure of tasting quite the LdH line-up. I started out in Spanish wine (Tinto Fino, East Village), nearly five years ago, and Lopez wines induced my first of many startling palate revelations, spurring further (continuing) obsessions with sherries, orange wines, Jura wines, etc,,,,.

The first Lopez wine I had years ago was a 1996 Vina Tondonia rose. My roommate brought it home for a party. I must have worked that night at the wine shop because most of it was gone by the time I got home, but she had saved me a glass that I had the next day. The bottle had been open for almost a full twelve hours, and was gorgeous! I couldn't believe the smokiness that I was tasting, with crushed rose petals and sort of a salted persimmon thing I couldn't quite place, a Middle Eastern sweet/sour incense red flavor that was spiced, glazed, like orange flower water that I keep next to my bed, or rosewater that gets slightly musty worn on the skin.

Say what you will about LdH bottle variation, or too-traditional, old school methods, these wines are BEAUTIFUL, unique, and hit my palate in just that sweet spot that I didn't know existed. Others have written beautifully and much more exhaustively on the subject; (my dear friend Pam Govinda, where can I find your article on them, Levi Dalton, Neil Brooklyn Guy, also):

http://saignee.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/day-19-2-the-future-of-spanish-wine-part-ii-%E2%80%93-talking-about-tondonia/

But this morning it has just started snowing again, I am warm under blankets, I am exhausted. There has been so much wine-tasting and wine talking this past week or so, I am struggling to come up with any synthesis or structure in these words. But I needed to pin down some of my impressions from yesterday, and am trying to fix these impressions in a concrete way, tiredness be damned.

What are the characteristics that I love so much about these wines? Clove, cinnamon, leather, candied ginger, just-candied pineapple, salted caramel,,,, what is not to love? I think its the "off-ness" of the tastes for me, the spice but the mellow underside of it, the balsamic stretch underneath, the crushed or dusted fruit instead of bright acid roundness. Even after 30 years in the bottle the whites are like liquid amber, mellow, candied, yet still fresh.

Here are my notes from the tasting yesterday, and would love some comments feedback from other wine folks that were there:

REDS:
Bosconia Reserva 2002: young
Bosconia Gran Reserva 1991: (clay): animal nose, green peppercorn
Bosconia Gran Reserva 1981: more oak than Tondonia, more cinnamon, less richness
Bosconia Gran Reserva 1964: sweeter, candied pineapple


Tondonia Reserva 2000: (limestone) minerals showing through
Tondonia Gran Reserva 1991: out
Tondonia Gran Reserva 1980: too green, cocoa, green peppercorn, warm spice on finish
*Tondonia Gran Reserva 1981: **** oak, more orange in color, bitter orange, dark vanilla, caramel on palate, musty, loved it****
*Tondonia Gran Reserva 1964: ****coffee grounds, orange, bitter chocolate, concentrated, dark****


WHITES:
Tondonia Gran Reserva White 1970: less on the nose/less beeswax, sweet corn, viscosity, velvety on finish
*Tondonia Gran Reserva White 1973: ***grassy/straw nose, candied ginger, favorite white, musty, still fresh though******
Tondonia Gran Reserva White 1964: honey on nose, but watery

(amnh, hall of gems and minerals, ny)

center heart

Like oil in sesame seeds, like butter
in cream, like water in springs, like fire
in firesticks, so dwells the Lord of Love,
The Self, in the very depths of consciousness.
Realize him through truth and meditation.

(shvetashvatara upanishad (1:15)


In the city of Brahman is a secret dwelling, the lotus of the heart. Within this dwelling is a space, and within that space is the fulfillment of our desires. What is within that space should be longed for and realized.

chandogya upanishad (8:1:1)


Where all the nerves meet like spokes in a wheel,
There he dwells, the One behind the many.
Meditate upon him in the mantram.
May he guide us from death to deathless life!

mundaka upanishad (2:2:6)

biodynamics!

"Spring is good for us," he continues. "For a vine, spring is the victory of the sun forces over earth forces. In autumn, the law of death comes into force-- the law of gravitation comes into force and the leaves begin falling. Look how tired we get in the evening. On the first day of spring the days are a bit longer than the nights. The sun attraction is stronger than gravitation." (N. Joly, Science of Wine, Jamie Goode, 70)

beautiful darks from the Met.

mine

This morning I am tired and blinded by the too-white light coming in through my window. The traffic hum, intermittent, the horns, the buzz of Nassau St down the corner. I am hungry, silent, center-kept, but all-in-a-whirl. I am also angry. But this is more for me, not for the day or the writing.

I need directness, less drama, less, up/down, less ridiculousness, more focus. So do it. Fill your mind with the things that are accumulating, that are adding up to something real, that are based in deep-roots. Think about the way that Coralie from Grange Tiphaine told you that the roots of their vines have to go so deep because the soil is poor, the water is held on swatches of local grass and herbs (tastes like wild thyme in the chenin), but it keeps the vines from getting watery, and concentrates the flavor and intensity of the grapes.

This is not my original idea (thank you Jesse), but it is ringing in my ears this morning: New York is the only place that gives you the courage to LEAVE New York. Being here focuses your interests and skills in such a brutal blade-thin way, that there is no other way to adapt but to become the expert in that central thing that you are. THE WINE THE WINE THE WINE. It has obviously grabbed me, appropriated the strands and firing neurons that were lit on French Art Deco, Boulle marquetry, Japanese influence on American late 19th-century Silver, ornate French wallpaper.

Two years ago I was poised to funnel myself right into the life I had imagined: working in France, studying in France, working at the Louvre, becoming an export in Boulle cabinetry, ornate Rococo. And I did that. For a while. I lived in Paris, I spoke French, I studied at the Louvre, I bought my roasted chicken and saucisson from the local butcher in my just-this-side of the Periphique neighborhood.

I drank wine in my sublet sculptor's studio with a huge weeping willow tree in the courtyard. I listened to French radio, and waited carefully for that moment of evening, of dinner-time in Paris, when I heard the clinking of glasses, the opera record, the crying, the laughing, the yelling, all in stereo coming down through my courtyard. I kept inviting people over and then cancelling because I jut wanted to soak it up, soak up the atmosphere of a place, a space that I had created for myself, by myself. The artist that I rented it from told me 'you will never be free until you make your own living by yourself, for yourself, you won't know what it feels like until you do it.'

I finally know exactly what she means. It doesn't have much to do with money, it has to do with the true owning of one's interests, the worrying them out, and then following a path that may be disastrously difficult, but a path that feels like it has already been worn.

There was something that happened after I came back to New York, another break or switch in my studies. I will save this for later, but only this morning did I realize that that break from my earlier established idea of a French life (to a reclamation of my home landscapes: CO, NM, TX, both actual and conceptual), was actually parallel to the questions I am entertaining, the vacillations, the contrasting interests, the opposites, and the forever pull in many directions.

My mind this morning is drifting back and forth between that Parisian courtyard, to a red dirt found only in the high deserts of New Mexico, and the way it smells after it rains in the high desert (chamisa wet straw smell). I am feeling the harsh light of New York this morning, but I am remembering the way that Texas creosote smells like rain when you wet it, and how I used to keep a jar of it next to my kitchen clawfoot bathtub.

I grew out of all this
like a weeping willow
inclined to
the appetites of gravity.

(s. heaney, from north)

"A rich, golden wine, well-structured, with plenty of sap and vigor, it is amazing how slowly and beautifully a fine Vouvray develops with age because normally one thinks of it as a rather feckless wine. The best vineyards, those chalky hillside sites, invest it with the backbone to support such unexpected potential for aging.

Next, Loyau pours from a mold-covered bottle that looks like a champagne bottle, but what fills the glass is not sparkling. The robe is deep gold with glints of green-tinged amber......"
(K. Lynch, 43)

(old poem of mine: 7/2010)

Underwater, eocene,
the plains beneath us used to be ocean-filled.

My feet are mired at times
In same mimicry of softness,
I sink slowly, silently, through layers of unseen bog,
remembering when you and I burned sticks by moonlight.

(old writing of mine: 6/2009, Marfa, TX)

This is a magical place to wake up. Windows open, birds calling from all sides. My yard backs up against the vastness of desert—when I water my plants in the morning, I get the smell of carob as the water hits the hard dry desert soil. The rosemary bushes have doubled in size since I moved in-- their tough skins and fleshy leaves have protected them through all hours of hot yellow sun.

When I water the tree with drooping leaves like a willow, the smell of wet dust rises up to my face. Here in the desert the smells are easily distinguishable, one from another—there is nothing between them in the air to confuse their origins. As I pour water into the dirt well of the tree I look down my block—one block from the edge of town—one block from an open vista of vast desert. It seems strange to go about daily business as if I did not have this piece of knowledge—a raised topographical sense that I am teetering precipitously on the edge of something wild and large.

On our block, perfectly gridded, there are houses facing a dusty street—the ocotillo cactus have orange blooms at the top, and the barn swallows swoop in elegant curlicues down from the wires, looking for nest sites. The hot smell of tomato leaves in the sun is another reason to get up early—to watch the slowest of births from green to yellow flower- to what? I haven’t seen any farther just yet—all of my exotic heirloom tomato seeds died in the withering heat of the laundry room.

There is a purity to the air here—a lack of sensory noise—a dryness and sparcity made of sagebrush, wet creosote, rosemary leaves, and wet earth. To me it feels like a place where I can be anything—a brain of clicking wires, a soft body, a capable body. I feel like the mechanizations of my thought are visible here. I can wake up in the morning, replay the nagging shard of an awkward interaction last night, but can move past it, somehow, by getting back to the soil. I turn around this morning and bury the incident in wet dirt. I can breathe it back into the wind that whips around dry bushes in the field. I can open myself to the sky like the overnight cactus bloom-- a bruised and torn blossom that appeared one morning, sprung up the sides of the fingered (widow?) cactus outside the back door.

Marfa is not a difficult place to write about, the difficulty lies in watching yourself act in such stripped and bare bones of a way-- in unshaded outlines of movement and thought.

Marfa is a beautiful filament of a place, a facetted piece of quartz or clear stone, a central point that focuses and frames light. It is a lens, like the shard of heavy glass that I found on my first week here; packed with dirt on one side, shining green in the window dusk of falling afternoon.

how much of our life is what we think about?

"Poetry and freedom do not exist as divinely bestowed gifts, nor as things arising outside society. Poetry cannot be divorced from an attitude to or philosophy of life. It is, implicitly, if not explicitly, a critical evaluation of individual and social values....." (e. andrews)

How perilous is it to choose
not to love the life we're shown?

(from Badgers, Seamus Heaney)

best Vouvray vineyard sites, (acc. to Loyau)

La Bourdonnerie. A wild site where bumblebees (les bourdons) seek shelter.
Bel air. A well-situated site that has a pretty appearance.
Barguins. A vineyard created after much hesitation by the proprietors. They shilly-shallied (barguigner) for a long time before deciding to plant.
Bois Rideau (frost curtain). A forest rises above the vineyard sheltering it from frost and hail.
Gaimont. A knoll that receives lots of sunshine.
Paradis. Vines that prduce the fruit of the Creator.
Les Gais d'Amant. A site preferred by lovers.
Les Maderes. A vineyard near the village of Vernou whose wine in certain years has a flavor reminiscent of Madeira.
La Reveillerie. A vineyard with an eastern exposure that receives the earliest rays of sun (reveil=awakening).
La Queue de Merluche. A parcel of vines that is shaped like a salted cod's tail, which we call merluche (queue=tail).

Kermit Lynch, Adventures on the Wine Route, 43

good night Alto, I will miss you.

And thank you Levi for the list you so brilliantly put together.

Jenny & Francois Tasting and Dinner, 2011

(REPOST. FOUND THIS RANDOMLY, I WROTE IT IN 2011. Touched today by its sweetness. I wanted to remind my self (today) that old interests, loves, passions have a way of seeping into the ground (water table of consciousness). They are never lost, but constantly circulated in that rich soil before growing up into the light again. Also, emotional to read about my initial experience with some of my most dearly loved wines (& winemakers...). Thanks for reading. xx

(from May 2011)
Anyone that knows me even a little is aware of my love of the "dark photo"... the pinpricks of light in a mostly dark frame, the partial illumination of dark profiles, the blurred candlesticks on the table, the windows lit at night like stage-sets. My technique has become decidedly shoddy. My teenage self would be most appalled that I shoot mostly 'digital' these days, and am not wielding heavy and obtuse camera equipment, large plates, liquid emulsion, or Civil War era photo technologies.

My childhood heroes Edward Steichen, Brassai, Steiglitz certainly gridded my early visual sensibilities, and to this day I still align my world onto a 2D black and white photographer's plane. My early days in Denver had me trolling old railroad tracks and peering into abandoned buildings with my camera, wearing my dad's old flannel coat and combat boots, I was always looking for the shot, the perfect crumbling facade, the darkest peeling paint wall. Sometimes I would be surprised, a sudden nostalgia of Christmas lights wrapped around a tree outside one night, the vast quietness of the old Union Square train station space high above my head. There was an self-enforced loneliness to these days, a built-in solitude, a serious focus, serious work.

In the ways of life, and accumulated experiences like stacked chrome slides, this earlier severity has thankfully morphed with more tactile, meaty, and live interests today. My sensibilities today have turned more towards the waxiness and polish of old Dutch still life oils, hanging rabbits, glowing apricots, feathered game birds. I am obsessed with taking photos of food and wine. I know that this comes out of older things, other places I have lived.


In Santa Fe, my favorite time of day was just at nightfall, driving around the curve on the highway that suddenly meant 'home'. In Seattle I tried to describe to my boyfriend why it made sense that our house was on a hill, because at night when all the lights went on it felt wild, (as I imagined it must have felt thousands of years ago, camped out on a plain, other fires surrounding and keeping danger at bay).

I still can't quite explain what I meant then, but I feel it, and am obsessed with what I have come to call the hinge between day and night, the fold-over point, the in-between moment that is neither, the in-between moment that breaks day to night.

Living in Marfa, TX last year I revisited my sunset shots, my oncoming night shots, headlights, train lights coming fast out of the dark. Now, as I feel my way around to a certain and specific life here in New York, as I feel my way through the lights and reflections of the wine world here, I realize that my photo days have never really left me. I take pictures of wine bottles to remember what I drank, I take pictures of wine in glasses to capture something bejeweled, something vibrant or deep in the color of it, the light through it, the candlelight surrounding it. I am aiming at more of an atmospheric record here. I want to create a sensitized image that has sound in it, clinking of glasses, movement of light and shade.

The difference now is that I want to be in the picture. I am impatient these days, there is too much good wine to drink, I don't have time to sit behind the lens arranging everything. I want to be a vibrational part of the scene, with my own colors and lights.

My friend Dawn recently asked 'what is it with all of these dark photos',,,, so here it is, long way round, but this: I am trying for the correct texture. I am trying at once to capture and to appreciate the thickness, the heaviness, the dense sweet atmosphere of a beautiful moment, a night, a time, a dinner. Last night's dinner with Jenny and Francois, and their beautiful natural winemakers, was one of those scenes.


The dinner: all of the remaining bottles grouped together on the table, low-light, French, English, hush, laughter. Some blessed person filled my glass with Els Jelipens 'white' X (but really an orange wine!). This was one of the most delicious wines I have ever had-- heady, orange peel, sugar-spice, beeswax. The beautiful winemakers (Gloria Garriga and Oriol Illa) make this wine by extended skin contact, and aging in beeswax lined amphorae (Penedes, SP). It was a bright spark of a moment in the night. They also poured a vertical of their reds (Sumoll/Garnacha), what kindness and generosity.

The Domaine Rimbert St. Chinian 'Mas au Schiste' 2007 was delightfully light-spicy, some fantastic gamey carignan, a gorgeous and thoughtful Loire red from Grange Tiphaine 'Clef de Sol' (Cab Franc/Cot) 2009 from 60 year old vines-- rich and deep but not cloying or chewy, very refined and beautiful (like winemaker Coralie Delecheneau who so eloquently explained the wine to me).

So, along with my Domaine de Deux Anes, the lights, the thickness in the room like family dinners, listening to my friend speak French to his neighbor, listening to people be quiet and drink wine, watching people that make wine drink it, thinking about small vineyards, real soil, farms, making my way around to a new concept of 'patriotism' (from my thoughtful friend Jesse), me speaking bad French (did I call O. Cousin's wife his son??), but understanding French in a way that I missed, a way that felt like a wave of the whole language coming back to me, not single words but a whole rich-gravy onrush that I used to know.

I feel like I am on the right path. And in my most rambly of ways today I think I have come around to it-- I am looking for the moments when the candles are blown out after Christmas eve dinner, the smell of baking spices, smoke hanging in the air, coffee steam, shifting embers in a fireplace, hush. I want the real things, I don't want the fancy talk, I want the grains, the essential parts of this life. I want the pure ingredients-- the cinnamon bark, the prickly pear cactus, the small french melons, the creosote, the tobacco, the mica, the limestone, the chalk, pine-resin, the freshly mown hay.

Thank you Jenny and Shane, and everyone else, thank you winemakers who brought real earth with you, who brought live things to us, bejeweled things in bottles that are alive.


Some Notes:

(Wines I poured yesterday):
Courtois VdP de Sologne 'Quartz' 2008
Nadia Lusseau's Cotes de Duras 'Haut-la-Vigne' 2009
Plageoles' Gaillac 'Ondenc' 2008
Domaine de la Tournelle 'Terre des Gryphees' 2007 Chard, and 'Fleur de Savagnin' 2007
Estezargues Cotes du Rhone white 'Les Grands Vins' 2009
Chemins de Bassac VdP Cts de Thongue 'Isa' 2009
Binner 'Muscat' 2008, 'Riesling Katzenthal' '08, Grand Cru Riesling 'Schlossberg''04

Surprise at the sugary pear spice and perfume of the 100% Sauvingnon Blanc 'Quartz', the meticulous restraint of Domaine de la Tournelle, both Chard and Savagnin (god knows I love Jura and oxidative wines), these were very precise and sat very well on the palate, no overbearing sharp notes, just hints of Jura nuttiness and beautiful lingering finish. While the Binner Schlossberg Riesling was obviously a stand-out, the Binner Muscat surprised me with its heady stone-fruit nose and then serious rooted/grounded backbone of minerality, a sort of tightly-packed backbone that really anchored the fruit.

The Plageoles 'Ondenc' was really something, and difficult to describe. As much as I love the image of father Robert Plageoles trolling through the forests around his home seeking out rare old vines, and forgotten varietals, I think that the wine stood up very well on its own, with really unique qualities; a slight cloudiness, slight sweet white fruit, pears, but something that reminded me of the forest floor. Maybe this was my imagination, as I became fixed on the idea of their family bistro in Gaillac that has old-vine specimens in formaldehyde jars lining the top of the walls.

sad.

windows as eyes, house as skin, always new new new...

"Insect noises began to appear with frequency in paintings of 1917 as thin, calligraphic strokes that insinuated a monotonous hum. They seemed, when combined with envisaged heat waves, to saturate a painting not only with suggestions of sounds but with the sense of a steaming summer's day. The repetitive strokes, energizing leaves and grass, recall those extenuated, meditative observations most of us have made of a single blade of grass or an individual leaf which quivered imperceptibly, but palpably."

(charles burchfield, matthew baigell, 77)

blue blue day.