Maybe it's this time of waiting; waiting for my editor to get back to me with his comments. Maybe it's working on that damned navel, oh I mean, novel, a futile exercise headed for sorrow, but to tell you the truth, I have been enjoying not blogging.
I don't mind talking to myself, but that is what blogging has become to me, talking to myself and I' not sure if it's the best use of my time. Or anyone's time.
Also, there's vanity involved. I'm not sure if I'd rather do it in public, or down Prince Street behind my wool hat and sunglasses.
True, people read me, from all over the place, and I see the click throughs, and I see the stats so I now I am not as isolated as it seems, but I must tell you, writing on this site feels like one hand clapping. A tree falling in the forest with no one around. A meal without a diner. I'll figure it out, tomorrow I'll have a different story to tell, a different feeling, but right now?
I've been in the ether. I have been standing in the river waiting to get me a speckled trout.
Sporting my diaper-like rubberized waders, I waited for the speckled trout to nibnle, leaf brown or pea green, swim on.
Waiting, I saw what Beckett fabricated: Vladimir and Estragon fishing. V&E waited with a bat to bang the beast between its little bead eyes, to stun it and live bleed it. This is what it was all about.
But there were no fish. False advertising.
Like a pink pelikan, I stood in the water, a redhead with one leg up, and still, so still. It was frigid; cold. Snow and ice. In the end nothing to show for it except some shrapnel from some idiot who wanted to do that exploding fish in the water thing, what to they call it? Torpedo fishing? Dynamite fishing? There were the frozen fillets in my freezer, someone else sent to me. And I waited for guests to come.
I eased the cork on a new vintage of an old favorite, the Clos Roche Blance Cot, vintage 2009. Favorite. What a word. That is a favorite of mine. Seems meaningless and shallow, sort of like name that tune. Favorite. Indeed. When people ask me if I have a 'favorite' color, I have to stop the pity from crossing my eyes. No, I don't have a favorite color. I don't have a 'color.'
Favorite, and i call myself a writer? Is that the best I could do? A writer that is knee deep in the Roscoe River waiting for speckled trout? No wonder I didn't catch anything if I was calling wines like Clos Roche Blanche favorites.
We get sloppy, or I at times get sloppy. Favorite is an inferior word. Who wants to hear a tune when what you really crave is music? Yet, sometimes there's no word for love but the simple love.
I love this wine, the cot, in any vintage but I didn't know what to expect here. That, sir and madam, was a good thing.
A hint of sparkle, and as M. Chauvet said, one shouldn't be afraid of a little carbon dioxide. In this case it blew off in a few minutes. I have never heard Didier Barrouillet admit he had a hard year. Even in 2008 he said, it was fine. No problem. Was there a problem? It is a year, and they are all different, it is Didier against the challenges and if he spends every minute in the vineyard making sure the vines usher in the best fruit possible, there are no complaints. There are no problems.
What about 2009? It was crazy, anything but typical. Hot, cold, hot, wet and hot. "No problem," he said. He never wants to talk vintage, and he never complained, at least to me. Except he doesn't want to work so hard, but he is a master vigneron. Sly, funny, sly, smart. He just..is.
This cot. I first met this cot in 1999. I first met the vines in 2001. They were 110 years old then and the old ladies had plenty of softball sized yellowed limestones lodged into their winter soil like rosy bones waiting for the soup. I loved them then, and I love them now. Sometimes you just fall for a vine when you least expect it.
The wine, the '09, is packed with unfruited jam, a cloudy day with the sun shining. Sweet walnut skin, neat, tannic, 12.5% or so.
I missed the violet, I missed it so damned much. That violet sucked up through a chalk straw? It failed me. Where was that purple flower scented through that limestone straw. I needed it. I wanted it. Gone.
I had soup. I had brussels sprout sprinkled with hot green sauce, ages old, bought in NOLA in 1996, three years before I sipped the first CRB cot. I changed the strings on my guitar for the first time in seven years. I went back to the wine, no longer a favorite but a friend who had a new pair of shoes. A lover who had grown a beard.
The chalk straw was there. The tannins, very different, as if the wine had a new haircut, sassy, maybe a pincurl or a two. And wouldn't you know, the wine was sprinkled with a citrusy, blood orange like freshness. Then it stared at me and laughed so hard, the bottle almost split its seams.
It's about $21 if you can find it.
++
How about that 6000 year old winery found in Armenia. I guess Genesis got it right, Noah was the first winemaker. What I would like the writer to explain, however, was his supposition that the wine was like nouveau. Thermovinified, malo-blocked wine, yeasted, confabulated plonk. I think he must have gotten that one wrong.
Damn, Alice. This is a beautiful piece of writing. (But it's not my favorite.)
-Hank
Posted by: LCFwino | 01/14/2011 at 12:37 AM
and Didier is right about that vintage thing.
Posted by: LCFwino | 01/14/2011 at 12:41 AM
Hank, I think it's more madness thank writing.
Posted by: Alicefeiring | 01/14/2011 at 12:43 AM
greetings alice. sounds like a good old fashioned too-dang-much-winter funk. it's been long here too, but you've certainly got us beat. i saw the first snowdrop bud yesterday.
Posted by: robert ames | 01/14/2011 at 01:18 PM
I hope that your thoughts of feeling that you are clapping with one hand have passed. In any case, maybe this will give you a little nudge in the right direction.
I live in Alaska and the wine situation here is dominated by major brands, but my curiosity about wine leads me to order wine to be shipped or airfreighted in and I have found that your wine writing has been the most useful guide and has lead to the most pleasant discoveries.
Recently my partner initiated an order and the list of wines that I chose, most of which I found in your book, were complimented by the wine dealer whose opinion was that I had an "interesting palate." I would love to take the credit for that, but it is due you.
Recently I was in Portland and Seattle and tried to find any Clos Roche Blanche, but to no avail. Hopefully it will be my pleasure to experience it someday.
Thank you for your writing and for the paths you have lead my tastebuds on.
Sincerely,
Melanie
Posted by: Melanie Brown | 01/14/2011 at 06:32 PM
Hello Melanie, Amazing. Thank you for letting me know. Very touched by your note and am delighted that you were able to find an air lift into Alaska! Congrats on your determination.
Clos Roche Blanche has decreased its production, however if you can find T. Puzelat's Cot, (In cot we trust) you'll find a brilliant expression of grapes from a very nearby plot with plenty of the same characteristics and it's another favorite. But I hope you can find some of Didier's and Catherine's wine, if only for connection.
Thank you so much for reading.
Posted by: Alicefeiring | 01/14/2011 at 06:42 PM
Alice, you're never alone if you have a good bottle of wine. Take it in hand and together you can dance beneath the stars!
Posted by: LetsPour | 01/15/2011 at 12:35 AM
Alice,
I also read your writings quite religously, and credit you for telling me things about what I was tasting, wnd why wines are lovely or not. Thanks for that. I think blogging, and writing is always a solitary persuit, however any time you want a serenade, and to share a wine, let me know!
Cheers,
Ben
Posted by: 7stringBen | 01/15/2011 at 08:13 PM
Try hanging out with JoséPastor for a few days! Should cure you of anything you may be suffering from :) Hang on in there - spring is coming - the days are getting 60 seconds longer every day!
Posted by: Vinos Ambiz | 01/19/2011 at 06:05 AM
Didier told me that 2008 was "Our best mildew harvest ever!" Not a total stoic.
Posted by: Joe Dougherty | 01/21/2011 at 08:31 AM