Rockus Bockus, Proprietary Blend 2007

I have entered a new region of wine drinking here, perhaps a different era altogether.  This bottle was numbered, 468.  I have absolutely no idea what the significance of that number might mean, though I suppose I could take a guess.

It was apparently the product of one of the family members from Gundlach Bundschu, Jeff, and another winemaker (Keith), and also an artist (Ben). Their website doesn't provide a whole lot of information about them but the woman at the wine store mentioned the Gundlach connection and that was all that I remembered, or heard.   For what is little more than a good table wine I thought that it was a little bit expensive, around $15.  But it is a good blend, I would try it again.

I'll be honest, I bought it mainly for the label on the front, such is my passion of marketing.  

It is difficult to see the entire label from the front of the bottle, so I've provided two side shots below so that you can see for yourself the divine duality projected.

It is the wine label equivalent of a mullet: work in the front, party in the back. Sort of.  It inverts that simple message and suggests that the working god also gets to party down.  His alter-ego is some sort of naturally bearded holy-hearth-spirit.  It does seem to be trying to appeal to a certain type of person, someone who appreciates the city and the country.  I mean, don't we all...

I didn't even know that Dionysus had an office job...

If you look carefully you'll see two females, presumably friends, both of different races, near the foot of the god of boogie-down moonlit lightning action, engaged in some sort of skirted praise and adoration. Interesting take on gender, presumably a message arriving straight from the Romans.  

On the back label it cites its "Influences" as Coastal Fog, Volcanic Mountains, Steak....  

I mean, don't we all....

Well, I'm sure some of these messages were intentional, like the pine-cone tipped fennel staff.  They were merely trying to project a sense of duty and fun, along with the god-hood of ritual madness and ecstasy, and oh yeah...  the wine harvest. 

Darcie Kent, Pinot Noir 2007

I just went and bought this bottle of wine.  It was casually recommended by the woman at the wine store, a friend of a friend.  I was told yesterday by a confidant on the inner circle that I like Pinot's because I saw the film "Sideways."  I wonder if that's true or not, it seems unlikely.  I am being told lots of things lately, few of which seem to make much sense to me.  It's as if some of my friends are speaking in code, and I am left without my decoder ring.

I am starting to gravitate away from heavier wines with higher alcohol content, the "jammies"....

I get along with Pinot's, we have lots to talk about, or to just sit comfortably in silence, with the breeze flowing through what used to be our hair.  They have the lightness of a casual friendship, with perquisites.  I also like blends.  When done right they really do seem appealing.  A friend once noted that I do not have any uncomplicated relationships. At the time that she made the observation I think that it might have been true.  It becomes less and less so as the years pass, though I have spent lass and less time with many of them in the last few years.  I have begun to enter my maturing years.  With puberty almost finally complete it is time to pull myself together and ripen, to come of ages.


As I drink this bottle I am listening to "Exile on Main Street" by The Rolling Stones, an album I perhaps listen to a little bit too much.  But if there's a better album in the universe I don't know what it is. The days of successive heat have broken here in Sonoma.  I sit near the window, in the sun, with the music at a pleasant volume and the wine within reach as I write this, the gentle zephyr joining us.  Life is not only good, it is delicious, delightfully ours.

"Thank-you for your wine California..."


I have considered abandoning my previous rating system.  Using only the time spent drinking the bottle can be a bit one-dimensional, especially considering  the implications of the OPERA project on time....  I had thought that recounting my experiences while drinking the wine would flesh the rating system out a bit, but my wife pointed out that it only took a few posts before I was posting pictures of women's butts.  She has a point, you know. I will either revamp that system or scrap it altogether.  Perhaps there is a way of saving it, we'll see.

"We will sell no wine before it is time..."...  Orson Welles would be turning over slowly in his unfinished projects.

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Firefly Ridge, Merlot 2008

I've chosen tonight to experiment with wines from elsewhere in the region, mostly from base ignorance of geography.  I'm always afraid we'll have some European, probably British, visitors that will arrive on holiday and know this region and its charms far better than I, and better than most.  

Being on this last frontier, this illogical erection of the western empire, almost makes me want to challenge somebody to a duel, but all of the Hamilton's and Burr's are long gone, first one, then the other.

"I'm in a duel to the death with this newspaper.... and one of us hast to hemp."

  

You can't blame them, really, the Brits, they did try to claim this land as their own.  Were it not for the courageous Lewis and Clark expedition the "American" pacific coastline might look very different.  Well, it would look just the same from England's space program, though I guess it might not look the same to "us"....  

What an incredible stroke of fortitude that landed us here, and the Canadians up there.  I've listened for too much of my life to filthy stinkin' after-party Canucks bitching about the weakness of the Canadian dollar in relation to the good 'ol U.S. BUCK...  about them having to buy things... then there was a smug smidgen of years when their "dollar" was valued higher....  Ha!

Now all we hear are silent and desperate prayers, the prayers of repentant drunks and reformed pornographers, transmitted publicly through NORAD communications, not northwards to any strange Nunavut wife-sharing gods and natives, but way down south, all the way to Congress, where the only brides getting shared are the congregation and the church of christ.

Christ, almighty, my wife went to church yesterday.....  She's pregnant.  

What does an atheist say to this?  I gently chuckle at your connection to the universe inside your belly... 

Nope.

Mike Myers, where are you when your nation needs you the most...?

Neil Young, after the gold rust....

I think Sonoma is a well-planned rural speed trap.  

I don't mean cops with radar guns. I mean speed, and traps.

I'm feeling a little bit obscure today, perhaps I'm a hipster without a home.

There are no authentic hips in Marin, there exists within there something far worse, a breed of peoplesters who think that the mutually tired and impotent music they listen to is perhaps what the hipsters are listening to elsewhere, or should be.  

It's as if they're too out of touch to be hipsters and too stupid to cure themselves of the desire to be so...

It is fun for a while, to witness... being a witness is always fun, until you're summoned. 

Wouldn't a savvy team of witnesses be the perfect antidote to hipsterism?

For you, all my love's unseen:

Moving like the fog on the Petaluma River.... 

Let it Ride.... 

(Please listen to this link if you've ever felt, or suede, 

 or even wished us away with us, for a ride, or suadade)  

"I wanna see you tonight

Dancing in the endless moonlight

In the parking lot in the headlights of cars

Someplace on the moon

Where they moved the drive-in theater

Where I left the car that I can't find but I still got the keys to

Let it ride…."

-Ryam Adams, Let It Ride

(Firefly Ridge, mox in, ex post facto)

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Guenoc, Victorian Claret 2009

We went to dinner at a friend's house last night. The vegetarians had vegetables and everybody else had lamb shanks.  This wine was delicious. The image on the label reminded me of a picture of Oscar Wilde.

The Petite Syrah by this same vintner used to be one of my favorites, many years ago.  The label was different then but similar enough that I recognized it right away at the wine store.

Lamb really is delicious stuff.  I know that it is one of the most insulting meats to eat to those who would have you believe that vegetarians are somehow helping along evolutionary progress, and meat-eaters slowing down our march towards human god-hood.  In that sense I am quite indelicate, indulging my carnal passions freely.  Isn't innocence just delicious when baked properly?

The hostess of the evening told me that she does not eat anything that once hopped with joy for being alive. I was relieved when I got there to find that the innocent but wily little beast was already cooked and we weren't forced to make any moral decisions on whether or not to make use of its remains.  It was delicious. This one hadn't hopped for joy too much, it was quite tender.

When it comes to lamb I am very Catholic, almost Greek.  This thing tasted so good it felt as if I had captured and consumed it mid-hop. There is a sense of victory in its flavor. After the first taste I was tempted to chase the rest of it around the room before pouncing on it with my saber-teeth, might even have my "lipstick out."

That would be a great theme restaurant... the patrons could chase already cooked meals around a large dining hall, gorging themselves on delicious veal and lamb and other sexy critters.  When the platters, which would be driven along by an unseen remote control car underneath, had been attacked, then a pre-recorded sound of the little living creature enjoying sunshine would play as the customers feasted on the sexuality of power.  There might also be private rooms where you could enjoy some casual rape of the food before eating it, or during, even after, for those who are just twisted enough to indulge in such a depraved manner.

Whatever.


No, this would never work.  It would end up being ruined by bad press, or being completely misrepresented by SNL (far more likely), and the investors would lose their asses.  Not their donkeys, they would eat those on off nights.  I meant they would lose their investments, their asses, etc.


In a perfect world we would be able to have sex with anything we chose to and all liquids would be made with wine.

La Crema, Pinot Noir 2009

This Pinot has always been one of my favorites.  I know that for many readers this must be a dull and obvious choice, but I like its dependability.  I've always enjoyed each and every bottle.  It is not priced too severely and it makes me feel good.  So few things do.  It is among my favorite things in life.


I work a thankless job, and now I do so in a mall, an outdoor mall, but still a mall.  I'm heading towards my mid-forties more rapidly than I can even admit to myself.  So many of the things that I thought would matter in life didn't.  Each day that I go to work I walk by an Abercrombie & Felch.  It is ironical that Ernest Hemingway purchased the gun that he used to kill himself at this store, but it is also evokes other dour feelings as well.

Difficult to believe, the Hemingway thing, I know.  But I wouldn't lie to you about such a thing.

I stake my reputation as a wine critic on it.

The gun was called a "Boss"...

The other day I saw a reflection of myself in that AF&Itch store front and I looked old and tired and fat.  My mind took a snapshot of the image there, staring back at itself.  All of those who work around me are young and very energetic about what it is they do. They seem to be getting younger each and every day that I must go to look at them.

I live in some twisted alternate version of Oscar Wilde's unknown novel, "The Strip-Mall of Dorian Gray"


Drinking a little bit helps writing.  Drinking too much occasionally hinders it, and oftenly.

I just don't feel very creative lately. Writing is coming to me only with great effort, and noticeably so.  When I go back and read what I have written it is a labor, yet mixed in among other labors, tediums.

There are too many distractions, too many things that must be attended to, no silence in my soul, no poems in my heart... instead there is only the inertia of the rush of traffic, the list of things waiting for me at home, the things that I promised myself that I would take care of,  then there are the broken promises.  There is so little silence in my life, yet sudden beautiful expansive silences all around me, but only driving to and from work, with the windows open, hidden within the roar of highway speeding by.

It is unnerving.

I come home from work and want to drink quickly to try to get the day off of me, to leave it behind, to escape its fevered hunt towards my sleeping, and its nightly stalking of my mind.

There exists only a small window through which I might hope to express or dispel anything, the metaphors of my life seem to be turning towards similes, just simple reminders, little lists of things to do, refrigerator magnets, text messages to myself... temporary screams into the network, another decree to the ghosts... and then only in some vain hope that if I somehow find some time later to look through my phone at who I might need to respond to, to keep my life alive, that perhaps my own name will ring a bell and warrant a response.


Well, except for this bottle of La Crema... I've had a bad day.  This wine is silent and peaceful, it is composed of oceans, deep red oceans, with gentle currents and breezes.  It brings to this dark night what Caribbean sunshine brings to others elsewhere.  Those growing hair and heading south towards the sea lanes... many must shave it.


"There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful." - Oscar Wilde

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Deja Vu

"If you smile at me, I will understand 'Cause that is something everybody everywhere does  in the same language. I can see by your coat, my friend, you're from the other side, There's just one thing I got to know, Can you tell me please, who won? Say, can I have some of your purple berries? Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now, haven't got sick once. Probably keep us both alive…." - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young   "Wooden Ships" from the album Déjà Vu .

Headbanger Zinfandel 2009

(I apologize for this picture, it was bright out)

This wine was described to me as very "well-balanced," which was true. Not once while I was drinking it, pouring several glasses carelessly from the bottle, did it once lose its footing or come close to falling over.  Not once did it wobble.  I found it to be surprisingly balanced for a wine with such an obviously suggestive name.


I like the christian sub-themes in the label design, the saint and sinner impulses, etc.  I'll leave it at that so as not to further offend the gentle christian sensibilities of my community.


It is my second day off.  Tomorrow I will return to work, cursing my perpetual cowardice.  Every day that I go in to my current job I swallow yet another tablespoon of self-hatred and pitiful soul-crushing self-loathing.  I know that I was not put on the earth to serve mankind in the way that I am, as part of the most beloved uber-aggressive capitalist juggernaut the world has ever known.  Every day that I think about it I am reminded of The Book of Revelations.  I am not at liberty to go into detail, but I work in the belly of the beast, as it were, daily dosed with inspirational laxative.  Nobody seems to understand my odium towards myself for the thing that I do, the thing that I've become, because they all openly love the corporation so much, and so well.  


Well, thanks for your corporation, folks...



“Each person is only given so many evenings and each wasted evening is a gross violation against the natural course of your only life.”  - Charles Bukowski




Speaking of revelations.... Has anybody ever noticed how substantially different Christ's voice is in Revelations as opposed to the gospels?  Crazy stuff.  One wonders...  Ok, I have kind of promised a few people I'd let my christianity-bashing go for a while.  I'm told that this is a land of many zealots and I should step carefully, and kneel to pray when in doubt.  Doesn't the warning actually warn of something else altogether?  I get the feeling they are afraid for me rather of me, for once.  We've been shot at since being here.  It took me 30 years to accomplish that in Florida, less than a month here.  I got hit by a car in only a week.  Coincidence?  These hills are tidal waves of danger.




Okay, I'm probably pissing my pregnant wife off in some new way right now, one that I am completely unaware of.  In fact, me being unaware of it will most certainly be a component of the violation.  So few people give the father any credit at all for all that he endures in producing a child.  Everybody jokes that his contribution has been made, he has the "easy part."  I'd like to test this assertion by insisting that all pregnant women live together during their gestation periods.  It would end those casual jokes forever.   


Pray for me tomorrow night, wherever you are, kneel in silence and beg the lord, our god, to send angels to lift my spirits. If you close your eyes and can think of no prayerful words then let these humble words guide you towards the light...

Who knows what tomorrow brings

In a world, few hearts survive

All I know is the way I feel

When it's real, I keep it alive

The road is long, there are mountains in our way

But we climb a step every day

Love lift us up where we belong

Where the eagles cry on a mountain high

Love lift us up where we belong

Far from the world we know, up where the clear winds blow

Some hang on to "used to be"

Live their lives, looking behind

All we have is here and now

All our life, out there to find

The road is long, there are mountains in our way,

But we climb them a step every day

Love lift us up where we belong

Where the eagles cry on a mountain high

Love lift us up where we belong

Far from the world we know, up where the clear winds blow

Time goes by

No time to cry

Life's you and I

Alive, today

Love lift us up where we belong

Where the eagles cry on a mountain high

Love lift us up where we belong

Far from the world we know, up where the clear winds blow....

-performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes, from the film "An Officer and a Gentleman"

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Ravens Wood Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

I drank this bottle after yesterday's Spiral Wine selection. In truth I began drinking it before I was even done with writing that post. Now anybody will tell you that drinking two bottles of wine, back to back, will render a person intoxicated.  It did.  But not to be bested by a couple of bottles of cheap wine I went over to a friend's house and drank these also.

We might have had only one of these two bottles of wine, but I can't remember.  When I got home I fell asleep on the living room floor after having also eaten a xanax. At some point I made my way into the bedroom where I stayed until my back was hurting this morning from being in bed for too long.

My friend warned me to ease up on the Catholic priest / Mother Teresa jokes, saying that there are a lot of Catholics around here.  I suppose it is sensible to not make jokes about priests diddling young boys. I'm sure it's all just hearsay, speculation and wild imaginations anyhow.  I was once a Catholic, I suppose I still am, though I am a devout atheist catholic now, if there can be such a thing.

My wine recommendation for the day is stop after two bottles.  In fact, if you can limit yourself to one bottle you will be even that much better off.  You will have a little more spring in your step the next day.

"What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at my own leisure.”  - Charles Bukowski

Spiral Wines Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2010

Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" and a day off from work.  We'll see....

Earlier today my wife told me that there is a shortage of grapes this year.  This means that prices are certain to go up, at least for the bottles of wine under $15.  So cheap wines will start to be less so.

Last year this bottle was recognized by a cashier as being the best bottle at Trader Joe's for under $5.  I would try to persuade my wife to purchase many pallets of the stuff and then hold on and hope for the best when the market really turns, but I don't think she'd go for it.  She has other plans cooking for our future.

I've wasted $5 in far worse ways, and often.

The other night I had to drive into SF for work and when I was parking my car on O'Farrell, in the "tenderloin," as I began to pull myself together and collect my stuff to get out of the car, I watched a crack deal occur just outside my window.  Two men were talking and one held some money clenched tightly in one hand and another held his hand open, and there in his hand, not even in a plastic bag, were two small crack rocks.  The one with the cash looked at them suspiciously then held his hand out, the other held his hand out for the money.  These guys clearly didn't know each other well, or perhaps knew each other all too well.  Watching made me move my car to a parking garage.  It also made me want to smoke crack, but not as much as wanting to move the car.  First things first, etc.

But this isn't a crack-blog, it's a wine blog.

This wine is Spiral Tap.  I've tried to evaluate wines in the way that I know how, the time that it takes me to drink each bottle.  But I'm beginning to see cracks in that rating system as well.

I've moved on from Wilco. I won't tell you what's next, many people have a strong aversion to this particular artist.  I think he's a great songwriter.  If he were a woman then people would be falling over themselves to place her on the fast track sainthood, even before old Moth Teresa, a woman with a poverty fetish, who never wrote any cool songs that I know of.

Fuck the Pope.

Ok, I don't know where all of this negative anti-communion energy is coming from. When we were kids we all did a priest or two.  Jesus, we were tough, there was one priest we used to gang-bang every now and then, never on Sunday.  It was no big deal, we were just using him to get to God, and the wine.



"But I believe this - and it's been tested by research
He who fucks nuns will later join the church."

-Strummer/Jones, "Death or Glory"

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St. Francis Merlot 2007

Some wines need to breathe.  

This one needs a little more breath than my humble monastic room has to offer, perhaps there is no saving it...  I don't even know if they make iron lungs any more.  I bet they're really expensive.  Sarah Silverman would probably know.  I loathe her.  She is a bona-shrinker.

This pseudo-catechism tasted just like foul grape juice with cheap vodka mixed poorly in it, on first sip.  

I'm beginning to think that I don't like Merlot, please send suggestions and prove to me that I'm wrong.  Also, anybody interested can buy me wine to review.  Please email me privately for details.  

My wife bought this wine.  She is very sweet, but she must know that I am naturally repelled, for both ontological and epistemological reasons, by St. Francis...   When you look at his name on the screen it really does read, "Street Francis"

(Cue: image below, at bottom of post)

He's like an anemic oompa-loompa in ecstasy, though he was very kind to the earth, a true christian rarity.  He's even short for a nearly pre-historic oompa-loompa, dressed in burlapse.   

I would worry about hurting Rachel's feelings but she stopped reading this blog once I posted a picture of a girl's crescent-pantied butt, twice, and then wrote about my fantasies of pissing in the sink.  She said that I've written my way right into the toilet on my new wine blog.  

She was right, of course.  Let's see if I can write my way out again.  

Oh well, my other blog has lost many readers also.  I think some people were upset that I used some derogatory phrases.  I'd list them here, but I'll perhaps save that joy for the other site. They were bad, I guess, and when I looked online all I could find were celebrity comedians apologizing for using the very same phrases.  The true mark of a cultural bulls-eye.  Get the comedians to apologize and dance backwards.

Jesus Christo, this wine is bad.  I'm afraid to even look for it online.  Gimme a sec... 

Ok, I did...

I like it a little bit more now that I've come to realize it's not a shamefully cheap bottle of wine.  I'd been out in the California sun jus' a tannin, a little too long perhaps, but there's a depth to the flavor that is just starting to appeal to me, to open to my mind.  

I'm nearly halfway done with the bottle and have wasted almost $10 whole dollars in Romanesque frivolity, but it is subtly creating a crevice in the pleasure of my palate.

Well, it could be the hurried breathing it's been doing, knowing that its finale time has come, and nobody liked him in this town anyway, he was a red, spreading dead ideas.  

The flavor is really mellowing a bit and it's getting much, much easier to agree with.  Perhaps my rating system won't work so well on wines that need to breathe.... either that or I'll have to start handicapping them with a decanter.  Oh Lord, being a critic is like having a hard-on for the darkness. 

"Thank you for your wine, California...
Thank you for your sweet and bitter fruits
Yes, I've got the desert in my toenail
And I hid the speed inside my shoe..."

-Jagger/Richards "Sweet Virginia"

(St. Francis, A-sissy)

Robert Mondavi, Cabernet Sauvignon2009

(time-stamped evidence)

This wine was hideous.

I tried to drink a glass of it at 2:09 a.m. and was repulsed by its juicy jobless jagged jitters.

It could have been me.  It was late and I had been out drinking earlier, vodka and beer.

Perhaps my palate was polluted.  I will try it again sometime with a fresh eye on its appearance, my nose trained on its aroma, braced for its aftertaste.

As I didn't even finish the glass that was poured for me this bottle receives the worst rating ever yet given by this reviewer so far, eternity.


Avoid this wine and people who drink it, they are likely just petty art thieves.

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One reader responds, spiritedly

I just found an angry email in my inbox, chastising me for using the picture below on a "wine blog."

I explained that this site is not really a wine blog but instead it is a thinly veiled attempt to lure young women who have just turned 18 into the very lucrative world of internet pornography and as such has no obligation to uphold any moral standard, and certainly not one imposed from the outside.

I haven't heard a response back yet.  I'm sure my next conversation will be with the FBI.

The picture is no worse than many that I've seen in women's magazines that litter the offices of any doctor's office than I've been to. They seem harmless enough at first, with subjects like "health now" or "women today"... you open them up and voila, there on the first few pages is an article about getting rid of cellulite, and get this, every picture is just an assortment of delicious looking butts that have never had a single spot of cellulite on them. They are, of course, all getting massages and enjoying some light homo-erotic playfulness.  All the article lacked visually was a pillow fight in panties to celebrate their collective victory over butt-fat.

Don't ask me to cite my sources on this.  I'm certain that I wasn't imagining the article, but you get the idea.

I will keep my dedicated wine aficionados abreast of any legal developments this site encounters.

Soon we will be soliciting donations for legal defense.

Buena Vista Merlot 2007

Last night we went to the Sonoma Farmer's Market. There was a jazz band playing, Terry Disley's "Big" Experience.  They were doing alternating numbers by Vince Guaraldi and Dave Brubeck, to celebrate the region's jazz history.  It was pleasant. I preferred the Guaraldi tunes though I know I probably am not supposed to admit that.

I doubled my knowledge of how to drink Merlot with a simple suggestion made by a fellow listener and jazz fan. At some point I'll get around to some wine tricks that might help some of you along in your journey to enjoy wines.  My review from last night was written under the spell of the Merlot, and a few glasses of Cabernet that I had at the Roche tasting room, and a couple glasses of Sauvignon Blanc that I had imbibed at The Swiss Hotel even before that.

So, that is how it all came to pass.

We sat at the bandshell and listened, recounting our first date in NYC, at Small's jazz club.  It was a special time for us, neither of us having any idea that we would eventually marry (at Buena Vista Winery) and move together to Sonoma to start a family.  Though last night she certainly must have had her reservations. When I came home I decided to piss in the sink.  I don't know why.  It just seemed like something I wanted to do at the time.  Upon morning reflection it didn't seem like such a great idea any more, though not entirely without merit.  The idea of doing it without her seeing still held some charm for me.

No, I only kid.

On the other side of us at the concert sat two men, somewhat disheveled, in sweat pants and t-shirts that matched only in general dress sensibility. The cloth was tattered here and there and seemed to be in need of a washing, or to be discarded altogether.  One of them sitting closest to my wife recounted to her that she should avoid pit bulls, they can smell her being pregnant, they'll attack and kill her.  There are apparently roaming bands of them in the area seeking out fresh pregnant women to devour.  The story has been kept out of the press only by shrewd political manipulation of the facts and submerged police reports.  When these pit bulls cannot find a pregnant woman to hungrily feast upon they will oftentimes eat one of their own, singling out the weakest in the pack.  At this point my wife excused herself to go shop for tomatoes and pita chips.  I encouraged her to keep her eye on the horizon line, we don't want any pit bulls coming down from the hills, sniffing out her aroma in estrus, and subsequently turning her into their own little pita chip snack.

Ok, I could go on for hours telling stories of the subtle insanity of the place, and those herein, but I'll leave some for tomorrow.


I almost forgot, this bottle of wine took me about 50 minutes to drink.  I had employed a more leisurely pace, considering the setting, etc.

Raunchy Tabasco, Z-infidels, 20009

I found the picture of this wine bottle in my phone while I was browsing for barely remembered pornography. 

I vaguely recognize the surroundings, the mise-en-scene.

I must have been party to its demise, a party accomplicated.

Florid, is my new word for wines served in stemware.

It reflects a waxing crescent, if my calculations are correct.

Some call it art, others merely sign language, a science if ever there was.

In my future assessments of wine I will try to find a corollary butt image that reflects my sensations of the appearance, the potential, and then the finish.

Enjoy.  It is just, art.

(smallbutts@earthflesh.org)

Decoy, Pinot Noir 2009

Delicious, it went very well with my mood.  I lost track of time.  I forgot my name.  I sent strange texts to old girlfriends, or women I once stalked.  I might have even pissed myself.  I can't be sure.

We went to a friend's house for dinner.  I gluttonously drank most of the bottle while we were eating.  It must have been as much as a week ago now.  

Here are my recollections of it: The wine's appearance was colossally cooperative, its aroma was auspicious and axiomatic, in mouth it was melodically majestic, its finish was futuristically flawless and furtively final.  A very complex Pinot, to be sure.  This was no Decoy, this was the genuine Mallard.

In truth I bought it because I've been searching for labels that interest me.  This one made me think of hunting ducks, going out into swampy areas with other like-minded nimrods, tricking the birds with special whistles, surprising them into flight, aiming quickly, shooting them out of the sky, having dogs descend on them in their last seconds of life - having trained the dogs well - hearing the sound of their necks break as the dogs jaw clamps down on their frightened and wounded bodies, only to return them proudly to me... pleased hunter that I am. 

Ah, happiness.... is a warm gun, and a dead animal.

Don't worry, we always eat the duck and then convert the feathers into headdresses for the local schoolchildren with down.  We would never let any of it go to waste.  

This wine would go well at an NRA rally. 

If they enjoy this wine they really should try our Waterfowl Merlot.  It's breathtakingly balanced, with a gamey potential.

Decoy's motto is "The everyday wine for the ill-informed."

Mark West Pinot Noir 2009

Tonight my wife and I (with Barkley, the dog) drove slightly up onto a hill to watch the full "harvest" moon rise. I drank a bottle while we watched the moon ascend, from the hills and up towards and then into the sky.

Rachel had made some food and we sat and enjoyed the changing color temperature of the sky, the hills around us.  If it wasn't for my excitement towards our coming baby I would have wanted to sit there with her forever, or all night, whichever came first.


I drank two bottles of this wine, one there on the hill and one after.  I went to bed without posting this review.  The pictures of the bottle tell the tremulous story.

I have nothing snarky to say about it.
It was lovely, and free, and I was happy...  I am.


This Christmas will be the first one in a long time in which I believe I will not feel lonely.
I always struggle with forced sincerities, requirements.

I'm looking forward to it like the rising of new moons.

BearBoat, Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast, 2008

I drank my first glass of this wine in 27 seconds.  Things are looking good for this vintner so far. It wasn't a full glass, just a normal size glass, about at the halfway point of a relatively normal red wine glass. 

I've decided that it's best to write my reviews of the wine while I'm drinking it. The problem with that is that it distracts me from drinking and it adds time to my rating of it. I'll have to find a way of compensating for writing, or perhaps for handicapping wines that I drink while not writing.

That's absurd, I'll do no such thing.  

This winemaker also makes a Russian River Pinot, but I chose the Sonoma Coast one because I am a geography snob, a locale bigot.  

I prefer things from where I am, and generally detest things from other places, unless they're places I like to visit or have been told are cool by people whose approval I seek, etc.

I'm over halfway done with this bottle and I'm at:

Not bad, not bad at all, this non compos nectar.  I highly suggest it.  There are many factors involved in my assessment, you see... I almost went into San Francisco after work, to meet people younger than I, most likely to do some mild drugs and drink whiskey with them, at first, but instead I didn't... Hero that I am... I went home to my pregnant wife, stopping at the wine store and treating myself to this message inna bottle, which was only $18.99.  Not that a $19 bottle of wine is a treat but I wasn't even going to write an entry today.  I did it for you, humble reader.

Also, it is Saturday. ... 

In my younger and moorish venereal beers my fathead gave me some anvil that I've been turning over, mr. mine, ever-senses.

Ok, I'm drinking full glasses now, the bottle is nearly gone.  Well, the bottle is still here, but its contents have gone on to a better place. 

My absent gods !!!!....  Isn't a nice bottle of wine a wonderful thing...? 

Slanted Vine, Pinot Noir 2009

This wine was lovely.  I fell in love with it as if we were on ecstasy together at an after-party.  It fulfilled all of my requirements for a great wine: it tasted like grapes, had alcohol in it, and didn't impede the conversation terribly.  I must have finished it in about 30 minutes.  I didn't set the timer on this one, but I drank it quickly and happily while sitting on our patio chatting with a friend.


I wish all of life could be more like this wine. It was renewing, resolute, and quite disaffectedly à la mode. 


I bought it because I liked the label.  There's a little house that's been converted to a wine store within easy walking distance from our apartment. It is a great go-to place for good suggestions.  I would provide a link but their site is abysmal. 




One day I hope to be useful to the world, in a way that brings me lots of money. I'd like to be paid very well to contribute something meaningful to something meaningful. Many must wish for that. But I don't wish it just to be remembered, I actually would prefer getting very rich from it, even in obscurity.  I don't want to exploit others but I'm not opposed to considering that as an option.  I just feel so outnumbered in that regard.  There's a world full of cheating going on. To get rich that way would be pure, blind, dumb chance.  


Many must dream of getting rich easily, of being satisfied with both their efforts and the rewards associated with those efforts.  If there were only a way of getting a dollar from each and every one of those people every week, or day.... If I could start my own lottery, or tax people without consent, issue my own edicts, decrees, start wars, print money, rape the banks, etc.


Well, I'm not sure where I'm going with all of this.  If anybody reading this would like to pay off my student loans then please contact me.


Many must wish.