Red Rock 2009 "Reserve"

The only thing they reserved from this bottle was good wine.  This wine was crap, made from rejected raisins. The only reason I drank it was because I was irritated and I had also started with a cheap Merlot earlier.

Red Rock...

Balls, I say. Balls!


Blue-Balls Wine, it almost always gets you there....



Everything here in Sonoma closes just before you think of it.  It's communal psychic predictive prevention.

Sonoma Timeline, in Prose:  It occurs to me that I'd like another glass of wine, I look at the clock, the store has just closed,  I call and speak in hurried desperate sentence fragments and non-sequitirs, pleading my case, pleading for even a half case, fuck!, pleading at a single bottle, please, please, me..... It's uncanny, every time, they say, "I'm sorry, we're closed",  I scream,  Then stop answering the phone you fucking communications cop (or Nazi, depending on my mood) ...!~!!~!!!,  Go home already then, asshole...

Nah, I only think it, I hope. I suppose that last part shouldn't really be part of the timeline. Thoughts happen much like dreams: much faster than in the real world.  If only they would happen even faster, like while the wine store's still open, instead of just after.

I often wonder why thoughts don't happen faster for my benefit, but instead only for the other way, as if they're somehow against me.  Why, and how, and by whom, are my own thoughts used for evil rather than good...  ;)

God, probably.


In Vino Veritas. No?


I'm not even going to rate this bottle in terms of minutes spent drinking it, as is my custom. I will reserve that rating system for wines I believe to be genuinely worthy of it.  If I change my mind before I stop typing then you'll be the second to know, ex post factoid.  

I opened it at 10:04 PM (Pacific Time).

Well, I went and did a few other things, came back, checked the bottle, it's half done and it's 10:44 PM.  That's 1:20 for the whole bottle, worst rating yet...

I'll give it another try and re-time it again, with fresh clocks.  But don't rush me on it.
Considering wines takes time.

"We will sell no wine before it is time..." -Orson Welles


Don't all of the great things in life go by far too fast?  I'm going to put that theory to the test.  My suspicion is that the best way to enjoy a bottle of wine is in about 24 minutes.  I'm not entirely convinced on that timing, but I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong.

Well, maybe not the first, but I'll be in the top 10.

Here and Gone 2009

This Merlot from Napa was described by my wife as Whole Food's version of Two-Buck Chuck, the cheapest wine available from Trader Joe's.  I thought it tasted like it cost at least $6 but when she told me that it was $10 I became cautiously suspicious.

I love the label, it makes it appear to be a much nicer wine than it actually is, and I find it pleasing to the eye.

It took me 37 minutes to drink the entire bottle and that included eating dinner.  My wife also had a very small glass, but that really shouldn't affect my timing on this.  I could have easily finished in the exact same time and very likely would have anyway. In fact she was pouring herself this glass when I filled mine and intentionally poured less than I would have so as not to seem like an overly ambitious wine drinker.

The adjectives associated with this wine are quarrelsomely overweight. I suppose cautiously suspicious would have served just as well, but let's not be stingy with our descriptions.


"I really don't have an opinion of what people think."
-Fred Franzia,  Bronco Wine founder (vintner of Two-Buck Chuck)

Wild Horse 2009

Isn't Gram Parsons brilliant?  I love his cover of Wild Horses, done with The Flying Burrito Brothers.  I'm listening to it as I write this.  I love his other stuff too, especially his solo albums "GP" and "Grievous Angel."

"I watched you suffer a dull aching pain, now you decided to show me the same" -Jagger/Richards

My wife and I drove across the country once, a handful of years ago, soon to be more.  We started in Venice Beach, California and drove on through to New York's Manhattan, taking about two weeks to get there.  As we had plenty of time to cross we decided to stop and see some of what there was to see along the way.  We were in a blue 1993 Volvo, and we were very much in love.  On the first day we only made it to Joshua Tree National Monument.  It was only a few days after the 30th anniversary of the death of Parsons.  Is it appropriate to call such a thing an anniversary? I dunno.

"No sweeping exits or off stage lines, could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind" -Ibid

In any event, we stopped at the Joshua Tree Inn. As we checked in the woman at the front desk told us that they had just suffered the "30th anniversary" along with all of the people that come to revere this "dead drug addict."  They had performances at the local theater where people could trot out their artsy esteem for the perennially perished.  She was clearly sick of it all.  The room that he died in happened to be open and available for the night.

Sure, we said, why not? What harm could come?

A few minutes later I was opening the door to a sacred room in rock history.  There were posters on the wall, various rock concert art and psychedelic imaging... even a reproduction of the legendary show at Altamont that was documented in "Gimme Shelter," regarding The Rolling Stones, of which The Flying Burrito Brothers opened the show, along with a few other bands, Jefferson Starship among them.

We got undressed and listened to some country music.  The only thing we had on was the radio.  There was a sort of registry next to the bed where people could make privately known their reminisces of Gram, the man.  Some chose to only add their names, dates, yet others drawings to represent their graphic fondness for him, others still to write long passages of confused nonsense and mystified eyewash.  We scrolled to the back pages of that humble volume,  I sat and thought for a moment...


"What we wouldn't do for a gram right now... - Sean and Rachel, Oct. 2003"


This wine was unremarkable for the price, $18.  Its primary distinction is that I drank it in just under 30 minutes. It hardly held up as a cross-country story for you.  Beyond that, I wouldn't let my maids drink this wash.

Also, when you make the name "Wild Horses" singular it sounds like "wild whores", a name that a wine must at least attempt to live up to.  This wine was like accidentally bedding a dysfunctional bag lady with soft hazel eyes, watching the sun come up together while washing in the park fountain.  No, I suppose it is not like that at all...  It is more like bedding a perfectly normal girl only to find out that she has problems that you don't really care about.

What the hell kind of description is that for a wine? Hold on, I'll get one...

Here we go... I found this wine to be toweringly noiseless, predictably "jammy", etc.



"Wild horses, couldn't drag me away, wild wild horses couldn't drag me away" - Ibid

Ménage à Trois 2009

Ménage à Trois 2009

I found this bottle freshly opened at home and finished it.  There was nobody around so I had little reason to suspect that any naughtiness had been the result of its purchase.  There was no group-giggling emanating from some dimly candlelit back room of our condo, as if we lived at Burning Man...

I must admit that the title of the wine seduced me, even though there are only two female figures represented dancing on the label...  Perhaps that is the intended message: that a man might enjoy this wine alone.  To my recollection I have never seen a wine label before that openly encourages masturbation, practically demands it.


It is a blend of three varietals and presumably where the name originates.

After drinking this entire bottle alone I had a single can of Coors in a chilled glass, to clean my palate.

Trefethen Dry Riesling 2009

I remember scarcely nothing at all about this wine.  We were headed over to visit some new acquaintances in Glen Ellen so we brought it along.   We started to drink this bottle, decided that it was not quite cold enough from the drive over, drank a bottle of rose wine, then went back to the Riesling when we had finished the rose.

It was dry and cool.  My adjectives for it, gentle and glistening.

We played a game of bocci ball in the front yard, next to the rows of grapes. I lost by one point. It was my first game ever... so I will retire to study various strategies, and then practice and practice, afterwards I will make my triumphant return. Bocci ball is quite popular here.  I will dominate in this sport. It is a leisure sport so the locals will not expect a strong outsider coming in to command in this way, etc.

It occurred to me that I really should be linking to the vineyards sites, so here.

Sean Minor, 2009

I remember very little about this wine.  It was drank towards the end of the evening and I found it to be completely agreeable at that time. We had made fish on the bbq (I will have to check and verify what type, though I do remember it being a white fish), it went very well with the fish as well as the rest of our dinner.

I believe we finished the bottle, as we had a few others that evening.  It was mildly aromatic.

Longboard 2008

I am not a wine expert.  I am barely a wine amateur.  I recently moved to Sonoma, California with my wife and as part of that move I had mentioned my desire to start writing entries about wines.

We have a friend that is a sommelier and I had joked with my wife about becoming a sommelier myself and tracking that progress on a journal site, a blog, as it were.  Whether or not I actually pursue becoming a wine steward is inconsequential.  I had thought that it would provide me yet another way of being absurd.

The wine from the vineyard above was delicious.  We had the Point Break 2008 on two different occasions, both with food (chicken) and without.  Found at the local Whole Foods for about $19.99 it leads off this lay experiment in amateurism.

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