Relief in a bottle

:: Gramona Gessami 2007 • white wine blend of Muscat/Sauvignon Blanc/Gewürztraminer grapes • from the Penedes region • $16.99 ::

Wish I still had a little wine left to revive my taste buds, but I guess I'll just have to wing this on memory. My overall verdict is that it's very refreshing. Perfect kickoff to spring. (Will spring ever get here?)

The wine is between medium and pale yellow in color. On the nose I get apples... sweet, flowery, fresh-air type bouquet. The taste is mild, sweet, and refreshing. For me the primary taste is citrus, and it has a nice long finish.

I knew the post would be "relief" in a bottle when I took my first sip earlier this week. (Tasted on two occasions, but I guess I was more focused this time.) It had been a long day at work, and I had also had a pretty dramatic couple of days leading up to this glass of wine. Sounds silly, but I suddenly felt immensely better with one sip. One of my favorite poems is Charles Baudelaire's "Enivrez-vous" and I randomly stumbled upon it when browsing photos on Flickr a couple of days ago. The primary message is that it's important to be drunk: drunk with wine, poetry, virtue, or whatever you wish, but be drunk! To not feel the burden of time bruise your shoulders and to not get pushed into the ground, get drunk!

Il faut être toujours ivre.
Tout est là:
c'est l'unique question.
Pour ne pas sentir
l'horrible fardeau du Temps
qui brise vos épaules
et vous penche vers la terre,
il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.
Mais de quoi?
De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu, à votre guise.
Mais enivrez-vous.
Et si quelquefois,
sur les marches d'un palais,
sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé,
dans la solitude morne de votre chambre,
vous vous réveillez,
l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue,
demandez au vent,
à la vague,
à l'étoile,
à l'oiseau,
à l'horloge,
à tout ce qui fuit,
à tout ce qui gémit,
à tout ce qui roule,
à tout ce qui chante,
à tout ce qui parle,
demandez quelle heure il est;
et le vent,
la vague,
l'étoile,
l'oiseau,
l'horloge,
vous répondront:
"Il est l'heure de s'enivrer!
Pour n'être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps,
enivrez-vous;
enivrez-vous sans cesse!
De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise."

I'm not saying I've been getting "pushed to the ground" at all, but sometimes I get frazzled easily. As indicated in my new year's post, I've been struggling with the passage of time and with letting go of my past lately. If your past suddenly shows up and slaps you in the face, making you feel like months of progress has been undone (at least for the moment), it's not so awesome. And soooo I get "drunk." My drinking has certainly increased this year... a week without 3 nights of drinking and dancing has become pretty rare. I've started feeling like maybe I should slow down a little. Probably should. A little. But then again, I'm just embracing the "enivrez-vous" attitude. I get "drunk" with wine, "drunk" with March Madness, "drunk" with recipes, "drunk" with dancing, "drunk" with this obsession with New York, "drunk" with silly crushes, "drunk" with chocolate...

My point is that maybe I am using these things to escape the burden of something bigger, but maybe that's not so bad. It's relief. In the case of the Gramona Gessami, relief in a bottle!

(That being said, I'm giving up drinking for nine days. Haha. Partly religious. But I think this comes at a good time as I've been feeling all week like I need to find more time to hang out with Andy, to work out, to read and just overall chill.)

On a side note, here's a fun wine fact. All wines contain sulfites, because sulfites are found on grapes and they are a naturally occuring compound that nature uses to prevent microbial growth. Sometimes winemakers add additional sulfites to make the wine age for longer. Decided to look it up bc the wine label said "Contains sulfites" :)