Mixed Bag: Drinking In My Kitchen
Creative writing, shmeative shmiting! Here are some delish wines I've opened paired with unrelated poems I've written.
Smith-Madrone 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon
I was sent this bottle a while ago and I waited ‘til one of the hottest July days to open it. Why? I was in the mood. Just goes to show, weather need not always dictate your wine.
I took refuge in my air-conditioned kitchen and poured a glass of this deep garnet. Stewed plum, eucalyptus, dark chocolate and strawberry smells. Halfway through sipping, the wine started to decant in the glass and morph before my nose. This is one of those moments I love, when a new aroma pops its head and goes HAY—it’s really magical.
Notorious for not being able to identify an aroma, I sat wondering over this for some time. Eventually, I landed on herbs de Provence, and a proper rifle through my spice cabinet confirmed that hiding under the ripe fruit was a lavender-garrigue thing, and we love a lavender-garrigue thing.
To Do: Check Iron
Are my iron levels low? Or is this a normal reaction to the endless kerchief of bad news, descending from the clown’s sleeve?
We may never know. The devil on my shoulder is a social media girlie squealing “post consistently!” and the angel is Frankie from Grace and Frankie shoveling a plate of Del Taco.
Artists need breaks, but then we have to build them ourselves. Where will I find the time to do that? I’m not a sewing machine, I’m the hand that sews and sometimes this hand gets sore and just wants to hold a burrito real close. Maybe I’m just hungry?
Elizabeth Higley 2022 Albariño
The nose…the nose! Fruit so big you need two hands: pineapple, honeydew, lime and a salt shaker. I can’t think of anything smart to write, so I just write “wow”. These aromas are promising a delicious sip, I think to myself.
Well, the sip delivers. I think this would be an appropriate moment for a sports-broadcaster-man to enter stage left and yell “Ohhhh! Right in the sucker!” or whatever they say in those perfectly timed moments. Gorgeous acidity, tart lemon punctuation, fish taco conjurer—if I were in a bar I’d be crying over this. Luckily I had some shrimp linguine on hand so I was able to stay home and only well up a little.
Make note: Elizabeth Higley is a girls’ girl, and some of the proceeds from this bottle go towards Surry Community College’s first “Women In Wine” scholarship, to put textbooks and other nerdy stuff in the hands of nerdy ladies.
Long Shadows 2023 Poet’s Leap
Can I tell you how excited I was to see this in a package from Washington Wine? They sent it to me as a kind of “thanks but no” in response to my application for the Allen Shoup Memorial Fellowship this year. Listen, wine can heal my wounds, thank you very much.
The nose sent me back in time to Luigi’s Italian ice cups, with a salty pool in the background. Lemon meringue, seashell, slate. The sip was a pucker-face-lemon—a masterclass on acidity in 2 seconds. Once the culture shock of the acid wore off, a soft humming honey note emerged from a lift in the stage floor, wearing a very heavy gown, which you would never guess by the seamless way they wore it. Topped off with a pineapple crown.
Finishes real elegant, kind of the way Dr. Evil says “you complete me.” Timeless, memorable, repeatable.
Sunset In July
These days the sun fires
up the horizon, topped
by a shelf of sky blue.
So too is the creeping fear
pulsing underneath all of
this rightness.
The world, as is, should be
just and easy, right?
Or are we even correct
in our worst moments?
The worst may be yet to come
and I'm taking stock of what needs
to be done. More dancing, more sex,
the data clearly shows us. We are here
in a body. Let us be in it
while we're free. The sun
is never late to setting
and each evening
I watch the most drag-worthy
colors move through the sky—
my sky—and I think: I've
never seen it like that before.
The dark comes and I become
afraid, but tonight I'm thinking
of a friend's suggestion: that
wherever fear is,
so too can there be awe.
It is bruised purple over pyrite
now, and the only thing
I can tell you for sure
is that it will be gone.
Gone, completely gone.