Good morning!
Following up on the promise of last month’s tasting and wine party. The write up is below. For now, I’m letting you know about the next tasting on November 15th. I hope you can join us! I'll be hosting with Kaveh at his home again! It will go from 1-4pm. Registration is $50 and will include a focussed tasting of eight different wines, (with Kaveh's delicious food offerings) plus a bit of non-pedantic, super FUCKING FUN! tidbits of learning, both about the wines, their origin & terroir, and how they fit in with your holiday meal and general state of mind at the holiday time of year! The wines will be for sale as well, because you might want to have a few in stock to carry you through celebration time!
LINK TO CLASS HERE: WINE CLASS & SALE
this month’s write-up and missive is below, for further reading:
COMFORT WITH THE FLUX
I wrote an email a couple of weeks ago, with a promise that there would be a write-up coming with the next event posting. In it I wrote, it would be an opinion piece on the state of the universe as seen through the lens of wine, or, the state of wine as seen through the lens of the universe (far more likely). Let me say right now that this writing was inspired by a tasting I attended with Franz Strohmeier of Weingut Strohmeier. I was blown away and so totally impressed by this man and his wine, that I rushed home as soon as I could, to write this while my skin was still tingling… really? Really. The title above, was something he said, while explaining his philosophy and approach to wine and winemaking. Comfort with Flux! The man was speaking, not just about his approach to his craft but to his way of being in the world; an acknowledgement of the continual change that is existence. A couple of other phrases I wrote: Allowing & Acceptance; Less Expectations, Less Pressure. Maybe he was struggling to express himself in a language that was not his own, speaking about things that in his own tongue, would have much more nuance. Yet, his message was clear; his philosophy extant . . . a wholistic approach is necessary and can’t be otherwise, and even as we try to maintain stasis, the dynamism of life is all around and will out. This is his philosophy on wine and his way of being in the world.
Franz’s vines are planted in the Koralpe Mountains, Steiermark Austria, known as the “Green Heart” of Austria, not far from the Slovenian border. He followed in the footsteps of his father, creating his own project and slowly taking over the family winery in 1989. He was six years old in 1970, when his father planted the original vineyards. This is cool climate planting, with hot summers in the valley and cold winters. Vines have traditionally had difficulty reaching full ripeness, although, of course this is changing with global warming. His main varietals planted are: Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Blauer Wildbacher, Zweigelt. Franz’s winemaking philosophies have developed through the decades, evolving quite naturally as he has internalized the ideal of a wholistic approach toward, not only is vineayrds and winemaking, but in his own life as well.
Today’s tasting and discussion made that clear to me and it edified my sentiments toward my own life in wine and outside of it; a way of moving through the world, acknowleging the in between; the grey area, the “Ma”- I recently read an article in The Marginalian by Maria Popova, who quotes Wislawa Szymborska from her Nobel Prize acceptance speech: (Ma is) “The interval or opening both in space and time, often referred to as Negative (empty) space. Ma is about the vitality generated by emptiness, in the way a blank page gives rise to creative energy. It’s about being in relationship, because our engagement with Ma allows fresh perspectives to emerge.”
I don’t know that I can tie together the above excerpt of Popova’s with what I experienced, listening and tasting with Franz. It comes to mind as I write this and perhaps there is no linear way of doing so. But it seems to me, that what Strohmeier works with in his wines and his way of moving through the world, is this comfort in the Ma, the in between. Comfort With The Flux
Franz said: “Working in zero-zero, means working with patience. Accepting fungus; destroying it on the leaves with sprays, also destroys fungus in the soil…. It takes decades to restore the balance in the vineyards in recovering from conventional farming practices.”
He speaks of the way in which he works with his vines, and what comes his way in any given vintage. It is not uniform. Each vintage has something different to offer. He finds that he must acknowledge this difference and work with what he is given, year upon year. Each vintage, while different from the previous, brings forth profound expressions of both g his grapes and their terroir. He could not achieve this without taking a more wholistic approach. His has been a continuous journey toward what he experiences now, in the vineyard and in his cellar, The profound energy comes through in his wine. The ones I tasted, blew my mind and the thing about it was, every single cuvée I tasted had something to say. They were each their own being, with their own expression and personality and if there was a single thread that sewed the tasting together, it was that: Solid expression; dynamic energy roaming about your mouth and seeping into your being! How often does one have the pleasure something that speaks to one on so many levels? It is like true artistic expression going beyond words, rendering them limp and insufficient to the task. In those instances, you just have to sit there, flabbergasted, mesmerized, touched to your core and just keep your mouth shut. JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP! And is it not the case, that what truly touches us at the center of our existence, is that for which there is no expression? And it is the true master that makes this manifest, rendering our power of speech gibberish and drool.