The end of the year is near, and so is my most prolific poem writing year or nearly most prolific poem writing year. On December 26, I realized I wrote 92 poems and two poem translations this year. That seems a lot, at least for me. But it seems like previous generations of poets wrote a lot more. You hear stories of how they work up each morning at 4 a.m. and wrote for a couple of hours into the sunrise. My generation and the ones following my generation are not at all like that. It seems, however, I should be able to write at least 100 poems per year. You know, two per week. That shouldn’t be that difficult. I’m mean, especially if I’m a poet. But lately (over the past few years), it seems one poem per week is a good pace. But since I was close to 100 poems for the year, I tried to write and get there. I’m at 96 poems and two translations, now. I’m not going to make it to 100. It’s not that I can’t write, but I don’t know what to write about. Nothing is coming. Maybe it’s just because my three years of writing Paleolithic poems has come to its end, and I’m having a hard time remembering how to write a standard poem. The 96th poem I wrote was a blank verse sonnet (unrhymed sonnet) titled “Coda.” I woke up with it. It came out quick and easy. And it might be the last Paleolithic poem I write. Even though I thought I had stopped writing them in November sometime, they keep popping up. I still would like to move on.
Since I’ve nothing to write about, I’m going to drink and write about it. I am fully aware that a drink cannot fill the emptiness of an unwritten poem, . . . but the writing about it can be a temporary fix. Bonus! I’m going to be drinking what I hope is very good wine: E=MC2 Quantum Reserve Relativity Vineyards 2007.
I went looking for images of this wine, but there’s not much out there, and there’s not much written about, either. It is a blended red wine. It is 15.4% alcohol, which is a lot. I found someone who claims the blend is:
zinfandel, petite syrah, syrah, charbono, gamay, cab, and malbec, selected from excess bulk wines provided by some more well-known and unnamed vineyards.
(http://spiritofwine.blogspot.com/2010/04/relativity-vineyards-quantum-reserve.html).
I did take this picture of the cork. You can click it to make it bigger.
The label is hard to make out. But the in embossed in black near the label’s top, it reads “E=MC2“. Below that in red, it reads “RELATIVITY VINEYARDS”. And in the red band, it reads “Quantum Reserve”.
The back of the label indicates the wine is from Saint Helena, California.
Enough of the surface stuff. Let’s get the bottle’s insides. Let’s get to the tasting.
E=MC2 Quantum Reserve has dark cherry color. It’s about 85-90% opaque.
It’s nose is delicious. There’s vanilla, plums, raspberries, dark cherries, black currants, and a hint of strawberries. I think it going to be jammy.
It’s oddly salty, especially on the finish. That’s weird. I’ve never experienced that before. I wonder if Saint Helena is near the ocean. (I just checked. It’s about 60 miles inland. I doubt salty ocean breezes travel that far.)
I pick up cantaloupe on the taste and maybe a hint of chocolate and a hint of raspberry jam. It’s hard to pick up much. This would be a really good wine if it wasn’t salty. It’s less salty each sip, but it is still noticeable . . . noticeable on the finish but not in the mouth. I think the salt is some how related to the Malbec. There’s also cherry Kool-Aid on the finish.
What a weird wine.
I’m going to give this 87 points. Without the salt it could be an 89, but it’s difficult to be sure.
I definitely over paid for this one.
And now for a haiku I wrote earlier this year:
Einstein's Haiku
(For Melissa)
Everything I do
Means I want to love you squared –
Come with me and prove
To learn more about the cool things going on in that haiku, go here: https://thelinebreak.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/einsteins-haiku.//
The Line Break 