Introducing WineTalk

Oinoglossia, or winetalk, doesn’t exist, so I had to create it. The Romans came close to it, in vino veritas, there is truth in wine, meaning not that the wine contains truth (they were wrong), but that the wine brings out true, unguarded talk in those who take it seriously, which is to say lightly, depending on the cépage and the cru. I’m going farther with this, claiming that there is a kind of talk that only wine can bring out, whether honest or deceptive, dark or light, fruity or deeply bitter.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been carrying a small notebook where I jot down a few lines inspired by the wines I’m having, in good or bad company, never on my own, on home turf or far away from home, heavy or light, red or white, and all the amber shades in between. Lines that stick to the palate or that belong in the spittle, words to consume right away or store away for a few years.

And I’ve decided to share those rants and ramblings on this website, because I know one day I’ll forget my notebook behind in some winebar, and it will be taken away with the last glass. And then I’ll cry long-legged tears.

Unlike the usual posts on Biblonia, WineTalk will be sporadic, unsolicited, elusive. It will also be mostly bad, but maybe once in a while, dear reader, you’ll taste the wine behind the words, and you’ll join me in the libation.

Enjoy a first sip.

The cold struggles to reach
Those depths that burn forever with the fire from above.
The age shows itself only
When the youth has turned into a butterfly and flown away
To the bottom of the glass.
To be rescued from the flavours pasting themselves
to the inside of the palate like old wallpaper.

The world is upside down, but its roots are not in heaven. The only release from the melancholy of the moment is to write one, word at a time, like a well tempered piano, a slow-paced symphony. True love, like all things, true, only reveals itself in loss. Only once we no longer have it, are we able to notice it was there all along, humble and quiet.

Through the glass, darkly, I could see it there, poised for attack, and a white neck about to meet its fate. I waited, almost panting, for the hands to grab the belly of the glass and shatter my hopes against her palette. I went to see her out of affection. I was going home out of spite.

As I open the bottle, as I grabbed it, slim neck and made it my own, I knew I was the one being opened, the one being emptied, a drop of libation on the carpet of existence. I knew that I would have to pay for every job, and that there would be an end to all of it.

My inner nose has killed the outer nose. It drowned it in avalanches of black liquid, jet black and luminous, the torrent of nature, overcoming physics and chemistry, dislocating my nerves, leaving me shaken to the core, to the stem, as my roots are exposed, vulnerable.