She is a siren in a bottle. A liquid, syrup with layers of flavour, touches of fruit, the vessel of grape, and the chilled bottle conducts the heat from my hand. I am surrounded by open-ness, yet this thing is closed to my senses, until the sweet aroma interacts with my nose and rests on my tongue before splashing down my throat on the way to my liver.
The sun is bright, it is Friday, work is over, and I'm surrounded by fast friends and long friends. One glass follows another, and I've missed her bitterly. People can be wankers about wine, the same way they can be wankers about coffee, but absence, and abstinence, in this case, did make my heart grow fonder.
Another splash in the glass, using the second that came with the bottle, even though I know it is just for me, my company unwilling to partake in the nectar I selected, instead opting for their own journeys.
We talk. We eat. I observe, through increasingly deteriorating senses, the beauty and joy in the kinship and connectedness with others. For those vague, indistinct moments while the siren sings to me, killing brain cells, and putting my liver to over-drive, the world is a place that isn't full of contempt, horror, and inequity.
Instead it is a place where the oldest social lubricant we know nurses me into a place of warm comfort, a place, where, surrounded by my nearest and dearest, I feel, and can truly express just how very much I adore, cherish, and love them all - for their own reasons.
I remember the warmth of her embrace, and the embraces she makes me deliver to my loved ones. Then, along comes her twin, the second bottle, and I know it can only get better. It doesn't - it gets blurrier, more indistinct, full of haze, with a light twirl and a staggered stumble to the urinal.
Some food acts as a stabiliser, and the bottle yearns to be completed, but it is a struggle I can only endure alone. I pay back her painful song the following day, but she leaves me with a smile, a memory of warmth, love, and joy - and a warning to not disrespect her so again.
It was five months since she last rested in my belly and on my breath, let it be another five years.
We have some pretty notable wineries north of where I live, but I have never been able to get into it. My wife and I tried to be "wine people" for a time, but it just didn't take.
The wine I had was local. Been to their cellar. Always good. Alpha, Box and Dice, from South Australia.
Very cool. I did a wine tour a while ago. My favorite vineyard was the beer garden we went to as our last stop 😃
I still haven't developed that appreciation for wine (which I typoed with an h by accident initially but sometimes I think that's pretty accurate too). I guess I'm not old enough or refined enough XD
That sounds like that was probably a bit too much O_O
It certainly was :D
Ah, rosé coloured glasses, so to speak? Jamie asked what date it was today and I wondered why, til I realised he really is looking forward to breaking the dry of January. Me, I'd like to leave it longer, but gee, you describe that warm glow it brings on so well - to a point.
It was a rosé that stole my heart and dulled my senses. It was far from dull. Being dry is something I certainly can do, but it is easy to fall back upon that sickly slope.
Cheers, my friend. Alcohol is good only when you know it is poison indeed. So you are aware of when and why you are drinking it 🍸
Certainly. Just like medicine, its all in the dosage. My dosage was probably more than required.
I was mostly in awe of the very descriptions you used and how much imagery they provoked that I forgot at some point that this was about wine.
Anthromorphosis of fluid. I am certainly not the first to do it, I won't be the last, but I knew all the risks she carries with her. :)
And wine is a woman. I've never met a male wine. :p