tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292810577448769122024-02-19T07:16:33.231-08:00An Online Journal by Sean ThackreyWritings and reflections on life, the pleasures in life and the pursuit of pleasure.Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-26800902399048318742019-04-28T11:01:00.000-07:002019-04-28T11:01:51.702-07:00THE POOR LITTLE SECOND AMENDMENT<br /><br />The text, a simple declarative sentence, could hardly be clearer: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." <br /><br />It is one of the curiosities of our age that such extraordinary attention is paid to this rather obscure text, namely the Second Amendment to the Constitution, since all it guarantees is essentially that the right to join the National Guard shall not be infringed; and perhaps this only seems obscure in its purpose, despite its clarity of expression, since after all this particular right hardly seems to us now to be a right the infringement of which is likely. <br /><br />It was not always thus. The eighteenth century clearly recognized the danger of allowing all military power to be concentrated in mercenary troops or even a professional army, as opposed to one formed from volunteers. Edward Gibbon, describing such a situation as a principal factor in the decline of the Roman empire, put it succinctly:<br /><br /> "In the purer ages of the commonwealth the use of arms was reserved for those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a property to defend, and some share in enacting those laws, which it was in their interest as well as their duty to maintain. But in proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a trade."<br /><br />So there was ample reason to guarantee the right of the citizen to bear arms in a well-regulated militia, which is what the Second Amendment does. But of course the Second Amendment isn't now interpreted as meaning what its words actually mean, but something altogether different, namely, as (somehow?) guaranteeing that there can be essentially no limitation on the private ownership or public flaunting of firearms, of whatever sort, military or not, loaded or not.<br /><br />So we are faced with a chain of curiosities, the first being how such an vicious distortion came to be, much less became accepted as legally unassailable; how a simple, admirably clear declarative sentence became warped into the principal fantasy food source for the Obsessive-Compulsive Firearms Disorder, that most characteristically and tragically American of mental illnesses; and the second curiosity being that this distortion claims as its basis what is in fact its antithesis, an "originalist" or "textualist" reading of the Constitution.<br /><br />In our time, and more than to any other person, this is due to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who defined with admirable clarity what such terms as "originalist" and "textualist" mean and how they apply: for example, "Scalia described himself as an originalist, meaning that he interpreted the United States Constitution as it would have been understood when it was adopted"; or, as he said in 2008, "It's what did the words mean to the people who ratified the Bill of Rights or who ratified the Constitution".<br /><br />Excellent: "it's what did the words mean to the people who ratified the Bill of Rights or who ratified the Constitution"! This is "strict construction"; unfortunately, if by this definition Justice Scalia was a "strict constructionist" then Judas was a Christian. Hard to think what more Scalia could have done to betray the god he pretended to adore.<br /><br />Let us then do the strict construction he advocates, but now with actual attention to the text, rather than in subservience to the ideological dictates of the National Rifle Association.<br /><br />The first question is self-evident: how can we pretend to do this if we don't know what these words actually meant when the Constitution was ratified in 1791?<br /><br />Fortunately we do know quite precisely what these words meant, thanks to Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, first published in 1755, which occupied in its own time, as it does now, an absolutely authoritative position as to the meaning of English words in the 18th century. To my knowledge, no one even disputes this, although once mentioned in so incendiary a context as this, a conflagration of denial is inevitable. In the meanwhile, I don't know of any scholarly dispute, much less denial, of its authority: for example,"The American adoption of the Dictionary was a momentous event not just in its history, but in the history of lexicography. For Americans in the second half of the eighteenth century, Johnson was the seminal authority on language…" (Hitchings, 2005). And so on. <br /><br />Thus, back with confidence to the only point at issue here, which is, what was the meaning to the authors who chose them, as of 1791, of the following words : "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."?<br /><br />Of course it is obvious that this text refers, and refers only, to issues concerning a well regulated Militia; but what did its authors mean by "Militia"? Or, "to bear Arms"? Or "Arms" to begin with?<br /><br />By "Militia", did they mean a threatening private posse of wild-eyed gun freaks brandishing loaded assault weapons in public in time of peace? <br /><br />Actually, they did not. Dr. Johnson's definition is admirably concise; "Militia" is "the standing force of a nation", hardly surprising, since "militia" is the Latin word that "military" derives from to begin with. So "Militia" is the "standing force", i.e., military force or volunteer army, of the "free state", meaning the government of the United States of America, which is after all what the Constitution, constitutes. <br /><br />As to "Arms", Dr. Johnson is equally concise and explicit (Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition, London, 1784):<br /><br />"ARMS. n. without the singular number. [arma, Lat.]<br /><br />1. Weapons of offence, or armour of defence.<br /> Those arms which Mars before<br /> Had giv'n the vanquish'd, now the victor bore. Pope.<br />2 . A state of hostility.<br /> Sir Edward Courtney, and the haughty prelate, <br /> With many more confed'rates, are in arms. Shakespeare.<br />3. War in general. <br /> arms and the man I sing. Dryden.<br /> How Paris follow'd to the dire alarms.<br /> Both breathing slaughter, both resolv'd in arms. Pope.<br />4. Action; the act of taking arms.<br /> Up rose the victor angels, and to arms<br /> The matin trumpet sung. Milton.<br /> The seas and rocks and skies rebound,<br /> To arms, to arms, to arms! Pope. <br />5. The ensigns armorial of a family."<br /><br />So "arms" are specifically weapons of war, as is clear anyway from Gibbon's citizen militia to whom "the use of arms was reserved"; thus, taking or "bearing arms" has nothing to do with carrying guns in time of peace: it is to join in or serve in war; perhaps, to cite an obvious example, by volunteering to serve in a well regulated Militia as specified in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.<br /><br />As to "keeping"Arms, it is clear that service weapons are what is meant, since that is what "Arms" meant to begin with; rather as in our own day, all able-bodied Swiss males are required by law to keep their service weapon at home so that they can be called up to their national militia immediately when the national situation requires a military response.<br /><br />None of all this had anything to do with private guns, one way or another. They aren't authorized; they aren't forbidden; they aren't addressed to begin with. Whatever rights American citizens do or do not have with respect to them are entirely from elsewhere than this poor, abused little amendment, which simply sought to guarantee that "the use of arms was reserved for those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a property to defend, and some share in enacting those laws, which it was in their interest as well as their duty to maintain." <br /><br />And all of this is so clear - clear, that is, as to what the Second Amendment meant when it was written and therefore what it was intended to mean by those who wrote it - that it's quite difficult to understand how anyone in good faith could arrive at the tortured distortion that is presently accepted as its correct & therefore obligatory legal interpretation. <br /><br />But good faith wasn't involved. It was the necessity, correctly perceived on the part of its ideological partisans, to create a sort of secular Divine Commandment, so fatally radioactive to anyone who would dare approach it with other than devotion, that it would remove any possibility of rational action in the face of the fatal collective insanity of American gun religion and the endless repetition of its horrifying consequences. <br /><br /><br />Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-50498738249670984502019-04-27T10:34:00.000-07:002019-04-27T10:34:33.882-07:00Faithful to my promise to just occasionally post something here that
has anything to do with wine, I present the following, a brief excerpt
in the form of a con<span class="text_exposed_show">versation between a
Prior, a Countess, and a Count, transcribed from: Spectacle de la
Nature: or, Nature Display'd, being Discourses on such Particulars of
Natural History as were thought most proper to Excite the Curiosity and
Form the Minds of Youth. Vol. II. Translated from the Original French.
London, 1776. </span><br />
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Countess. I
am not so much surprised at the Production and agreeable Flavour of
Wine, as I am at its beneficial Effects. Other Liquors, whether natural
or artificial, as Beer, Cyder, Tea, Chocolate, and Coffee, create
Silence and serious Airs, for the Generality, and consign those who
drink them to a melancholy Cast of Mind. If they sometimes assemble a
company around them, the Conversation either assumes a moralising Turn
of Gloominess, or degenerates into an insipid Flow of Politics, which
sometimes (p. 217) ends in a disobliging Warmth of Argument. But it is
the peculiar Privilege of Wine to introduce Vivacity and Joy, wherever
it appears. It unfetters the Tongue, invigorates the Mind, and prompts
the Heart to utter its pleasing Tranquility in chearful Songs.<br />
Prior. As Wine is the infallible Source of Joy, it may consequently be
considered as the Soul of all our Feasts. No Entertainment can be
agreeable without the Ministrations of this generous Liquor. Wine alone
is sufficient to compensate the Want of many excessive Dainties, but
nothing can be substituted to any Satisfaction in its Room, and no
Varieties have Merit enough to reconcile the Company to its Absence.<br />
Count. We may add to these excellent Qualities, that it diffuses an Air
of Serenity through all the Features, by its Dissipation of Sadness,
and every Cloud that pensive Musings had drawn over the Mind. It brings
inveterate Enemies together, and causes them to revisit with each other,
with an Air of Openness and Unconstraint. Anger no longer lightens in
their Eyes; they grow conscious of a mutual Amiableness; and all their
Aversion disappears in a reviving Friendship. Wine, by these Means,
becomes the persuasive Mediator of the softest Reconciliations, and may
justly be considered as one of the most engaging Bands of Society.</div>
Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-85315013665416246802016-09-21T16:49:00.000-07:002016-09-23T17:26:48.951-07:00Starring belleYesterday I posted a snapshot of our first consumer tasting of the 2016 Andromeda, starring Belle (see below on this page); now, the results, which I think are pretty decisive, this being her bowl after the event. I believe we may conclude that her organoleptic evaluation, as the ag-techs at UC Davis prefer to call it, was about as positive as it gets; and I admit that agrees with my own opinion, even though of course my own opinion is still based on what we aging art history majors insist on calling "taste". (which reminds me of my then-girlfriend of many years ago's splendidly inventive tasting note on the word "organoleptic" itself; she said, "Oow; that sounds like a band-aid smells".)<br />
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Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-30702716366145995192016-09-20T16:36:00.000-07:002016-09-23T17:27:29.989-07:00The fox and the grapesThis is Belle, the California Grey Fox with whom I share the property on Horseshoe Hill, seen here performing the very first consumer tasting of the 2016 Andromeda.<br />
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I believe it went well; admittedly, she curled up and went to sleep right afterward, but I took this as a sign of deep contentment.<br />
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<br />Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-32243895388311456182016-09-18T16:51:00.000-07:002016-09-23T17:27:15.083-07:00Fierce reality; ferment...The 2016 Andromeda, which I was pumping into an open bin to cool down; although it didn't need it; the rest of the fermenter boiled along at 97ºF and went dry in no time. Still, it's a portrait of a fierce reality; ferment, from the Latin "ferveo, fervere", "to boil". The blue and green patch bottom center is simply the reflection of a blue September sky behind the green leaves of the ancient Coast Live Oak that explodes above me, above all this boiling, here...<br />
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Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-50777589679377168832016-09-13T17:01:00.000-07:002016-09-23T17:04:08.646-07:00Under the old oak treeSince there's so little that we do that's done the way almost any other winery does it, why not share this snapshot of the 2016 Andromeda being poured into the fermenter? As with the Orion, the wine should be entirely remarkable this year; full, rich, ripe flavors at a lower sugar than usual, perfectly balanced and elegant fruit...<br />
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<br />Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-79374607279220867422016-09-11T17:07:00.000-07:002016-09-23T17:27:45.809-07:00For proclaimingI'm really not much for proclaiming "the vintage of the century!!", particularly on the basis of a single harvest; but the 2016 Orion will be exceptional by any standard, Dionysus willing of course, & as always. Beautiful mature flavors at a significantly lower lever of sugar than usual recently; perfect acid balance; perfect balance generally, one of my known fanatic points of quality. Here is the finishing culture being poured into the main fermenter, seen from the inside out, as it were.<br />
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Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-59899283862824735572016-06-18T17:19:00.000-07:002016-09-23T17:28:38.298-07:00A little surprising<a href="http://www.seanthackrey.net/">http://www.seanthackrey.net</a><br />
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I suppose it must be a little surprising, and to me it's more than a little amusing, that after 36 years as a wine-maker, wine should count as a relatively recent creative interest of mine; but compared to photography, it is.<br />
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Which is to say that since the age of 15 I've pursued photography as a purely personal expressive art: photography, in other words, pursued not as the generation of attractive souvenirs, which I also enjoy and regularly post on FB, but photographs from a different region of the psyche & intended without apology as works of art on paper, produced by photography.<br />
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So, after 59 years, it seemed time to exhibit some of them; and that process will begin with an exhibition at the Commonweal Gallery, Bolinas, opening on July 9; anyone up for the drive is of course welcome to attend. Their website is as follows, http://www.commonweal.org/, & while they currently do not list the exhibition, it must be said that efficiency is not their strong point; however, compassion is, so at least they do have their priorities straight; and the exhibit is indeed happening.<br />
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If you do actually plan to attend the opening, could you let me know that by a comment after this post, so we'd have some thought what and whom to expect? Many thanks; & for those who'd like as much of a preview as pixels can provide, which really isn't all that much, the URL for my newly live photography website is given above the top of this post. Any comments, most primitively on the simple technical functioning of the site - for example, I only know one person who still uses Microsoft/PC, so I'm clueless about how it shows there - would be gratefully received as well.Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-51029789598147776402015-12-10T19:49:00.000-08:002016-03-03T19:53:22.935-08:00Truffled duck eggs<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style>
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…and my second thought, even simpler:
three duck eggs, same delicate Straus butter not quite allowed to
brown, and a profligate mound of truffle, the effect of which is
difficult to explain; quite aside from delicious and all that, it
suffuses a sense of animal well-being that's very primal and that
I've never experienced in the same immediate way from any other food.</div>
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I don't pretend to understand this, but
I fully admit I'm looking forward to more research…</div>
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Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-57906333229397458402015-12-09T19:44:00.000-08:002016-09-23T17:28:54.743-07:00Truffle risotto<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style>
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…and here's the risotto, or really
truffle flakes on a risotto base, completely simple (arborio rice, a
delicate local butter, chicken and mushroom stock, diced duck breast)
and completely delicious.</div>
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Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-79036381030782867382015-12-07T19:34:00.000-08:002016-03-03T19:38:01.495-08:00Truffle: not trifle
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Yesterday as I pulled up to my house,
my friend Daniel de la Falaise was coming back from my front door,
looking insufferably pleased with himself; he was on his way to
Paris, would be back in a week, and had left a little something for
me in the meanwhile. </div>
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As it turned out, he couldn't have been
as pleased with himself as I was with himself, since what he'd left
is the mystic entity shown in the photograph; a superbly &
voluptuously beautiful white (sic) truffle. The aromatics are pretty
hard to believe; if there were only a "Nosebook" app (you
listening, Mark Zuckerberg?) you could smell it on Facebook.</div>
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Haven't yet decided on the first trial
dish to shave it over, but I'm leaning toward a very simple Carnaroli
risotto, no soffritto but a little sweet onion from Mickey's farm
stand, truffled as it were with freshly broiled Muscovy duck breast
and a light perfume of roasted walnut oil. Will report back later...</div>
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Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-86473275291430666752015-11-25T19:09:00.000-08:002015-11-25T19:09:00.116-08:00
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
This is the year of tiny yields and
tiny berries, which of course produce red wines of unusual depth and
richness, both from the lower yields and from the much higher
percentage of skins - which is where color and flavor come from in
red wines - to juice. Those in the image are from the 2015 Andromeda
Pinot Noir, mostly about the size of peppercorns; I've never seen
such a harvest before; the wine, just now gone dry, bears no
resemblance in color to normal Pinot, yet seems at this point
perfectly balanced, which is always what counts. May it remain so...</div>
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Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-34287038892713700942015-11-24T19:22:00.000-08:002016-09-23T17:29:16.903-07:00Distinguish Trebbiano from Urine<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In brief, how it is possible, and why
it is important, to distinguish Trebbiano from urine.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Dr. Leonardo Fioravanti (1517-1588) a
prominent Renaissance physician who spent many years learning to
distinguish Trebbiano (wine) from urine, shares with us why it is
important, and how it is possible, to make that distinction.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: Molière could have done wonders
with all this, and I believe it should be viewed as though he had, in
full Renaissance costume, and in an opulent palace setting worthy of
Palermo circa 1550.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: In this excerpt, the author,
Fioravanti explains the manner in which doctors should examine their
patients, and also specifies what they must take care to avoid. He
says that they should enter the patient’s room with all due
gravity, seat themselves by the sickbed, examine the patient, and
question him/her closely as to the progress of their illness; they
should then ask for a urine sample, and should examine it diligently
to ensure that it is human urine, and not a trick.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: Fortunately, since one does not
naturally think of urine as existentially tricky, if one thinks of it
at all, he goes on to explain that when he first began his practice,
he was called to cure a noblewoman suffering from a “painful
ventosity of the body”; he entered her suite “with all possible
gravity”, took the lady’s hand, examined her pulse, and asked for
a urine sample. But a “a certain matron” who was present said
that since this was an ailment common to women, it shouldn’t
require a urine sample; however, if he would please prescribe a
remedy, a sample would be ready when he returned that evening. He
promptly ordered “three drams of gentian finely pulverized, in
excellent wine,” which cured the patient then & there, to the
amazement of all the ladies.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: But that same matron, gossiping with
the other ladies-in-waiting, said, “This doctor appears very young
indeed, and while he’s done all very well on this occasion, I
really don’t believe he’s already an expert in analyzing urine.
By all grace I beg you to say nothing, but when he returns this
evening, I’ll test him, by letting him examine a little Trebbiano
wine, which is the color of urine; & we’ll see if he recognizes
it.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: "And", Fioravanti
continues, “that’s what was done. That evening, when I returned,
they presented me with the ‘urine,’which was really wine; and
seeing how yellow it was, I said to the ladies, ‘This urine, being
as yellow as it is, signifies, according to Galen & other
authorities, the coleric humor, and means that the patient suffers
from anger.’ One of the ladies responded, ‘But by my faith, how
could you have known? It’s the truth! That rogue of a husband of
hers chases after women, gambles, and makes her so angry I marvel
she’s still alive!’”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: So having finished his examination,
he left; but then of course the ladies-in-waiting were convulsed with
laughter, and “the matter being between women, who are all or
mostly all gossips,” (this according to Fioravanti), it was soon a
story about town, and he leaves the reader to imagine how he felt,
being scorned in this manner.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: He responded by ordering that ten or
so urinals be bought for his household, and every morning he had
everyone in the household urinate, so that he could see the
differences, as he expresses it, between urine, and urine. Then he
ordered urine brought in from dogs, donkeys, horses, mules, and other
animals, and made every examination of these samples it was possible
to make, in order never again to be deceived in the matter of urine;
“and I made an extraordinary study of this matter, and
appropriately so; because I have since philosophised in various and
diverse parts of the world, & many times I’ve found myself in
some city, where tricksters have wanted to test me by showing me the
urine of horses, or liqueurs, wine, vinegar, and similar substances,
but their game was lost, because it was immediately & shrewdly
found out, and never has anyone succeeded in becoming other than the
object of ridicule him self, and the laugh has been on him ...”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
(in, Leonardo Fioravanti, De Capricci
Medicinale, Venice, 1564; link to the original text is,
<a href="http://wine-maker.net/T%E2%80%A6/Library_pdf.files/Fioravanti-R2.pdf">http://wine-maker.net/T…/Library_pdf.files/Fioravanti-R2.pdf</a>)</div>
Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-65245474797048088442015-11-19T19:17:00.000-08:002016-03-03T19:18:51.877-08:00Wine Notes III
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">What sparkles in
wine is powdered light. </span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: "Sopra il detto del Galileo. Il
Vino è un composto di umore, e di luce." :: A remarkably rich
evocation of the sensuality of wine within the world of a late
17-century Florentine aristocratic intellectual, who was also one of
the great prose stylists of the Italian Baroque. Among its many
charms is the thought that what sparkles in wine is powdered light.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: Including even the productions of
fin-de-siècle Paris, it would be difficult to imagine a more
bejewelled and aromatic prose that that of Magalotti; yet Count
Lorenzo Magalotti (1637-1712), in addition to being a counsellor of
state to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, and so forth and so on, was a
well-respected scientist, and secretary of the most important Italian
scientific society of his day; his friends were such as Redi and
Viviani, and his idol was Galileo.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: But Redi would chide Magalotti for
not realizing that his letter upon an aphorism of Galileo's, was
really upon an aphorism of Dante's. In the rarefied civilization of
such 17th-century Florentine aristocrats as were civilized, it was
taken for granted that any scientist knew Dante by heart, in minute
detail, and could give support to any scientific proposition by an
appropriate citation from an unpublished Provençal poet, preferably
from a manuscript in one's own library.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: Thus we are not in the presence here
of a scientist for whom the pencil-protector is the coat of arms,
"reproducible results" (predictable manipulation) the only
object of science, and the repression of all that is not, a defense
of truth. That doesn't mean we're in the presence of a better
scientist; but certainly one whose idea of science was different than
ours, and certainly one to whom it would have been unimaginable to
take pride in the narrowness of his field of knowledge.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: For Magalotti, clearly, one of
life's most desirable purposes was to refine the pleasures of living
it, and science was simply one such pleasure, as was wine. To the
point that when he came to combine these two pleasures in the
following essay, it isn't entirely clear whether he meant more to be
taken in earnest than to give pleasure to his friends.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: If his object was to give pleasure,
he succeeded, without question. It would be hard to think of another
short essay that more sensuously evokes an atmosphere of late
17th-century Florentine aristocratic intelligence: passionate, yet
ironic; refined, so with melancholy; aristocratic, but not proud. A
Symbolist poet couldn't have invented a better Magalotti.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: But if his object was to provide a
scientific explanation of the influences of solar radiation upon
grapes and upon the wine produced from them, then, I'm afraid, he
succeeded in giving pleasure instead.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: He asks what Galileo meant by saying
that wine is a compound of light and humor.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: For anyone in the wine trade, this
is already pretty humorous; but we know he didn't really mean that.
So we should ask what the word actually does mean here.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: It means "moisture", as in
"humid": umore.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: It also means "temperament,
disposition of mind, caprice", and in Magalotti's era was still
used in this sense, which was the sense given to it in Roman
medecine, particularly by Galen. And it would be one of the many
pleasures of etymology to trace the path by which "humorous"
("all wet") came to mean amusing or funny, but this is
beyond both my competence and my present object. I think it's
sufficient to say that Magalotti (and Galileo before him, and Dante
before Galileo) meant "humor" in this particular context to
mean the "characteristic moisture" of a particular vineyard
- a concept rather like terroir, except more intelligent - which,
when acted upon by sunlight, produces wine.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: So far so good, and so much for
umore. As to light, Magalotti's theory is this: </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: Light rays fall upon all fruits, yet
grapes are exceptional. Why? Because they absorb more of the light
that falls on them, just as black absorbs more light than white. How
do grapes do this? By their pores, which are cunningly designed to
trap light rays, just as certain bird or fish nets let birds or fish
in, but not out. So, light rays, once trapped in the grape, cannot
escape, and in their attempts, ultimately shatter to powder. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: But they shatter over time; thus,
the rays which fall on the vineyard in late summer, being still
intact & having lost none of their energy, boil forth when
released from their prison by the crushing of the grapes at harvest,
"whence the must conceives its heat, whence the boiling, the
rarefaction, and the steaming." Whereas those rays which entered
the grape early in the year, being shattered into powder, remain in
the wine, emerging only when the wine is tasted, "making
themselves felt upon the tongue, and palate, by the charming prickle
of their many corners and twists".</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: Well, the same may be said of the
letter itself, which also is charming in the prickle of its many
corners and twists, but particularly in proposing that fermentation
is simply sunlight escaping from the must, and that what sparkles in
wine is powdered light. Whether Magalotti intended it to be, in
addition, a monument in the history of plant physiology, is unkown to
me, may at this point be unknowable, and may even be superfluous.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: We know that it gave great pleasure
to his friends, since Redi refers to it as "quella vostra
lettera dotta e maravigliosa, dottissima ed elegantissima", and
I think it gives great pleasure to us now: which is why I've
transcribed it here, in its entirety.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: in, Lettere Scientifiche, ed Erudite
del Conte Lorenzo Magalotti. Florence, 1721. (but from a MS c.
1670?). Link to the original transcription: <a href="http://wine-maker.net/Thackrey_Library/Library_pdf.files/Magalotti_Light.pdf">http://wine-maker.net/Thackrey_Library/Library_pdf.files/Magalotti_Light.pdf</a></div>
Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-79859063512529013572015-11-18T19:09:00.000-08:002016-03-03T19:12:55.316-08:00Wine Notes issue II<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
Wines that
sparkled 200 years before Champagne was taught to do so.
</span></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: Since we now think of sparkling wine
nearly exclusively in terms of Champagne and its imitations, it is
easy to assume that wine didn't sparkle until the Champenois taught
theirs to do so, and found bottles to put it in.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: But there is in fact a quite
separate tradition, far older and more generalized, which is what
this excerpt is about. Such wines were called vini raspati (vins
râpés, etc.), and since they far predate the introduction of
commercial bottling, were never intended to be bottled. They were
household wines, intended to provide a pleasant drink for daily use,
which they could still do in restaurants today, if anyone cared to go
the trouble to make them. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: In a winegrowing district, it
wouldn't even be much trouble, and depending on certain
microbiological imponderables, might produce a very agreeable and
lighthearted wine for many months after harvest. The idea, with
innumerable variations - some of which Petronio discusses - was to
take a clean barrel, remove the head, fill the barrel loosely with
whole uncrushed grapes, fill the remaining space half with good older
wine, half with fresh must, and close up the barrel. Once the initial
fermentation was over, the barrel was kept tightly bunged, except
when wine was drawn from it for use; each time that was done, the
barrel was topped up with more wine (or even water) and re-bunged. So
the only troubles here are that God is in the details, and that most
of us haven't a clue how to remove and reset barrel heads. The second
of these problems is solvable: several companies manufacture drums,
and even barrels, with removable heads.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
:: The excerpt itself is from
Alessandro Petronio, Dell Viver delli Romani et di Conservar la
Sanità, Rome, 1592, which is the Italian translation of the same
author's De victu Romanorum of 1581. Petronio died in 1585, having
practised medicine in Rome for more than 60 years. His translator,
Basilio Paravicino, says it cost him more pain to translate the book
than it would have taken to write an entire new one of his own; but
this passage, at least, was worth the trouble. It is charming in
itself; it tells us what a fad there was for sparkling wine in
16th-century Rome; and the author makes an earnest attempt to analyze
why sparkling wine pleases us (and clearly him) quite as much as it
does.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
(link to the original text:
<a href="http://wine-maker.net/%E2%80%A6/Library_pdf.%E2%80%A6/Petronio_SparkleV1.pdf">http://wine-maker.net/…/Library_pdf.…/Petronio_SparkleV1.pdf</a> )</div>
Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-28575697878471656132015-11-12T19:00:00.000-08:002016-03-03T19:05:04.202-08:00Wine Notes issue 1
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<br />
A particularly interesting thing about
the history of wine-making is that there isn't one.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Yes. Wine has been made for at least
10,000 years; yet no one has ever written, or at least published, a
history of how this was done.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
But why should that be surprising if
wine has been made in France since at least the arrival of the
Phocaean Greeks in ca. 800 BCE, has always been a major underpinning
of the French economy, one of the glories of France and of French
culture and creativity, and yet there's no word for wine-maker in
French, which there is not?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
So the history of wine-making is
interesting for many reasons that have nothing to do with technique,
and cut across vast expanses of history, sociology, national
identity, the eternal games of the oligarchy, and as a reward for
slogging through all that, even finally the history of pleasures, and
how they change.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
This interests me intensely, since it's
the craft by which I live and opens out into such an astonishingly
vast but secret garden where endless swaths of unanswered questions
bloom in riotous profusion, while still untended and indeed unseen;
so, being pretty well trained in elementary academic procedure, I
thought, I'd better read through the source material first; and due
to a birth freak rather like an aptitude for crossword puzzles, I
have a certain aptitude for languages, and can read easily in all
those I thought would be central to my search, at least at first.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
For reasons I'll go into later, it
turned out there really was no way to read the material without
finding it myself, collecting it and actually reading it, to the
genuine distress of some of my favorite rare book dealers, who felt
that actually reading these things, instead of admiring them as
objects, was a suspect trend not to be encouraged. But I wound up
with the library I needed, that neither the Bibliothèque Nationale,
nor the British Library, nor the New York Public Library, and so on
through the rest, could provide; which was a library not based on
nationalist collecting but on wine-making itself, wherever it was
practiced and described, from the beginnings of literacy until the
present.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Hopefully it will be understood why
this is such a long-winded introduction to a series I'd like to
pursue of short posts drawn from all this material; they will be
called "Sean's Wine Notes" until I come up with something
less blockheaded.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I'll start these posts with one
tomorrow about the invention of "Champagne" by the British,
who used the "méthode Champenois" for their cider at least
50 years before I have any evidence of its use in France…</div>
Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-24956090168023865032015-10-10T19:10:00.000-07:002015-11-04T19:10:59.467-08:00Stories: is it bunny rabbits?, or dinner?:<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Used to be that the standard way of
buying grapes, which of course is by weight, was to get a certified
weight tag at a certified weight station; I'd weigh in with the truck
empty but all the harvest containers aboard, called "tare";
then I'd weigh back out with the truck full of grapes; obviously, the
difference between the two weights was the weight of the grapes, and
that determined what I owed the grower.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The certified station I then used most
was in Schellville, near Sonoma, and was no big deal; just a
truck-size flat scale inset in the ground in front of a modest shack.
The woman in the shack was Jackie, short, tough as nails, butch as it
comes, could throw any trucker out the door; I thought she was great,
and we got along very well. She was maybe in her 40's, still lived
with her father in a dubious compound across the intersection, where
they raised rabbits. She had many Polaroids (hopefully someone
remembers what they were) posted in back of her counter in the weigh
station, with bunny rabbits dressed up in little costumes as Santa
Claus, TV characters, and so on.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
This brought up a question in my mind,
and after she'd weighed out the truck one day, I asked it.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"You know Jackie, you've got all
these really cute photographs up here of your bunny rabbits dressed
up in various costumes; but, then, you sell them for people to eat.
How do you put that all together?"</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
She frowned, definitely not happy I
asked, but still answered straight away: "Well, I dunno. One
day, they just stops looking like bunny rabbits, and starts looking
like dinner."<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I don't think concise expression gets
much better; and I've never heard any definition of that fatal change
that's close to being as honest; although I recall the observation
that man is the only predator that lives in affectionate proximity to
his prey before eating it.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
So I've admired her eloquence for
years; but one has to imagine the rabbits feel otherwise, when the
atmosphere in the hutch suddenly takes a mysterious turn for the
worse.</div>
Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-17876852435257453732015-10-07T21:56:00.001-07:002015-11-04T19:11:28.321-08:00<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I don't really know why I'm posting so
many stories at the moment; perhaps it's because harvest was over so
soon, but anyway:<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
This was some years ago, when it was
more normal to separate wine grapes into, on the one hand, "noble
varietals", needless to say all French, and on the other hand,
the rest. Hardly necessary to note that I found this irritating,
particularly in that the whole stupid concept was more the creature
of oligarchs promoting their investments than aristocrats protecting
their heritage.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
So I was pouring our wines at a trade
event in San Francisco, when a particularly affected buyer for an
important wine merchant came to the table - you know, just the right
hair gel, ascot, open collar, cufflinks, the whole thing; we went
through the various wines, & came to the 1988 Taurus, the first
wine I'd released made with Mourvèdre, then truly unknown in
California, where it was still officially called "Mataro".<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I served it to him; he swirled &
sniffed & asked the price, which was very moderate. Still,
apparently he had to say, "Well, I must say that seems quite a
lot to ask for a wine that isn't even a noble varietal!". I
replied instantly, with a genuine smile, "But then neither are
you; so what's the problem?" He actually smiled back, and moved
on.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It was an important lesson for me, or
at least a clarification of prior experience, that I could say
something so blatantly insulting about something I did think was,
well, stupid, and yet not really offend, since I actually felt an
empathy for the man, and had not the slightest wish to demean him; I
said something that could be taken as no more than a witticism, and
fortunately was taken as such; the enlightenment being that my
actual, if exasperated, kindness of intention could somehow be
subliminally understood, apparently allowing my remark to be taken
that way.</div>
Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-70984182394975592832015-10-07T19:06:00.000-07:002015-11-04T19:12:07.519-08:00Another story, about wine and its bureaucratic discontents:<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Many years ago, when I first applied
for my basic permit to make wine, the neighbors who owned the
substantial meadow in front of my house were Juergen and Anne-Marie
Ruesch. She was then perhaps in her late 60's, had been brought up in
Berlin, left for the obvious reasons in the late '30's, but retained
the splendidly ironic Berlin-Jewish sense of humor and its
accompanying accent that ensured we'd get along perfectly, which we
did.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Anyway, on this occasion, she came by
on her horse, Punky, and we chatted over the fence, as usual. I had
just gone through the ordeal of applying for my basic license, and
had had no clue in advance what I was getting into; firgerprints, FBI
background checks, inspections, charts, and so on; it was quite
overwhelming, particularly for one who doesn't take well to
regulation in the first place.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
So when Anne-Marie asked me, "Tell
me, Sean, iss zair any regulation of vine in ze United States?",
I really had no idea how to answer. But Europeans were always amused
by the name of the agency then involved; so I replied, "Look,
Anne-Marie, I don't think I can do any better than simply tell you
the name of the department I'm dealing with; it's the Department of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms".<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
She looked a me for a moment, surprised
and bemused, then replied, "Vat? Nozing about sex???".</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Told this to my then-supervisor at ATF,
Lennie Goldstein from the Bronx; she snapped, "not around here,
honey, I can tell you". She was more than enough to make even so
grim a bureaucracy amusing. How could even I resist a plea such as,
"Sweetheart, just get all your missing Form 702's in to me by
Valentine's Day and we'll still have a beautiful relationship".
Unfortunately, I never even met her in person…</div>
Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-21425110266412239292015-10-04T19:04:00.000-07:002015-11-04T19:12:49.865-08:00Stories; this one, another about old ladies with Attitude:<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
When I was 4, my father took me back to
visit family, mainly my paternal grandparents in Kansas, who were
pious Methodists in a very small town; in fact, my grandfather was
the local minister.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It was the 4th of July; much of the
rest of the family was there as well, so I had plenty of little
playmates my own age, and we helled around as one might expect; I was
particularly entranced that we could set off fireworks such as Roman
candles that were strictly forbidden in California.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Understandably, my grandmother wanted
to restore order; so she said to us, "Look: you'd better behave
& be good: because if you do, you'll see the most surprising
thing you've ever seen: and if you don't, you won't!".<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
We wondered what to do; because we
certainly didn't want to be good, but the prospect of the greatest
surprise of our lives, short though they'd been at that point, was
too tempting to pass up; so we toned it down a lot. But eventually we
reminded her that we'd been good as gold & wanted the payoff. She
said, alright, come to the back porch, and gather around the bottom
of the steps; which we did.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
She came out, looking perfectly &
normally her gentle grandmotherish self, and asked, well, were we
ready; and we said yes.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
She reached up, yanked her false teeth
out of her mouth, clacked them up and down in her hand like a
demented predator, and attacked us down the stairs.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
She was and remains entirely right;
I've never been so surprised again.</div>
Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-46445525251811812782015-10-04T19:02:00.000-07:002015-11-04T19:13:14.676-08:00Stories: this one about wine-making:<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Some years back I'd bought a new French
oak quarter-barrel, and had filled it with water to be sure it didn't
leak. This only takes a few minutes to determine, but it was crush,
and I forgot about it for a week or so. When I finally remembered, I
drained the water into a large pail; the water was dark and ugly, but
smelled wonderful from all that new Vosges oak. At that very moment,
as I was contemplating this, one of best friends in the wine world,
Bill Mitchell, arrived from Philo for a visit; so I said to him,
"Bill, look at this stuff. It smells great, so I don't want to
just throw it out; but what could I possibly do with it?".<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
He replied without missing a beat,
"Well, you could just add some alcohol and some tartaric acid
and call it Chardonnay".</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
So quick, and so true of so many
Chardonnays then, and still now.</div>
Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-4906419759967054312015-10-03T18:59:00.000-07:002015-11-05T18:59:32.108-08:00Stories: a series<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Stories; a series I think I'd like to
to start here, because it's simply fun for me; and this is number
one.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
OK. So, my mother was born in 1899 on a
remote ranch outside Bismarck, North Dakota, and that, then, was
remote indeed.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
No point here in trying to summarize
her life since then, but just after her 100th birthday, she fell
badly, and as a result could no longer drive nor live alone, so
finally moved into a shared care house near me in Bolinas, where I
could visit her every day, and at least weekly take her out in her
detested wheelchair to a now gone and much lamented local restaurant
called "The Blue Heron", where there was a nice little
table at the end of the porch that I could wheel her into.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
We were having dinner, she was then
102, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, lively as could be, but in the
middle of dinner suddenly stopped; looked very seriously at me; and
said, "you know, dear, we haven't heard anything from Grandma or
Uncle George for years! What do you think the problem could be?".</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Give me credit, I didn't flinch,
talking to my 102 year old mother about why she hadn't heard recently
from her grandmother.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I said, "Well, Mom, I never knew
Uncle George. As I understand it, he died before the ranch was sold,
which was when it went bankrupt in 1918; and Grandma Knudtson died I
think in 1906, but maybe years before, when the ice broke on the
Missouri, flooding the ranch, and she went up onto the roof to
escape, but then an enormous ice block knocked the roof off and she
floated down the Missouri and died".</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
My mother looked startled for a moment,
then smiled her wonderfully pearly smile, and said, "Well, then:
that explains it!"</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I don't even know how long I laughed,
and she didn't mind at all that I did; & what was so good about
our relation, was that laughter at what we said to each other was a
pleasure for both of us.</div>
Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-43753507932606710602015-09-28T19:06:00.000-07:002015-11-05T19:06:20.560-08:00At my fingertips
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Myself in Paris, 1978, on the balcony
of my favorite room at the top of the Hôtel St-Louis, on the Ile
St-Louis, photograph by Suzanne Parker. I've often thought that most
of my life since has been devoted to trying to recapture just the
calm and ease of that state of spirit; I can still remember exactly
that moment it as though it were still at my fingertips, or at least
those of my mind…</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDUjqqScNHm6_FuY_YmPcNHfvdmRBbCZVPa5c6yd2yuCS8JeztqhVj8Nm7p3NJ13N2fio_NsDo_AHm3SarQ30C7gho2SkQzxDF9N3BP9Rf2mvU-qiyF7D5p2adz0lZCpqiyWwJC9WUaCKP/s1600/SeanHotel+St-Louis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDUjqqScNHm6_FuY_YmPcNHfvdmRBbCZVPa5c6yd2yuCS8JeztqhVj8Nm7p3NJ13N2fio_NsDo_AHm3SarQ30C7gho2SkQzxDF9N3BP9Rf2mvU-qiyF7D5p2adz0lZCpqiyWwJC9WUaCKP/s640/SeanHotel+St-Louis.jpg" width="424" /></a></div>
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Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-16546079508417441932015-09-25T19:11:00.000-07:002015-11-05T19:12:09.901-08:00<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
This is the year of tiny yields and
tiny berries, which of course produce red wines of unusual depth and
richness, both from the lower yields and from the much higher
percentage of skins - which is where color and flavor come from in
red wines - to juice. Those in the image are from the 2015 Andromeda
Pinot Noir, mostly about the size of peppercorns; I've never seen
such a harvest before; the wine, just now gone dry, bears no
resemblance in color to normal Pinot, yet seems at this point
perfectly balanced, which is always what counts. May it remain so...</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-529281057744876912.post-33874742366641592512015-09-24T19:14:00.000-07:002015-11-05T19:15:14.847-08:00Harvesting Hossfeld Vineyard in 2015
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Hossfeld Vineyard, high above Napa
Valley, 6:15AM, September 15; hooking the trailer to the crawler to
begin harvesting the 2015 Cabernet Franc...</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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Sean Thackreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14633854516781081672noreply@blogger.com0