Writing About Wine and Culture

The inspiration and desire to create (to write or to make art) most often follows the action of doing, an act of making something.   We learn by doing. Creative action is pragmatic. This is as true for wine making as it is for writing. In other words, if you wait for the Muse to touch down and turn you into a wine maker or a writer (or an artist of any kind), you will likely wait a very long time to produce anything.   Start by planting a vine and cultivating new fruit; learn the necessary art of pruning and grafting.   It’s not much different when we want to write a poem or an essay or a story—you plant an idea, nurture it, revise, edit, and transplant it into a new written product or genre (the root of an idea might become a poem or a story or scholarly research project).   Engaging in an act of generativity (planting a vine, making a pot of soup, writing a haiku, building something, restoring an old car) invites us into the universe of creativity, sparks the desire to b

The Roman poet Horace's admonition that the "shortness of life forbids us long hopes" is echoed in 19th century British poet Ernest Dowson's phrase, "They are not long, the days of wine and roses." The relationship of wine and roses is more than poetic and aesthetic, however. The symbiotic connection between vines and roses represents an ancestral cultural tradition as well as illustrates the complex micro-ecology necessary for the growth of grapes.  The practice of using rosebushes in vineyards at the end of each row is said to serve as a kind of alarm for mildew infestation, an index for assessing optimal conditions for grape cultivation (soil, water, and sun exposure) as well a measure of possible threats to the growth of the vines and their vulnerable fruit. Good grapes come and go with the season. Or as the poet laments, "Our path emerges for a while, then closes within a dream."

Through the Homeric hymns and the epic stories of Western antiquity such as The Illiad and The Odyssey we know that the practice of using language (rhetoric) to describe the various qualities of wine and rate different wines stretches back thousands of years since ancient Greece.   The finest wines or a wine that was “much asked for” was called exaitos and exemplary wines—those varietals considered fit for the gods (a rare vintage, something “out of this world” or otherwise “divine”)—was labeled theios .   Hence, the cultural practice of labeling, branding, and ranking a bottle of wine is as old wine itself.   We continue that cultural practice today using the rhetoric of description, tropes, and imagery to construct the identity of different wines and wineries, to document the features of different wines, and to induce (if not seduce and ultimately persuade) consumers “to trot on down” to the local wine shop and buy a bottle.  

      14 Hands Cabernet Sauvignon Using Tropes & Images for Describing the Qualities of Wine This spicy, sassy, slightly peppery Cabernet Sauvignon is perfect with any savory dish (beef, lamb, or pork). Notes of currants and red chile evoke a New Mexico winter morning—dry and snappy like a crackling cedar fire. This earthy red, like the wild ponies that inspired the name of the winery, is bold and solid bodied. Around the table served with a robust meal or simply paired with a plate of bread and cheese, 14 Hands Cabernet Sauvignon enhances all occasions.                The Story of 14 Hands Winery   https://www.14hands.com/about/our-story            

        “Gozarse uno la carne del alma.” -Miguel de Unamuno "Enjoy the flesh of one’s own soul.” Human beings are as much body as soul; like the mystery that makes good wine, body and soul all in one, a union that renders bold mixtures of physical and spiritual metaphors as in “ gozarse uno la carne del alma .”   --Miguel de Unamuno Tragic Sense of Life (11). My love affair with wine began at the same time in life that I became a “certified” scholar of rhetoric. The spark of delight and fascination for wine happened the summer that I crossed the academic threshold as a freshly-minted PhD of Rhetoric and Composition Studies.   After completing my doctoral studies at Texas A&M University, I took a journey to Spain in July 2002. During that trip I discovered a taste for wine.   It was first time I truly enjoyed the beauty, pleasure, and mystery of wine. The epiphany happened in a glass of tinto vino served to me as I was sitting alone at a table in Sevilla