friends and new observations, portraits of Russian River and viticultural empiricism. Sounds of dried leaves, step step step… And that phantasmagoric fog that beat into the scene like some soft percussion hint, the brushes over snare, and I bob my head waiting for music but none, just quiet and more visuals, jest me awed and listening to him tell me about the soil and the trellising system, yield and clonal amalgamation, presence and octave– everything there was Literary, watching the clusters morph to something that’s envisioned or published and printed on some postcard, made into merchandise with a skew then sent somewhere, then discarded both materially and in memory. But not me, not after that walk, even if I tried I couldn’t lose the clusters and that gray sky and the intermittent coy atmospheric nudges against the right then left side of my face. I felt part of it, it, the hills and flats and those clusters. Then the vineyard chief showed me the color contrasts of the rows and how that translated to ripeness levels and the vintage’s message and expected yield. I just wanted to keep walking, write in the Comp Book and take everything with me, everything now here with me in my writing grotto, looking over scribbles that I can’t translate or decode even with as much coffee as I’ve today sipped.
One set, of vines, in particular held me, told me something that I can remember, just the vintage is 
coming and Pinot’s now my conductor, purpose-r. And I’m settled in that godly swing, like an ax to a downed tree part I’m in Pinot reach, I’ve already been reached, my new docility accredited to the fold; wine and Russian River, a vineyard walk with friends new– and maybe next time I will stay, just a little longer, see what the hills and trees and screaming blocks instruct.
I was never that much a follower of anything Burgundy, until of late. Singing varietal, Pinot is, one having its way with our inner-shores and climates, fermenting our moods into something more composed, more composure about the sipper, this sipper, as he pours a little 
more and holds to his knowledge that the vineyards know more about him that he them. And what does that mean, another walk, more steps over those dried leaves and under competing trees– a war over water, struggling vines giving to new notes and insinuated brow, more California or Burgundy I don’t know, you tell me.
With another glass I talk about it, more notings and pages not thrown to ground but just set aside. The blocks deserve my most tracked and traced attentions. So I stop with sips, I just look at the puddle in the bowl, wondering what it’s doing chemically, what the oxygen urges from its core and tabulated temperament. I’ll in a minute know, but not now. I have to wait. The same as growers with new plantings.. fruit, fruit, where is the usable fruit? Patience.. but not easy.. not for this saunterer, not with my steps or scribbles. I type faster making myself think I caught it all.
(7/10/15)
