82 Black

The last natural born heartbreaker. Rare, luminescent, and vital. Deceptively quiet on the nose for a grape with so much to say, but at the tongue comes up a brilliant wall of sound. Big and then bigger and then biggest. A special secret mode of fermentation handed down and down and down results in the tiniest possible bubbles and distinctive hue of glowing ember.
To see it is to want it. To sip it is to know thyself. There is no browsing, no samples of red and white in little plastic cups, no consideration of cost or vintage. Warm to the touch, but served chilled. There is always the temptation to lock it away some place, display it, fetishize it, satisfaction through ownership. Lift it up, yes, but let its miniature pearl buttons of hydrogen and xenon lift you up as high. The tingle in the spine starts at the open and builds in intensity to the point of singing gold, great chain of being, release.
Crystal blue vanadium brings on the damp cruelty of bone-chilling winter, only to immediately release you into ripe cherry-stained summer. High green juice drips down the peak, pooling at your feet, growing into a wild and humongous ocean. The child screams at the crashing foam, vainly demanding acknowledgment. Waves break over distant stars or will o' th' wisps that jump and dive like flying fish or beaming mangos. The peak reveals an undersea world of light and coral. A glowing city hidden beneath miles and miles of luminous dark water. Follow the impossible dancing lights to an audience with the queen of the merfolk, who pours you a glass of this same recursive potion. The wine within the wine dazzles even more brighter and fantastic than the one on the shelf, pulsing in your hand, singing in the glass, floating on the table.
Everything is up and out and alive. The wispy swirls of lavender and lilac leave you lightheaded with no defense against the floating fireworks, held eternally on the exhale of their blue and orange climax. Cedar ash rains down subtly on the back of the palate, drawing a blurry distinction between the here and now.
Feet on the ground, head in the clouds and roots wrapping around the night sky. Stirring development, ever expanding and complexifying. It is impossibler and impossibler to get back to the previous beat, to get a firm grip before moving on, but the wine moves on, moves up and moves out, leaving an empty dark furnace, a cold apartment. Relax into the spread, though, and reap rewards of loud music in the latest free house, exploration of the best parts of melodrama and adult situations. Flush with understands you. Wraps up the never spoken secrets in damp healthy leaves and hands them back to you on a current of halo light and dirty overalls.
Pairs bitter with jealousy. Drink it alone with the lights off, guarding the lucidity against the urban fervor of strangers, friends who are strangers, and lovers who are strangers. Build a fence around it, turn your back on it and tell it that you love it. Save it for a special occasion, a more special occasion, an occasion so special that it can never come. Alone in a room, face lit up by the flickering glass. Flirt with letting go.
The world's but a bottle,
and life's but a dram.
When the bottle is empty,
it ain't worth a damn.
Pairs well with the beach with absolutely nothing to do. Bare feet in cool sand. Pairs well with a held hand. Drink it on the playground swings with a cute someone after all the kids have gone home, when the air is cooled off enough to cut the humidity but you still feel overdressed in t-shirt and shorts. Grow impossibly large and full. Blow your balloon self up. Tan. Cry for the first time in a century as the milder notes of butter and nut subsume the triumphant calls of golden trumpet and boychoir.
Goes down as easily as air and creeps into your irises, lighting them up in fierce glacial tones. By the end of a glass the walls are soft and insubstantial. Nothing is real or important except finding out just how high you can get.
Possess and be possessed in an ouroboros of easy contemplation.

Varietal: Light
Food Pairing: Brown rice with soy sauce. Maybe a little smoked tofu for protein.