Season of Misssts and mellow fruitfulnessss
Close bosom friend of the maturing sssun
Consssspiring with him to...
etc etc etc
Was it a superb bottle of Chateau Lafite that inspired Keats to write his [Ode] To Autumn? Did he wake in the morning, a little seedy from a night of pleasures and purple tannin’d delight, and like what he saw?(after editing out the extra S’s)
While careful observation of the atmospheric delights of one’s favourite season and a well educated literary mind with a penchant towards sensual imagery, may contribute towards a poetic masterpiece, I’m here to sell the merits of a few glasses of wine to get the creative juices flowing.
In my experience wine clearly inspires poetry. The liquid coats the tongue, pulls the taste buds out to play and in turn the alcohol stimulates the rampant right side of the brain and I find myself with pen and paper in hand, lolling a little drunkenly and creating the best god damn poetry (if I do say so myself). If you want poetic results, then do try this at home. I find it usually takes a full glass before inspiration flows, however if you are new to this and would like to hurry things along, then try 3 large gulps on an empty stomach. Please be assured that I am all for responsible drinking, but not at the expense of great poetry! A $23 bottle of Italian Nebbiolo (Mark St James 2003) did it for me last week and this is what it inspired:
I dream of being a famous poet
Each time the vino hits the spot
Although, I haven’t been writing much lately
But I’ve sure been drinking alot!
And following a long and lazy summer lunch, where several bottles of a fresh and lively Pinot Gris (2005 Sanctuary from the Marlborough region in NZ) and more than a slurp of Pinot Noir (a 2004 from Shantell Vineyard in Victoria’s Yarra Valley) were enjoyed:
I take you to my lips
By the bottle
Or by the glass
I wish I could slow my consumption...
For the sake of the size of my arse
I love you with friends,
And I love you alone
Sometimes I love so much of you,
That I can’t drive home
I like you in white
I adore you in red
I’d drink you at the table
And take you to bed
Oh purple velvet,
won’t you coat my throat
With your abundant berry-ness
and some other fruity note
The question of course: Is it the quality of wine consumed or the quantity that inspires great poetry? You could argue for quantity, given that some of the greatest poets were said to enjoy more than a drop - Dylan Thomas, Dorothy Parker, Edgar Allen Poe (every word written under the affluence of incohol).
And our Dorothea Mackellar grew up in the New South Wales Hunter Valley region - Hardly the environment for an abstaining poet. I wonder if she consumed great delicious quantities of those dusty Shiraz’s to inspire her famous My Country?
I love a sunburnt country
A land of sweeping plains
Of rugged mountain ranges
Of droughts and flooding rains - Although not in our wine regions because grapes hate droughts and flooding rains and we Aussies don’t want to be drinking dust and Botrytis by the BBQ although having said that, a few years of droughts and flooding rains can make the vines grow back stronger, which in turn can produce superior quality grapes but one would require great patience for this, and imagine the drought on good poetry during such a spell...
All things considered;
I love a sunny hillside
With rows of pinot vines
And a rugged, expert winemaker
producing exquisite wines
And so, back to John Keats, my favourite of the great Romantic poets; was he delightedly lucid with just a drop of red, or rather drowsy with drunkenness from half a vat when he wrote Ode to a Nightingale? (Actually, he was probably more likely to be under the influence of opium)
If I’m honest, I’d say that most of my poetry has been the result of quantity, so in the name of research, I’m very keen to see what a 1980 Penfolds Grange can produce. But, alas! Ever so poetically and with devastating sadness, I’m unlikely to be able to wrap my wallet around such a drop, and so I shall regale you with a piece of poetry inspired not by wine, but by that regret and sadness found deep in the cave of my soul. And who better to help with this, than W H Auden and his Funeral Blues?
Funeral Blues(the death of Sauv Blanc)by Jo Broom,with help from W.H.Auden
Pop all the corks, put on the blood ‘n’ bone
Prevent the frost from ruining the grapes we’ve grown,
Siphon the lees and with 10 gallon drum
Bring out the first vintage, let the drinkers come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message Chardonnay is not Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the wine we love,
Let the oenology police wear black cotton gloves.
We planted my North, my South, my East and West,
On a working week and during my Sunday rest,
By noon, by midnight, it took so long;
I thought that vintage would last forever: I was wrong.
Marlborough Sauv Blancs are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the Reidel glasses and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the sediment and keep the unwooded Chardonnay
For nothing now can ever taste as good.
Oh dear, think I’ll leave that one... Perhaps it will get better with age?
Written by Jo Broom (C)
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