Wine

A Tongue is no longer a tongue but a device for the brain, a type of old-time myth when identifying varying levels of flavor and texture. If something lands dry, sweet, tangy, tropical, fruity, dense, rich, light, or airy. It is a luxury when these flavors are upon you: tobacco, vanilla, raspberry, dark plum, dark chocolate, dark cherry, mango, passion fruit, lemon, lime, bourbon, dill, light to pink to deep red velvet.

These flavors often correspond with: voices that will inform me of certain guarantees in which these factors are produced. Family-owned, production farm, machine-picked, hand-picked, cold in the valley or flat and expansive, barrel-aged or titled, American oak, French oak, imported or grown in the backyard, cork trees, and complimentary olive oil from the tree standing next to me. 100-year-old vines or seven, seven years aged or 13 months, blended or pure, skins or not, price points matter, but of course, they don’t; these are many things that will dictate taste and texture.

Every place tells me something broadly different yet equally familiar to the one before. The time it takes to produce such a luxurious product, the UC Davis degree needed to achieve such a goal or the non-degree family-taught things from father to daughter. The brands that gather attention versus those with the best taste.

There is the sensation of how it feels with each sip. One by one, it becomes silkier and juicer, as though it could burst in the mouth with unpredictable energy. It jumps around, unwinding bitterness for sweetness, dryness for fullness.

This is the only beginning of the memory, the vines and properties ranging from impressive to relaxing. Hot mountains, deep lagoons, fountains, and Roman pillars, so much stained glass and chandelier fluttering, patio chairs and lichen-sticky walks, big personalities that illuminate each mountain in a heaven, or more quiet beings that allow complete focus on the palette. Each will dictate the memory's impression of the taste.


—


There are other tastes I remember. A tongue on a tongue, which folds and congeals like melted butter abandoned. His hands, which are solid and salty like pink Himalayan and snapper sashimi. Like an inventor, with his rigid voice, which I listen to intently. He tells me certain things which I had not known or previously understood. Cabernet will be grown on an elevated area, mountainous, cool mornings drenched in fog. Yountville has no speed limit signs; you can drive however you want. His hands had no clamminess and were relatively dry, like the Merlot blend at Stag’s Leap. The woman who gave us the bottle had a German accent, and he whispered in my ear how she sounded like me when I cleaned up messes. I clean up a lot of messes, I said.


He sits around our hotel room like a satyr, mischievous, devil lips, erect, feared barbarism that overtakes me. Corks dissolve liquid between the lines of my hands. Ruby orbs latched onto his knit sweater.

Come here, he says.

His hair is whitened by bubbles. The bath is warm, and I find myself folded between his legs. Hera. Dionysus. Save me, I whisper.


—

The next night. He wandered from our hotel room outside of the French Laundry. I watched him with a blonde woman, his wife. I knew it was her. I did.

I felt thick and dark. It is red in its highest capacity, dried, vicious blood; it warms your face in drunken embarrassment. Indulging in the acid that crawled up my esophagus. I chose to watch.  He was very attractive in the vineyard, with his summer dinner shirt. I wanted to tell his wife he had spilled fig jam on his pants. His teeth were stained. Red devil. I chose to watch.


I felt sick but continued, five glasses on the table fill and they tell you the years and the region and the label and the brand and the notes which will hit you from beginning to end, I feel these things. Puncturing.


—


The mornings are very cold in Napa Valley. I notice this when I wake up without him and find someone else at the pool, whose name is Andy, and his hair is brown like a black-tailed deer. I convince Andy to drive me to Muir Woods so I can see the trees. Like every tourist, Andy says.

I’m not a tourist, I say. I’m moving here soon, I just don’t have a house yet.

He doesn’t say much.


Not a lot happens between Andy and I. A leg, gazelle-like, is out on the table. He takes me to try mango passion chardonnay, and it's cold like a smoothie. The Disney family lives over there, Andy says. I say nothing and feel very empty, even with the Cabernet Franc we try, which may be the most glorious cranberry-plum-cherry feeling to possess me.


—---


Hey. Come eat grapes with me. We sit in the vineyard, tough seeds, sour stems. He and I, not Andy or a pool boy or anyone else but him, because I can feel it everywhere. Exhausting want. Every so often, there is sweetness, pure and smooth. The grapes leave an itchy sensation in my mouth. My tongue swells, and I feel sick. You make me sick, I tell him, but he says nothing in return.


—


Will you remember it when we leave? He asks.


—


The last vineyard I go to has tractors and sunflowers. I ask to eat the seeds and they are fatty and rich, like port and crumbly cheese. They show me dirt canisters from the microclimates, and it is like paste when I sneak a handful into my mouth. No one sees. I can feel the stems in my throat, shattered glass which cuts my voice. Goodbye, I feel, with the hand on my back, which is his.


—

Manead and Satryr.


My tongue feels flat for a month. I tell him it is never quite the same, and he says of course not. That’s why I brought you.

I remember the mountains sometimes and feel homesickness for no place, simply a depth in my body. What will you do with the money. He asks. Probably rent an apartment. I say.

How’s your wife. She’s good, he says. She liked Napa Valley. Yeah, I reply. Me too.


Simone. He whispers. Very faint.


Yeah.


I have begun to feel your absence. He says.


Ok. I say. 


I hang up the phone. On my left is a vintage that’s too young. It is bitter, no notes, burning, tastes like nothing, nothing.


My tongue is a useless flab in my mouth.