Motif

Every time I hear those opening notes,
  my heart flutters,
and my mind instantly recalls each time I have listened to that song.
  Recalling places,
    people,
      and even the weather and time of day.


I hope this has the same effect on you.

Motif is one of those wines that has a great effect on people when they have it. Just a little sweeter than a brut, with a taste which gives aspects of light raspberries and violets with just a little bit of spice lingering on the finish. Great perlage which rivals a traditional method sparkling wine. Definitely something for parties as well as intimate encounters and experiences.

Ansa

“Be still” she said,
sagacious words offered
  by an Akan priestess,
mother of mine not by birth but association.
Centering wisdom that I fall back on,
  when I am in the midst of a storm.

Was it her or the Obasun who divined what it would mean to me?

Motif is one of those wines that has a great effect on people when they have it. Just a little sweeter than a brut, with a taste which gives aspects of light raspberries and violets with just a little bit of spice lingering on the finish. Great perlage which rivals a traditional method sparkling wine. Definitely something for parties as well as intimate encounters and experiences.

Motif

Cool,
  calm,
    and collected.
Thoughts of Cleopatra Jones,
  Mac-10 ready coming out of a Corvette
ready to open up a can of whoop…
  but really just Tamara Dobson.

You are that sistah

Honeydew melon,
  or just a melonated woman
like Marki Bey in Sugar Hill.
With Zara Cully as Mama Maitresse.
And a dash of pineapple
  mixed in just for the tropical titillation of a salted caramel complexion.

I adore you

Let’s sit outside,
  by the river,
while Oshun and Yemaja juxtaposition for our attention.
Cool breezes caressing cattails
  lazily lapping lily pads,
and dictating the orientations of daffodils.

From afternoon to evening,
  sun to moon,
day to night,
  love to passion,
    hopefully the crickets won’t snitch.

But the storm comes,
  and we enjoy the rain.
Humidity filling our noses,
  decanting our musks,
And the precipitation precipitating our perspiration,
  while nine colors dance in our minds behind our eyelids,
the explosion of colors composing and comprising our orgasms.

Maybe Oya really won this round

Having a date by the river is a lovely experience, and I do have a story of having a needed conversation by the river [which I won't tell]. It gives you a chance to appreciate nature and just let the wind still your soul, which is pretty much oxymoronic. When I was in the Navy, I would go with my walkman to the jetty on Narragansett Bay, and listen while the winds whipped their icy tendrils through me as I thought of home and other things. True fact: Tamara Dobson was the high school classmate of a friend's mom.

Aura

Some people sing of halos,
  but your aura is all encompassing.

From every angle I can see your shine,
  and feel the hum and crackle of your energy.
I warm myself in its invisible glow,
  and find a serene conjunction between the two of us.

The reality is that I rarely drink Chardonnay anymore unless it is either unoaked or a sparkling wine. It is not to say that I don't occasionally love a nice oaked one, but after years of doing that experience, I walked away from it. I think that most people have no idea what the grape actually tastes like and this wine is an example of what it really is, naked and unaffected by anything else.

Asteria

If it weren’t for you,
  I wouldn’t see…
gaze upon the future and the possibilities
  in my dreams,
whether they are waking,
  or at night or even the day.

I wouldn’t know myself,
  understanding my sun,
    my ascendant,
  my moon and planets which make up this big-hearted lion.
And thus also understand to know others.

I plucked this name out of Greek mythology -- I love mythologies of the world and get this interest from my mother -- and the relevance has several meanings to me, though in the quickest connection, it means star. I love this wine as Pinot Bianco/Blanc is a varietal that most people are not familiar with, and in most cases, it just doesn't have any "oomph" to it, while this one gives people's tongues something to hold on to. I am usually met by something like "I only know of Pinot Grigio and Pinot Noir" when introducing this to people.

Caprice

I saw her walking thirty feet away,
  and then a feeling came over me.
Did I see a twinkle in her eye,
  or was that stars in mine?
In either case, I think I’ll take the chance,
  to go and say hello.
I might just meet the love of my life,
  or make a great friend in the process.

I first remember coming across Custoza wine during my first VinItaly in 2011 while I stayed in the town of San Martino Buon Albergo. It is a regular workhorse/everyday wine of the Veneto region and comes in both still and sparkling versions. I used to go to a local restaurant/bistro everyday and partake of several glasses from different producers.

Custoza is one of those wines that more people should be drinking, as the rules for it allows a great variation in what each producer releases. While not as known as Chianti, it has more possibilities of what it can be made from, with it being a minimum of three grapes; 70% of the wine has to be a mix of Cortese, Friulano, Garganega, and/or Trebbiano Toscano with no grape being more than 45% of the total of the wine, with the remaining 30% consisting of Chardonnay, Malvasia, Manzoni Bianco and/or Welschriesling.

Aether

Shine,
  and burn away the dross
  rid me of all the impurities and imperfections,
    self-doubts and negative thoughts
Warm my soul,
  in this cold cold world.
You beautiful, black-skinned goddess;
  daughter of night and dark,
    sister of sleep and stillness.
The quintessence impermeable and ever present,
  through you is the path to heaven,
and the satiation of my unspoken needs and hungers.

The fifth element,
  you have transmogrified yourself into a liquid form,
ambrosia that I am thankful for,
  allowing me to look outward and inward,
    simultaneously and sequentially.
I am at peace and evolved.

Both Aether and Bakhita are wines that let folks know that I am not playing with them. Aether being a little like bad cop to Bakhita's good cop. And it almost is like an introduction to the traditional wines of Valpolicella.

Bakhita

Sweet, sophisticated Sudanese sister
  surreptitiously spirited away,
scion stripped of status,
  forcibly filched from family;
  apprehended from ancestry.

Daju from Darfur,
  sister to six others,
  as one of seven.

Separated from all things familiar,
  placed into bondage and servitude.
An unfortunate occurrence that happened in far too many places,
  for way to long.

No longer knowing her name,
  devastated and mentally drained,
choosing the opposite,
  titling herself “lucky.”

Enslaved at seven,
  sold five times in twelve years,
abused and scarred,
  mistreated and maligned,
    then gifted away like some unwanted item.
From Khartoum to Suakin,
  to Genoa to Zianigo,
then back to Suakin, Sudan.

Smart sister,
  finding sanctuary and salvation,
Refusing to return to servitude,
  winning her freedom.
Little brown sister,
  and Black mother,
both sobriquets of respect,
  unofficial saint of Schio while living,
who transitioned on a Saturday evening.

I could not have had her strength.

For me, writings poems usually is easy, but I struggled with this one the first time that I tried it. I probably came across her before, but it was a holiday party and fundraiser for a church in Camden, NJ whose patron saint is Josephine Bakhita which sealed the deal for me with this name. Her life was her life, and it wasn't pretty, but she lived it and made it into something different. Honestly, looking at her pictures makes me think of a woman I would have tried to whisk off her feet had we ever met in person, and on another level, she reminds me of my maternal grandmother (Pauline) who tended house for white people until she retired. I can look at her picture and see so many things, and her life resonates with that of every African American.

The wine itself is a beast that creeps into your soul, and even for those who usually are averse to red wines, this one wins them over.

Arpeggio

Sometimes,
  it’s the separation of the things in a group,
which are more pleasing than having it all at once.
The slowly inclination of pleasure,
  derived from the methodical teasing from the start to the end.
An evolving cascade,
  heightening response and stimulation the deeper into the movement
until the climax is reached,
  and the movement finished.

And here is where we really begin,
  as the foreplay has ended.

Arpeggio is actually part of a 1-2 punch with the Caesura, and the meaning of it is a broken chord, meaning one that is played in pieces and not altogether. For those that "know me, know me" they know that I am also a musician. I started off with French Horn in the fifth and sixth grades and finally wound up with African drumming (let's not be savages and call it percussion) later on in life. I actually wanted to always play xylophone, marimba and vibraphone, but my mother didn't know that she could have probably sent me to the Curtis Institute of Music and I could've gotten a scholarship for instruction.

My transition back into music was funny, if not hilarious, as I was pounding out some beats for "African" dance classes at Penn State while I was a student there. I would then get exposed to the real stuff at the annual Celebration of World Cultures at the University of Penn Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. During that event, there was a demonstration of West African dance and drumming run by Ibeji Performing Arts Company. I asked if I could pick up a drum and play and was allowed to, and it went downhill from there. It was a djembe; a drum that I had never played, didn't know how to play, and didn't know any parts to the rhythm which was being played. Worse, I felt really embarrassed that there was a white woman drumming and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Oh well.

Well, some months later, I would run into one of the founders of that group, Hodari Banks, in a local Kinko's and he invited me out to see one of their classes. That started an interesting journey which had me learning several drums and other instruments from West Africa [through him], and expanding to other parts of Africa as well as the Caribbean (Afro-Latin) and South America (Brazil/Afro-Brazilian). And drumming can connect you into a number of different things and with a number of different people.

Caesura

Please stop me,
  pause me in my thoughts and make me reflect on everything.
Make me approach you with respect,
  and patience,
not jumping in while you’re not fully opened.

Halt me in my tracks,
   showing me a symphony of warm joy,
compel me to enter your depths,
  savoring and engaging in every nuance and scintilla of your empirical nature.
And then start me up for this next turn of your merry-go-round.

Caesura is the second half of that 1-2 punch. And how these wines came to be in my arsenal was my being at a table at VinItaly in 2018 waiting to meet with one person/producer, and someone else asked me to try their wines. I was floored. This is Campania, to which I know some great producers and there are at least twenty wines and grappas I want to bring over. I also have a birthday brother whom we shall refer to as "the pirate." A caesura is a break, where one piece of music stops and another begins.

This wine can age for another twenty years and the funniest thing behind it is this story:

The most interesting thing about being in the wine industry is that I am usually the only Black person in some situations. I might be the only Black person, the only African American, and even sometimes the only person from the United States. In any case, I had the opportunity to go on a trade trip to Abruzzo in 2021 and there were more Canadians than folks from the U.S.; I was also the only person of color. It was a great trip and funny because I am not a somm, or someone who has studied and learned from a certain viewpoint, so some folks had "some" feelings; some folks also got checked! However, at the end of each day, there were more people wanting to join me at the bar at the end of the day for Grappa, and people were noticing my ability to connect with the producers and export managers.

Flash forward to VinItaly 2022 and I am going to meet with my export manager for my Campania producer who is now working for a producer from Puglia. Well, one of the Canadians is sitting there and she is told that the Taurasi that she imports is also the same one that I have been importing before her (she was shocked that I new the export manager, who I actually had known longer). Well, that makes her do a serious second-take on me. She rates this wine highly, and this guy who some folks thought wasn't up to their level had already had it not only in his portfolio, but under his brand.

Anyway, it is a beast that I sometimes don't know how to assess, as my palate fluctuates, but when I settle down, I realize that this is a phenomenal wine.

Also, the funniest thing said to me [by another participant who worked for a Canadian importer] was that if it weren't for it being played in London, it would have never spread internationally. I had to break down the fact to him that house music, originating in Chicago, and then spreading to New York and Detroit [as well as some other U.S. cities], and then going overseas to London had already went international by the fact that, as of the last time me checking, London is outside of the U.S. He got clowned for that one by several folks.

Bella

Spicy,
  and sweet.
Strong,
  and refined.
I look at you and know not to underestimate,
  you’re no joke.
Some would call you a barrelhouse,
  others sassy,
    strong-willed, and even angry.
You’re just the essence of how so many people push you to react.

Bella is a weird one, being not only a fortified wine made from a grape that can no longer be planted in the EU, but also having a unique flavor that reminds you more of some spices than what would be the normal taste characteristics for fortified wines. I tasted this wine while at SISAB, but oddly at the booth of someone pushing jams and spices. I kept in touch with the person with the stand and a year later he put me in touch with the actual producer.

Bella is either something you love strongly, or you don't like, with people in the former camp having been known to drink the whole bottle by themselves [and promptly go to sleep]. I am surprised when I occasionally enjoy a glass, as I try not to drink up my own supply.

For those that don't know, I am also connected to Port, Moscatel do Douro (and another type of Moscatel) and Madeira. And in this case, I rediscovered my love of Moscatel at a Wines of Portugal(WoP) tasting during the mid-90s. My second WoP tasting would actually open the door for me to attend SISAB, their national wine and food trade show, but because of a miscommunication, I would not attend it to the following year.

Like Port, Moscatel do Douro can have different tastes, and while I pursued one from a certain producer, the export manager had to apologize as they weren't able to do it, but another associate got it done via the company that he worked for. And the funny story to us is this:

So, during the opening dinner of SISAB in 2018, we're all waiting for the opening entertainment to happen. Well, it happened to be a dance troupe consisting of a range of diverse people with choreography to a Mozambique rhythm. Again, not only do I love dancing, but I am also versed in a number of instruments and styles [and their regional rhythms] from West Africa and other parts of the continent. Anyway, these guys were less than appealing, but the music was hitting, and after they had transitioned to the floor from the stage, I got up -- mind you that I had been tasting all day AND there was wine at the tables -- walked over to some of the dancers and proceeded to "break it down." I forgot that there was a live video camera following them so I was on the big screen in front of everyone. I finished my routine, gave a nod and walked back to my table where all the people there couldn't believe what I just did, but were smiling and laughing with joy.

Anyway, both the person whose company I wanted to source this wine from, and the person whose company I wound up sourcing it from, were both at our table.