2009 Beaucastel: Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark

2009 Chateau Beaucastel En Primeur Tasting

Tasting Chateau Beaucastel en primeur is like pressing pause on a moment in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto, currently hurtling through space on the 1977 Voyager Space Probe Golden Record as a record of mighty human achievement.

Librarians love 01 Les Pagodes de Cos

The 01 Pagodes de Cos, the second wine of Cos d'Estournel, is reckless, obstinate and from all accounts of previous vintages, annoying. The initial brett farmyard characters will either delight or disgust you depending on whether worn leather smells like the promise of sitting in a new car or crusty old boots. But to me, it's not that simple.

Anarchy in the UK? K Vintners' Viognier, Washington State

When Bill Grundy famously interviewed the Sex Pistols for ITV in 1976 he asked Siouxsie Sioux, was she worried or was she enjoying herself... "Enjoying myself," she replies.

White Grange and Nirvana

2007 Yattarna or 2008 Bin 08A Reserve Chardonnay?

Nirvana's Bleach came out in 1989 on a budget of only $600, a thrilling album-long demo tape for their huge next album, Nevermind. Bleach is sound unpolished to perfection. So why was it this album cover the first image to come to mind when tasting the 2007 Yattarna? There couldn't be anything more opposite. Yattarna is a wine polished to perfection. On a huge Penfold's budget. Bleach was the birth of grunge.

Michael Broadbent on music and wine tasting

"What perhaps is needed is something approaching musical notation, for in many ways the problems are similar.

Why wine tastes better with music

"It is widely acknowledged within the scientific community that music affects behaviour, however this is the first time it has been scientifically proven that music can affect perception in other senses and change the way wine tastes.

The research showed that when a powerful, heavy piece of music is heard, a wine such as Cabernet Sauvignon is perceived as being 60 per cent more powerful, rich and robust than when no music is heard.

Now, back to practicing my cat dance on last night's empty bottles...


Link: Why wine tastes better with music

wine in capsules

"James Rothschild sent Rossini [composer of 'Barber of Seville', 'William Tell' etc] some splendid grapes from his hothouse. Rossini, in thanking him, wrote, “although your grapes are superb, I don’t like my wine in capsules.” Rothschild read this as an invitation to send him some of his celebrated Chateau-Lafite, which he proceeded to do." – Lillie de Hergermann-Lindencrone, “In the Courts of Memory”

Image: The Last Supper, Damian Hirst (1999)

who's that girl?

Link: bruised Madonna

Bob Dylan... on cheap wine

Hey! Thank you for sending me Theme Time Radio Hour on "Drinking" (hosted by Bob Dylan).

What's the reaction?

Satisfaction.

What's the flavour?

Ask your neighbour.

Link: More Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan on BBC Radio 2

Link: more wine and Dylan on WWS Fattoria Le Terraze and Rainy Day Women

mother's money and daddy's scotch

Link: Raymond Pettibon gallery

Brian Eno: the key to a long life

"I believe singing is the key to a long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, greater intelligence, new friends, increased self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness and a sense of humour. There! That got your attention."


– Brian Eno

Link: Ode Magazine, Freestyling

shadow world

Sun Ra Arkestra "Shadow World" West Berlin


Link: A space odyssey via Astralis and Sun Ra

Nina Simone dance

Link: Live at Montreux, 1976 DVD movie

honkeyfinger: invocation of the demon other

"Anybody singing the blues is in a deep pit yelling for help." - Mahalia Jackson at Rick Saunders breaks his silence

On my first or second night after arriving in London I heard about a night called, Not the Same Old Blues Crap, and you know I got a bit upset when I saw it, almost offended. That's my music you're talking about. You punks!

Ha! OK, the blues is a loaded word in itself, meaning different things to different people. Sure, I agree – there are too many boring Budweiser advertising types play their three chords at their 5oth birthday party... blah.

If that is you, no need to read any further.

Still here? Good. Then you'll like Honkeyfinger's new album called Invocation of the Demon Other. It is listening in the n'th dimension. This is what the harp sounds like very far away in another galaxy. The minor blues keys in distortion twanged the aorta vessel in my heart so much it hurt.

That's pretty much my working definition of the blues (when you're thinking evil).

A few songs grabbed me by the neck and wouldn't let go: Margarine Man, Trouble, The Sloth, True Believers and Burning Skull blues, amongst others.

If you know, love, or ARE the blues you will have your minds opened to possibility and your ears reconfigured. Run, don't walk.

And if you are in Minneapolis, check him out at the Deep Blues Festival at Lake Elmo, July 19.

Link: Great myspace page and website.
Link: Blues in London: interview with Honkeyfinger

Fattoria Le Terrazze and rainy day women

Bob Dylan: "they'll stone you at the breakfast table"

Fattoria Le Terrazze Rosso Conero Sassi Neri 2003

On the pavement outside a pub on 4-lane Whitechapel Road in peak hour under an ominously dark sky. Feeling like a Rainy Day Woman.

Friend walks past with a half a bottle under his arm. Works in the City. Half cut from schmoozing with clients at some big buck$ lunch. In a 45 minute lunch ordered £500 worth of wine (4 bottles for 3 people??). Sure, I'll drink your capitalist scraps. Especially if it's a Fattoria Le Terrazze red.

Fattoria Le Terrazze are the same people who make Bob Dylan's specially requested wine, IGT Planet Waves.

Damn my champagne tastes on a beer budget.

Rush inside pub and grab a couple of wine glasses. This wonderful subdued Montepulciano wine hums along to the call to prayer from the Whitechapel Mosque across the road.

After 5 years in the bottle, the cedar oak beautifully integrated with the fruit; now light as red silk. Things slowed down. Even Whitechapel Road.

Pub hates me now. (Well, I had tried to order a wine from them but all they had was RED). Anyway, it was worth sneaking in a glass or two. Friend said, just blame the City schmuck. You shouldn't take it so personal, as Bob Dylan says. It's about the wine. But okay, I will...

Not so much Rainy Day Woman #1,2 & 3 5 after this.





Link: Fattoria Le Terrazze

warm leatherette

Grace Jones at Meltdown Festival, Royal Festival Hall London, June 20, 2008:

'Warm Leatherette', one of the songs that broke her out of the underground in 1980, is a JG Ballard-derived track that sexualises a car crash. Tonight it is a singalong. 'You sing "warm", motherfuckers!' commands Jones, holding two cymbals up threateningly.

It's always tempting to use "WARM leatherette" to describe some red wines. Sometimes I have a secret desire to yell out WARRRM at red wine tastings in sterile tastings room. And also, my other favourite line:

Quick, let's make love before we die!


Link: Live Reviews: Thoroughly modern millinery - Guardian

Jay-Z at Glastonbury LIVE

"Under My Umbrella, ella, ella"

Live and direct.


Jay-Z comes on stage with a guitar playing Wonderwall, by Oasis.


Plays a few badass chords and then lets the crowd sing the rest.


OK, Jay-Z is a genius. The controversy is over.


He's got the crowd on "hello".


Glastonbury is more than just a music festival here. It's a rite of passage, as well as a tradition. When Jay-Z was billed as headliner it was seen as controversial (especially with Noel "hip-hop has no place at Glastonbury" Gallagher from Oasis) but he won the 150,000-plus strong crowd over (whether they needed winning over) with a nod to the locals: Prodigy, Smack My Bitch Up; Amy Winehouse, Rehab.... straight up in the first few minutes.


"If you didn't catch my name, it's Jay-Z."


Thanks Jay-Z, I think we got it. And it will take a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.


"I've got one thing to say", said Jay-Z and then came 99 problems, punched out with AC/DC's Back in Black for the last two verses.


BTW: Talking about genius...and Back in Black: Amy Winehouse.


How cool was it when she walked off the high Pyramid stage into the crowd. Havoc! For starters, getting into the field in 7" Louboutin heels is a feat in itself. Then she ended up punching the shit out of some guy in the front row.


Amy still looks fucked, or real, or sick, or whatever. God love her - she's animal electrifying, and I couldn't stop watching her, although I don't know whether it was for the right reasons.


She didn't do a bad rap herself between songs dot com.


My verdict: the best genius is difficult. Whether it's Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse or Noel Gallagher.


As Jay-Z admonished the crowd: "Where is the Love?"


And love is the law here at Wine Woman & Song.


That's the anthem get your damn hands up.



Link: Jay-Z Myspace interview backstage before Glastonbury gig

Marlene Dietrich and David Bowie

"Dancing, music, champagne.

The best way to forget...

until you find something you want to remember."


– Marlene Dietrich, in Just A Gigolo, Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo (1978).

Link: Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo (1978)

Bon Iver: For Emma, forever ago

"Justin Vernon moved to a remote cabin in the woods of Northwestern Wisconsin at the onset of winter. Tailing from the swirling breakup of his long time band (DeYarmond Edison), he escaped to the property and surrounded himself with simple work, quiet, and space. He lived there alone for three months, filling his days with wood splitting and other chores around the land. This special time slowly began feeding a bold, uninhibited new musical focus." – Last.fm

At Rough Trade Records, where I first listened to this album, they had written beside the CD:

Is this the best album of 2008, already?

Big statement.


All I know is the gentle folk sound really comes into its own on a Sunday morning.


For Emma brings back memories of John Lennon's dreamy, syrupy acoustic sound in Double Fantasy.


And it makes me hungry!


Listening to this album makes me want pancakes for breakfast drowned in maple syrup... yum.


This is a beautiful folk album, especially on a lazy Sunday morning, and definitely one of the best folk albums of the year, so far.


Link: Bon Iver

Let's Get Lost: Chet Baker by Bruce Weber

"Some people don't have enough ears to tell the difference"

- Chet Baker in Bruce Weber's documentary, Let's Get Lost, when asked if people confused him with Miles Davis, and every other trumpet player from the era.

An immaculate woman in her 70s sat in front of me in the cinema, by herself, dressed in a summer suit with her ash-blonde coiffure blow dried to candy floss perfection.


It is 2.30 in the afternoon.


With perfect red manicured nails, she kept checking the mirror in her gold compact.


And then I realized, she was wiping away tears - only fifteen minutes into the film.


Almost blue.
Almost doing the things we used to do,
there's a girl here
and she's almost you.


Oh! Why the tears?

Perhaps she was once one of the girls in the film? Maybe she knew Chet, and there was a time when she happily flirted with disaster?


Or, perhaps like Chet said in the film about himself, all her friends and lovers are no longer here?


Maybe it's just the way he sings break her heart all over again, and again.





Link: Let's Get Lost by Bruce Weber