I love many things, wine and music being two of them. Both of these things have a way a transporting one to a different place. I will hear a song on the radio and it has the ability to transport me back to a time and place where I remember that song, and remember why that song really mattered to me at that time. With wine, I’m not just talking about being transported to a state of inebriation, but to a place and time where you remember that taste all over again. Isn’t that the real fun of wine tasting? Tasting not only the wine, but the light, the sounds, the smells, and the company you are with that all create this amazing memory that can be activated by a hint of a thought of any of those things… Ah, I wax poetic, which brings me back to my topic.
Music. To me, music is a language. Languages are used for communication and music communicates emotion. Listen to a piece of classical music and try not feel something. There are no words, yet the music alone can make you feel something that the composer who may have been dead for 200 plus years, felt, or wanted you to feel. Not only is that a language, it is poetry.
Once lyrics are added to this musical language base, we now have a complex language that can really alter our feelings and moods. Did I tell you I love music? The lyrics of a song are generally a poem. Well let’s say they at least have words that rhyme. With no apology, I think that is a requirement for a poem outside of a haiku. Together we have music that can be poetic on its own, to which we add another poem in the form lyrics. Music is poetry.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s said, “Wine is bottled poetry.”
Who am I to argue with a Scottish bard? That would be foolish, so I won’t, but I will help him make his point.
Wine. Why drink wine? I mean really think about. If we were drinking to get buzzed, it is much easier to distill potatoes into Vodka. What doesn’t Vodka have? That’s right, taste. We drink wine for the taste…and to get buzzed, but to get buzzed with something that tastes good.
What creates the taste, or better stated for our proposes here, what creates good tasting wines? There have been an uncountable number of books that have been written about wine and wine tasting. I don’t plan on writing another here. I do want to highlight that most wine drinkers like wines that have different tastes, or nuances. Something we call complexity.
Complexity is all of those tastes happening in your mouth at the same time. The acidity at work with the other flavor compounds, creating whole new tastes in a split second on part of your tongue, while on another part of your tongue, the same thing is happening, just with a completely different taste. The ebb and flow of flavors in your mouth are just like the cadence of a poem. A rhythm, poetry.
Wine and music are complementary poetry. They go together, as Forrest Gump would say, “Like peas and carrots”. So what could be better than writing song lyrics, actually talking about wine? I went on a search to find some of these musical gems and collected a few of them on the Wine and Music pages on the Children of the Grape website. I don’t know why so many songs about wine are either Country or Reggae. I haven’t added many of the Rap and Reggae songs due to language and other issues, so that leaves us with a lot of Country songs. Truth be told I like (real) Country music, and may have a wider palate for music than wine. All I can say is enjoy, and we would love to hear your favorites.
