Rolling North again...to drink Tinto Chileno for Wine Blogging Wednesday #52

Late again-- as is my stubbornly vicious wont-- for Wine Blogging Wednesday #52, as the number of installments in the wine blogosphere's Premier Online Tasting Event approaches my chronological age...

I was hoping to round up my buddies Adriano & Mark in Los Angeles-- the San Fernando Valley, to be precise-- along with Art & Wine Predator G. Alley for a group tasting of value reds from Chile, but...people have prior obligations, priorities, schedules & agendas, & I could not clearly propose an amenable date for the gathering.
On top of that, I was shocked, shocked to find that there are more Chileno wine choices-- a couple of them made from organic grapes-- in the Health Haven food store on Divisadero street, in the Western Addition district (-- upscale, gentrified denomination 'NoPa') in San Francisco than there were in Whole Foods' Sherman Oaks store in the San Fernando Valley.

I passed up on a $14 'Nuevo Mundo' Cabernet-Merlot organic Meritage for a chance at a $9.99 value: a 2006 Ventura Carmenère, also from organic grapes. Carmenère has had quite the myesterious odyssey-- I'll let the Wiki entry do the honors & proceed to some quick tasting notes: deep ruby (-- is that 'garnet', though?) color with violet rim, fairly simple but pleasant cherry-cassis in nose & palate. The Valley of Lontué, within the Curicó 'appellation', may not be the best terroir for a natural expression of the grape with some depth. Then again, the variety itself may work best in blends, as is the common wisdom.

December 10th is also the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, & the date for the annual ceremony honoring the year's winners of the prize that bears his name.
Pablo Neruda won the prize for literature in 1971, the second Chilean writer to earn the award, after Gabriela Mistral, who was honored in 1945. Two poets in a land that has given so many more to the world: Vicente Huidobro, Nicanor Parra, Enrique Lihn, Humberto Díaz Casanueva, Roberto Bolaño...

Here is my own idiosyncratic translation of Neruda's Ode to Wine:

Wine color of day
Wine color of night
Wine with feet of purple
or topaz blood
Wine
starful-struck child
of earth
Wine, smooth
as a sword of gold
soft
as disorderly velvet
snail-curled wine
suspended
loving
maritime
never could fit in one glass
in one song, in one man
choral, gregarious, you are
at the very least mutual.
Sometimes
you feed on mortal memories
on your wave
we ride from grave to grave
quarryman of a frozen sepulchre
we cry
fleeting tears
but
your gorgeous
suit of spring
is different
the heart climbs the branches
the wind moves the day
nothing is left
inside your motionless soul
Wine
moves spring
like a plant, joy grows
walls crumble
& boulders, too--
ravines close up
& the song is born.
Thou jug of wine in the desert
by the scrumptious one I love,
said the old poet
may the claypot of wine
to love's kiss add its own kiss.

My love, suddenly
your hips
are the brimful curve
of the goblet
your breast is the bunch
glint of alcohol your mane
grapes your nipples
pure seal your navel
etched on the vessel of your womb
& your love the cascade
of unquenchable wine
the gleam that falls on my senses
the earthy splendor of life.

Yet not only love
burning kiss
or charred heart
are you, wine of life
but
friendship of all beings, trasparency
choir of discipline
surfeit of flowers.
I love on a table,
in the middle of speech,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.
Let them drink
let them remember in each
drop of gold
or topaz glass
or spoon of purple
how Autumn labored
until wine filled the barrels
& may the dark man learn
in the ritual of his business
to remember the earth & its tasks
to spread the plainsong in fruit.

Here is the original in Spanish, in print & as read by Marcella Leoneli.

¡Salud!