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Wine haiku
In a field as tradition-bound and conservative as writing about wine, it is a rare and beautiful thing to encounter a concept so new and so appealing that upon encountering it you can only suck in your breath and say, "Damn! Why didn't I think of that?" I'm in just that state today, shocked and awed and immensely amused by the work of New York wine lover Lane Steinberg, who pens a delightful wine "blog" in which he posts periodic wine-tasting reports - always on red wines - in the strict poetic form of the Japanese haiku. Don't laugh. This is seriously good stuff.
Antoine Rodet Gevrey-Chambertin (France) 1998
Five syllables first It's not counting syllables that makes haiku poetry, though, but choosing the words that will trigger an emotional response. Haiku, it is said, "by its very nature asks each reader to be a poet" because, if well-done, it all but forces you to come up with a vivid visual image that finishes the work that the poet started. Steinberg, who credits his elderly junior high school English teacher, Miss Gimpel, with introducing him rather unwillingly to haiku, clearly gets that. "It seems to me that haiku is the perfect vehicle to encapsulate all aspects of red wine, from the mysteriously sublime to the numbingly mundane," he said. "These haikus provide a quick blast of an impression without getting too specific. If the haikus are good, you should be able to taste them in your mind." With almost 60 wine haikus on his "blog" and counting, Steinberg does this very well indeed. I love 'em!
Marquis Phillips Shiraz (Australia) 2002
Carmen Reserve Pinot Noir (Chile) 1999 Damn, why didn't I think of that?
WEB LINKS:
Lane Steinberg's Red Wine Haiku Review is online, frequently updated, at
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Campus Oaks 2001 Lodi Old Vine Zinfandel
There once was a big Zin from Lodi, (March 21, 2005) FOOD MATCH: A delight both as an ingredient and an accompaniment to long-braised, tender lamb shanks, stripped from the bones and shredded in its own sauce over rigatoni.
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Wednesday, March 23, 2005 |
It's been many years since I earned my bachelor's degree in English, and my days as a poet are well behind me. But, inspired by Steinberg's work, I couldn't resist taking a shot at posting today's tasting report in a somewhat less ethereal poetic form than haiku:
