Earthy Themes

Of the garden wines we have made thus far, black currant stands highest as an agreeable winter-evening wine. Its darkness matches the opaque red-purple of the darker red-grape wine. Its flavor, its piquancy, stops just short of assaulting the tongue with its assertive tang.

As I remember from a week or two ago, when Martha and I opened a bottle of last fall's black currant, it may have fallen short, as a wine, in its body -- that sense to the tongue of having a palpable presence beyond the liquid essence -- something different from its sweetness. Even so the black currant occupies a wine glass with authority. The curious drinker cannot help but wonder: what deep thoughts did those pendulous clusters have, while deepening in hue to such light-absorbing darkness at the height of summer?

You can only imagine they were not thoughts of inconsequential frippery. These berries meditated on earthy themes ... regarded with equanimity the days of dry heat and those of persistent wetness ... ignored that brightly extravagant and somewhat show-offy red currant next door.

Cheers ...