The title of this post makes me nauseous.
Thursday, another challenging week. Not without its rewards.
“I don’t like work–no man does–but I like what is in the work–the chance to find yourself.”
Joseph Conrad
We head home and there is no question wine needs to be opened.
A mixed grill from Al Jawareh and the Chianti if finished before the food is delivered. A bottle of Barolo the smells of banana, amyl acetate wine fault. First we have encountered.
We open a Beaujolais instead.
“his lips drink water
E.E Cummings
but his heart drinks wine”
There is no surf at Nikki Beach tomorrow so we will take the OC2 out tomorrow morning for the first time since we our unsuccessful first attempt a few weeks ago.
Bed early.
Friday morning and we have slept in.
We get to Nikki Beach and head out on the OC2. We are tipped in early and adjust the ama. OC2 is different from the six; tippy.
There is a north easterly blowing and no swell so there is not much to work with outside the heads. We head into one of the man made creeks.
“The wind is rising! . . . We must try to live!”
Paul Valéry
After an hour or so we head back into the open ocean and spend some lazy time floating on the ama just letting the ocean push us around.
This is where I fell in love with Shell. I remember a time before we were together doing the same off Newcastle beach. Lying on the ama in the ocean, talking, the sea shifting us with its pulse.
“There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath…”
Herman Melville
The Pacific Ocean and the Arabian Gulf might be very different parts of the world, but the feeling is entirely the same.
Maybe you can fall in love with the same person over and over.
“Find what you love and let it kill you.”
Charles Bukowski
Home and hungry.
I can’t be bothered going to the shops. I am going to try an order this weeks groceries and what I need for dinner online.
I am a luddite. Shell sorted it.
I spend the afternoon reading.
Saturday and we are meeting friends to paddle out of Ras Al-Khaimah.
It is always a bit risky bringing friends into the OC6. The boat will drag if they are lazy. Our friends are runners, and they have no trouble in the boat. We have a great session despite the lack of swell.
There is a bottle shop on the way home. I dropped in a few weeks back and noticed a few bottles of Daniel – Etienne Defaix Chablis. 2010 vintage.
How premier cru Chablis from a great producer with over a decade of age on it turns up in a tiny Emirate in the UAE is anyones guess.
I grab a bottle from Les Lys and Vaillons vineyards to try along side each other.
I spend the afternoon reading and the evening drinking premier cru Chablis.
Notes below.
“One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters…But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.”
Charles Baudelaire
It is Sunday and with the promise of some swell our friends have agreed to meet us at Ras Al-Khaimah for another session.
We arrive and swell hasn’t. If anything, it is flatter than yesterday.
Another fun session on clear, flat water.
Home and reading.
Work tomorrow and I don’t mind. Being on the ocean washes away stress. It reminds you how small you are, and how your worries are even smaller. The salt and the rhythm and the clear beautiful vastness. The sun kissing your face and the great depths below slapping on the canoe.
“He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, at one and the same time: the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud.”
Victor Hugo
This weekends drinking –
2020 Santa Margherita Chianti Classico (Chianti, Italy)
Cherries and flowers. Typical Chianti, savoury goodness and pure fruit.
2017 Ricossa Barolo (Barolo, Italy)
No red wine should smell like bananas. Faulty. Amyl Acetate.
2020 Albert Bichot Beaujolais Villages Parvellaire (Beaujolais, France)
We finished this bottle on Friday night. Albert Bichot has access to hundreds of vineyards throughout Beaujolais and Burgundy and I have never found his wines that interesting. This wine is great value for money. 100% Gamay and no oak. Raspberries and earth on the nose. Silky on the palate.
There are three consistently world class white wines. Hunter Valley Semillon, Alsace Riesling and Burgundy. As much as I love Montrachet, when it comes to Burgundy, it is all about Chablis. There are exceptions to every rule, the occasional outlier, but these three, deliver without fail.
The thing I love about wine is how a vineyard expresses itself. Without sounding like a wanker, every year is different, the climate is so variable a wine can be completely different from vintage to vintage. In places like Burgundy, where there are hundreds of individual vineyards, all with different aspects and soil types, you often get a chance to see this in a micro climate.
Handled by the same winemaker, in identical fashion, two vineyards exposed to the same weather, only a few kilometers apart, yet completely different wines. Les Lys and Vallion, a small hill apart, and over a decade of age. Two stunning wines that are completely different.
2010 Domaine Du Vieux Chateau Daniele – Etienne Defaix Chablis Premier Cru ‘Les Ley’ (Chablis, France)
Honey and butterscotch with peaches on the nose. The palate is developed but remains well structured. Great drinking.
2010 Domaine Du Vieux Chateau Daniele – Etienne Defaix Chablis Premier Cru ‘Vaillons’ (Chablis, France)
Tight and highly strung. Grapefruit and pears. Brilliant acidity on the palate. Drinking like it is five years old not 14. Stunning wine.
These are too few and far between now. Please do better. You are a Griffin now.
Noted.
I will do better.