Want

“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”

Sylvia Plath

Imagine a life where you live in a new country every few years. You travel to all ends of the world.

This is me.

Yet, every now and again, I find myself in a place living a life that might be better. A cabin in the mountains, a fire place, maybe a dog.

Nothing to do but live, tend a garden, talk to Shell and drink and sleep.

But you can’t have everything, can you?

Tuesday

I sleep for ten hours and could sleep for more.

Shell suggests some yoga before breakfast.

I fail miserably in doing my best.

Breakfast is delivered.

Coffee and….

Nothing to do.

Read.

Prepare a late lunch. Today we are having Sulmatle fowl, all two kilograms of it, potatoes and pumpkin roasted in the Sulmatle fat and one of Shell’s superb dishes-brussell sprouts fried with speck and finished with Pedro Ximénez.

A cabbage dish beyond comparrison.

We open a bottle of wine.

Then another.

I get hungry waiting for lunch and eat some cheeses.

A local tiroler graukäse that does not come with any packaging. A vorarlberger alpkäse with a similar lack of identification. Finally, a gailtaler almkäse, aged and covered in delicious mould.

Lunch is excellent. The sprouts are the highlight.

I clean the kitchen while Shell has a nap.

Shell moves from the lounge to the bed and I somehow manage to let the fire go out.

No dinner tonight.

I am in bed at 6.00 pm.

Tonight’s (today’s) wine –

2023 Weingut Tement Kalk & Kreide Sauvignon Blanc (Styria, Austria)

Weignut Tement has historical value in the region—one of the older vineyards and a keeper of traditions. This wine is of equal importance. Made from 60 year old vines and produced in the tradition style, fermented for months with wild yeast in old oak casks.

The wine is complex and a little funky. Plenty going on. I am a fan, Shell not so much.

We pass this Weignut on the way to the cabin. If it was not Christmas it would be an interesting visit.

2023 Weingut Prager Stockkultur Achleiten Grüner Veltliner (Wachau, Austria)

I tried to make an appointment at this Weignut while we were staying in Wachau on our last visit. Prager has a reputation for excellent Grüner Veltliner, but we couldn’t get in.

Prager has a lot going for it. Excellent terrior, 60 year old vines and a winemaker with minimal intervention.

Super acidity, powerful yet balanced. The wine you would give someone if they asked you what Grüner Veltliner tasted like.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

Oscar Wilde