From my base at the Hotel of Hope on East 7th Street I continue to explore New York Wine City (NYWC). You might think that since I began this process of discovery back in late November I would have found out all there is to know about this great metropolis of the fermented grape. There’s also long back story to the last months which is how I’ve been coming here since December 1988 (since when I’ve gained all the emotional associations its possible for a person to have with a place; R.I.P. Lamar Elmore and Louis Broman). But the fact is that I keep on finding out surprising things and making delightful discoveries (also last night, thank you Aldo Sohm and Andrew Bell), which make me feel that so far I’ve only scratched the surface. So, my New York Riesling Diary continues to be a Work in Progress, and may well remain so for the rest of my days, however many or few of them there may be. And nothing is more inspiring than this feeling that I’m right at the beginning of something as fascinating as this has been and is. Normally I’m very strong on specifics, the What, Who, Where, When and Why that is the basis of all good journalism, but this time I’m deliberately leaving all the details out to focus on the nature of my lucky situation.
I’m just about to throw myself into three months of unbroken toil to turn the pile of notes I’ve been scribbling since I arrived here into a book about the Global Riesling Phenomenon. Many of those notes are about other wines, and some of them concern things that only loosely related to wine. But my book has been growing out of all this profiting from this rich compost. I will be writing the book in almost exactly the same way that I write this blog, which is simply to put down my experiences and the thoughts they stimulate in the same way that I tell them to friends and acquaintances. Read my lips: this is my story told in my voice and it is Riesling Global!
PS I beg forgiveness for the fact that until early November posts here will be shorter and somewhat more infrequent in order that that pile of notes can be turned into a book manuscript, then into a concise volume, which contains the essence of my 30 years of deep immersion in Riesling.
