An Autumnal Equinox Birthday Wine Review

My name, if directly translated from the German, is Emily Dregs. I discovered this while on tour with my friends’ punk rock orchestra in Germany. I had first assumed that the “stein” in “Weinstein” meant “glass,” as in beer “stein.” Then, when I Google Translated it, I found out that “stein” meant “stone.” I figured a “wine stone” must be a stone used to crush grapes for wine. No, no, corrected a German, in the near-perfect English of all northern Europeans. “The ‘stein’ is the little—how do you say?—the little stones at the bottom of the wine, that you do not drink.”

“The sediment?” I asked.

The German looked confused.

“The dregs?”

“Yes! The dregs.”

How fittingly punk, I thought at the time. Now that I climb, I am even more pleased by the many meanings of this moniker.

I am no stranger to sediment, though I have yet to climb anything other than granite, which is igneous. There is definitely some sediment in this unfiltered 2013 {Working Title} Pinot Noir Batch 001.

Today is my birthday. The hour is fast approaching of the Autumnal Equinox, which occurs in seven minutes at 1:50 pm. Was there ever a more auspicious hour to taste wine? Is there really any inauspicious hour to taste wine? As the Equinox and my own death approach simultaneously, I conclude that this wine is worth drinking as the days of our lives come into momentary light/dark balance before they descend into long dark winter nights of the soul best weathered with a little wine. It is chewy.

All week I have been served things reminiscent of blood. First, I ate raw venison in some kind of pop-up bar celebrating the New Zealand America’s Cup team. Then, a bowl of what appeared to be Red #3 was inexplicably brought to me in a Chinese restaurant. And now, I drink this surprisingly tasty wine that my friend has fished out of a white plastic tote in his living room that he reminds me is food-grade.

Today, the winemaker informs me, the asssmans-hausen has concluded its obligations. The assmans-hausen is the yeast that digests the sweetness of the wine. I think “Assmans-Hausen” would be a good name for a German-themed gay bar. I see the names of gay bars everywhere.—“My Cup Runneth Over. Thy Rod and Thy Staff.” But what use is it to me, or anyone?

The wine is no longer sweet. It is finished, or beginning to be finished. Yet because it is full of sediment, full of skins, full of schmutz, it is not yet finished. But it is more than just begun. It is well underway. Not unlike myself. I, too, harbor some remnants of what I once was, swirling, in the bottom of the vessel that gives my shapeless existence form.

I will be reviewing this wine again on my half-birthday, the Vernal Equinox. We will see how it has progressed.