The Rhythm of Wine

When you think of all the things in the world that have rhythm, the one that leaps to mind first is probably music, with its meter and time signature, it is built on rhythm, and would fall apart without it. Perhaps, waves come to mind, the resounding crash, and skittering withdrawal, as the waves come one after another, ceaselessly, lulling the reverent shore into a quiet stillness. Poetry must have rhythm, but prose, also has a rhythm if not meter, that if well done, will propel the ideas along with the words, whispering where it needs to whisper, and emphatic, only when necessary. Our own bodies have rhythms, heartbeats, brain waves, and speech patterns. Circadian rhythms govern us all. Our lives are filled with rhythm, inside and out. What, then, is the rhythm of wine? Is it, perhaps, not in the wine itself, but in the ritual of it, the anticipation as one reads the label, a region, or grape not yet tried. The cork is pulled out slowly, carefully, the wine poured to just one third of the glass, then swirled, inhaled, savored, as the mind runs through a mental list of descriptive words, cherry, no, blackberry, and smoke, oak, maybe and some vanilla, another swirl, and then a taste to confirm and add to the description. After this ritual of analysis, we settle in to simply enjoy and savor the wine. There is rhythm in this ritual. But does the wine itself have a rhythm? The wine must be balanced, fruit and tannins in harmony with acidity and alcohol. Harmony connotes rhythm. So, perhaps, ritual and balance are the rhythm of wine. It is difficult to define exactly what the rhythm of wine is, but it is quite easy to identify a wine that has no rhythm.