dissabte, 13 de desembre del 2008

Of wine and death

"Being-towards-death, for Heidegger, is not an accidental quality of Human Beings, and presumably the same goes for wines: it is our -their- essence. This sounds sombre, but it needn't to be. The great thing about the way wines (and some human beings) age is that they mellow; they lose tannic armour and hard edges, become more rounded and more complete. Instead of a decline, they can offer an ascension: a rising from the earthy ground into the ether. Becoming more spiritual, they might summon spirits: as Yeats said in 'All Souls' Night', 'it is a ghost's right... /To drink from the wine breath, /While our gross palates drink from the whole wine."

Harry Eyres, Financial Times Arts & Weekend.