SAVORING HISTORY
Like a timeline of political highlights, vintage charts reference the excellent and the awful
BY LINDSEY WHIPPLE

The fuzzy darkness of a night has transformed into morning, and a spectacle of curiosity amounts. I ponder on what is to become. Toward one corner, the sexy arrangement of letters slowly stringing into a column of enticement parades into focus. And away from another, a minute-moment of miniscule poise appears, forcing an editorial on wine to ineptly develop.

There is a bottle of Coonawarra Cab carefully monitoring my movement, and not far from its reach are the fingerprinted stains covering the glass of a stem-propped globe containing its former contents, reflecting the mood I choose to carry. The label reads 2001, a year that both the world's of wine and politics will never forget. Like a timeline that lays out a year's highlights of political events, vintage charts in the world of wine reference the excellent, the good and the awful wines from a given year. 

Both record history; both tell the story of what and when. The timeline for the world of Politick in the third Millennium will surely center on its first year (perhaps even the 254th day), scarring the beginning of the 21st century. It will tell the story of terror, destruction, chaos, retaliation and so-called freedom. And if the timeline read more like a vintage chart, then the ratings would be very dissimilar. 

2001 will be known as an extraordinary year for America, and this almost-empty bottle before me from Australia will be considered one of outstanding quality. 

Staring through curved glasses has led to altering effects on me lately. All broadcast images have led to the cleaning of both my optical and wine glasses. Recently I found myself staring at a suffocated prisoner. Frightened by what I saw through the reflection of the glass, I pulled the bark free and released it. I heard the bottle's contents take its first gasp of air, 66 years after it was created. My own was taken after only seconds in this world, when this wine was already on its 38th year. 

Chateaux Cheval Blanc was the producer, and according to the vintage chart, its birth year was a very good one for all of Bordeaux. However, the supply that year was very limited due to lack of man-power and equipment, and because of where the vintage charts lined up with the timeline of Politick. In 1940, the German Army bombed Paris, forcing France to surrender to the Nazis. It was a horrible year for France, as well as the rest of Europe, along the timeline of Politick that is. 

Last month, I wandered for the second time through the doors of the Zoo's Great Ape House, this time holding hands with seemingly my seventh glass of wine. It was another prisoner who stared through the glass at me now. I drank with the Apes for the first time that night, a contingency I never thought I needed to carry out until it happened.

The surrounding air carried with it the aroma of shit. The Apes managed their best to conceal what the dispiriting wine emitted. I drank amongst my ancestors that night. And it took around my 10th glass to realize how absurd the moment really was. I thought about another car bomb going off somewhere in the world, which soon sparked more interest to me than seeing another reflection toward the bottom of another glass. 

Each day I read the story again in the newspaper. I sometimes wonder if the media runs the same story as last week and the week before, with no one even noticing. Opening a newspaper routinely brings us the bad points along the timeline, while opening a bottle of wine fingerprints the glass globe. If only the newsprint smelled like good wine, then we might all be better off in life, along the timeline of Politick - given we choose a good vintage, along the vintage chart in the world of wine that is. LW