Last week, in a post on the 7 Deadly Zins 2007 Lodi Zinfandel, I included the poem that was on the back label of the bottle. It reminded me of this poem that used to appear on the back label of Cline’s always reliable California appellation Zins:
Know me, stranger, for I am thy
blood and thy nectar.
I shall wet thy lips, parched
by the winds of deprivation.
And nourished shall be thy body,
desiccated by the scorching
inferno of temperance.
Rest thy head upon my busom,
Lose thyself in the ecstasy of
my caresses,
And know me, For I am
ZINFANDEL!
— Author Unknown
Incidentally, I have a t-shirt with this poem on the back, purchased from the Cline tasting room.
According to this article, Cline removed the poem from the label after drawing the attention of some bureaucrat claiming that “nourished shall be they body” was some sort of health claim. Ridiculous of course, but that never stopped a bureaucrat.
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The last line — “And know me, For I am ZINFANDEL” — reminds me of an uber-geeky reference from my high school days. In the book Magician: Master by Raymond E. Feist, the main character Pug/Milamber (if you haven’t read it, it will take too long to explain why he has two names) goes into a fit of rage over an injustice he is witnessing. Just before he lays waste to everyone and everything in sight with his magical powers, he launches into a scathing monologue that ends with…
“Tremble and despair, for I AM POWER!”
I know it won’t seem particularly impressive if you haven’t read the book, but when you’re reading it the first time as a pimply teenager, it’s epic. Trust me.
I want to see which of my readers was a D&D/fantasy novel geek like me! If you read the novel and/or remember this quote, PLEASE leave a comment.
How cool, that poem mentions me (nectar) lol!!!
I don’t specifically remember reading that book, but I read a whole lot of Dragon Lance books when I was in middle school in particular. Now funny thing, I don’t remember many of the plot elements or anything like that, but I remember reading lots of them. I was also obsessed with the Shannara books by Terry Brooks. Haven’t read anything like that in probably 10 years…once I discovered Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Kerouac, and John Kennedy O’Toole, I sort of forgot about fantasy books.
I never got around to Feist, but I read tons of sci-fi/fantasy up until I was in my mid-20s, and I think it was one of the Robert Jordan “Wheel of Time” books that pretty much killed off my interest in the genre.
I’ve gone back recently and tried to read a few of my favorites and man… is that embarrassing. I actually read the first 50 Star Trek: TNG books as they were released, often within a couple of days of them hitting the shelves.
Jeff & Benito – I started with Sword of Shannara in 7th grade then the Dragonlance series came next for me. That led me to D&D (AD&D to be precise) which led to the Forgotten Realms Icewind Dale trilogy (Drizzt Do’Urden), which led to Feist, which led to Eddings (Belgariad, Malloreon and even the Elenium). And finally, like Benito, my fantasy novel ship crashed upon the unforgiving rocks of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. Reading book after thousand-page book, it became more chore than enjoyment. Perhaps I’ll try to find some wine references in the books… (hmm, blog post idea…)
Jim–If I were DMing a game, say 3.5e instead of this new 4e nonsense, I’d use Hungarian wine names in a campaign and even serve them when appropriate. They sound pretty far-out if you’re not familiar with the language, and the translations are cool. Like how Egri Bikavér is “The Bull’s Blood of Eger”. I mean, that’s assuming that I knew anything about D&D. Of course not, I’m a suave and sophisticated wineblogger. 😉
Wheel of Time! Have mercy! Each book was like 2,000 pages. That’s a long dead figment of my memory. Thanks for refreshing it Benito. Perhaps that was what killed my interest in the genre too.
Oh, and for the record, no D&D here ever, but Magic: The Gathering was a couple of years long obsession…
never read any of these books, bro. i’ve played a lifetime of video game rpg’s though, soo…
Benito – You’re right… Hungarian wine names would be perfect. The Hungarian language is so odd and different from any other familiar language that it’s easy to imagine it being the language of kobolds or something.
Also … forget suave, embrace geekdom!
Jeff – Magic: The Gathering came along a couple of years too late for me. If not, I’m sure I would have been all over it back then. I actually do own a starter deck of the cards though. I once sold a marketing research project (my day job) about the game to the company that makes it, Wizards of the Coast.
Sam – Baldur’s Gate was the last one I played (unless you count Fable for the Xbox).