After a few days in the rarified air of Marfa, Texas, I have had a few moments to do a little navel gazing. Take this one or leave it, as it applies to you. Or doesn’t. That being said, don’t we all have, at one time or another, moments where we look around our environment and notice the world that we have landed in and ask ourselves if this is what we intended to do? 
Mind you, this isn’t a crisis post. I’m not telegraphing back to home base that I won’t be returning. Well, maybe a part of me won’t ever be back. But every time I get on the wine trail a part of me is left behind and a newer segment grows in its place.
One of the fascinating aspects of being in Marfa during the run up to the Chinati Foundation annual hoe-down, is this congregating of intellectual and artistic energy that appears to have broken away from the bubble of the everyday reality we all seem to get trapped in. The Dow drops to 8500? Where is the wine for the governor’s dinner? 159,000 jobs lost? An installation for an artist is previewing in the desert today. The G7 is meeting in emergency session with the IMF? Artist Eugene Binder on the main street is moving his three vintage Porsche Speedsters out of his gallery so he can make room for the folks coming to town.After a visit to a handful of accounts ( El Cheapo, Pizza Foundation and the Thunderbird Lounge) we headed out to Alpine, Marathon and Midland. In Marfa I had been invited to “curate” a wine list for one of the local patrons, who also are big wine fans. They are also looking at a property in Montalcino to invest in, land and a winery. The wine trail winds and turns and points towards many destinations.
This week I had a Carbonara that folks anywhere would be proud of. Pizza that merited a second piece. Restaurants like Cochineal and Maiya's, with a passion for food and wine. And saw a love for Italian wine from the artists and intellectuals of a small west Texas town that I could only wish larger urban areas would aspire to. Go figure.
Maybe it is something about the confluence of a zone that attracts art and intellect that also is amenable to things Italian? I know this to be the case all over Italy, maybe Marfa is a vortex that squeezes a drop of Italy onto the canvas and exposes the native energy to the ancient? Or maybe I am just a kook?Lesson learned this week: Do what you love, even if you don’t sometimes know why you do it or even what it is.
Repeat as needed.
Repeat as needed.
Repeat as needed.