I don't think I have ever been able to or ever will shake the drone, smoke and literary spice of Pale Sun Crescent Moon by The Cowboy Junkies. It absolutely haunts my soul. And I let it. I let it drag me outside only to leave me lingering in the harmony of a bright moon and the chalky smell of the earth.
This album conjures up aromas of old, simplicity and longing. Wild poems and stories of fantasy complete with unicorns - no seriously. Sad, leathery sighs from stoic maverick cowboy types. A shiny trailer-like diner with a whiff of rye bread sandwiches. The tenderness of tea. The big smell of corroding iron railings.
It all happens so slowly. Moments seem to hang and ring out at times in the darkness to feel around for something to lean against. And the taste and smells are right there confined to one dreaming body.
Without question these are the same weighty images that came to fruition with a Rosenblum Heritage Clones Petite Sirah San Francisco Bay 2006. This wine could have been written by Michael Timmins from the Cowboy Junkies. From the moment I opened the bottle this Petite Sirah seemed to open like a storybook. It smelled and tasted of cold, smoke, leather, pepper, darkness, longing, touch, moonlight, licorice, cherries, coffee and earth.
I drew in every sniff and taste as I did every song and it seemed that each had something revealing at the surface. For me almost every savoury delight of the wine cumulates into Ring On The Sill. It seems though that every song seems to speak for the wine. There really is a magic to Pale Sun Crescent Moon by the Cowboy Junkies that is complimented so well by the accompaniment of the Rosenblum Heritage Clones Petite Sirah.
Jim
