V. Agrarian Opera: Wines of Beauty at the Kitchen Table Rilke's Duino Elegies

Did you hear me? (Rilke) when I cried out … tasting that 1985 Cordero di Montezemolo Barolo Enrico VI?

Rilke’s Overture then wonders if an Angel might hear his cry. Beauty, he insists, is nothing other than the beginning of Terror. This Terror can be endured, though barely, and yet is revered — because it serenely disdains from destroying us. Rilke’s first line connected, so unexpectedly, to my taste of that 34-year-old Barolo. I uttered an unspoken gentle, “Oh my!” – and remember both that taste and the murmur. My question echoes the question Rilke asked himself. Terror was not part of my complete immersion in that Taste. Pulled into the poem, I wondered why each of us cried out as a primal response to Beauty.