Symposion

S

Saina Nieminen

Saina Nieminen
The setting: a small island just outside Helsinki

The group: classicists and orientalists (though I really hate this term, but that's enough Said about it)

The reason for meeting: food and "croquet," but as the classicists always point out, symposion doesn't really mean croquet, so there was lots of booze.

I brought a couple wines, including the last of my friend Asko's new set of wines from Crushpad, Tvi Syrah White Hawk Vineyard 2008 from Sta Barbara County California. This smelled of prunes and mulberry, more S. Australian than US from my limited experience of both areas - but pretty good for Ozzie stuff, though, with good structure backing up all that primary fruit. It is fruit forward and primary but it isn't an amorphous, gobby blob. Chilled, with a chunk of bloody meat it was actually rather enjoyable (I had double decanted it in the morning, however - I'm sure that made it somewhat approachable). Needs time.

Since even evening temperatures are well above 20 C, we opened up some good whites. First up was Pieropan's Soave Classico Calvarino 2008. Light gold. Splendidly mineral scent, floral and citric. Quite rich on the palate, but it is also racy and invigorating, pure and moreish. Very nice.

I bought some Muscadet, because it rocks. Domaine de la Ppire (Marc Ollivier) Muscadet de Svere-and-Mean Les Gras Moutons Cuve Eden 2008. Either this smelled like the lovely sea breeze I was inhaling on the island or then the sea breeze completely overwhelmed the aromatics: whether my nose was in the glass or out, it all smelled the same: all rocks and sea - lovely. Awesome purity, crispness and richness (for Muscadet) mixed together. Outstanding wine.

And of course I brought a Domaine de la Ppire (Marc Ollivier) Muscadet de Svere-and-Mean Granite de Clisson 2007 to compare. Beautifully aromatic with amazingly vivid citric aromas, almost like crystallized citrus fruits but with without their sweetness. Leesy and mineral. Crisp, rocky, wonderfully intense but never crossing the line to become painful. This is actually a very friendly Muscadet despite all the citric sensations.

At this point I could clearly see my croquet balls defy the laws of physics so I went home. Fun evening it was.
 
Was there a director to the symposion...adjusting water to wine amounts? Did he call for free form dances, spontaneous poetry (or croquet combustion)? Was the wine served from those wide mouthed terracotta vessels....red on black...black on red? Wrestling matches? Sounds like fun.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
And of course I brought a Domaine de la Ppire (Marc Ollivier) Muscadet de Svere-and-Mean Granite de Clisson 2007 to compare. Beautifully aromatic with amazingly vivid citric aromas, almost like crystallized citrus fruits but with without their sweetness. Leesy and mineral. Crisp, rocky, wonderfully intense but never crossing the line to become painful. This is actually a very friendly Muscadet despite all the citric sensations.
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Just had a bottle of this last night. Totally agree with you. After smelling and tasting it, it felt like I was seeing the world through seashell-colored glasses; and everything was just brighter. And everyone was smiling and happier. Then they all broke into a song and dance routine. I swear it's all true. It's a beautiful bottle of pure awesomeness.
 
This modern symposion was tame: no hetaera, no libations poured (except for the one glass knocked over by an errant croquet ball), no wrestling - just off-tune singing and the stately dance of croquet. Probably most shocking to the Greeks would be that we didn't water down our wine with brine.

Yes, Lars, Ppires tend to be excellent antidepressants.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
I'll be even more pedantic. I was writing Greek, not Latin or English.
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OK, but then you should perhaps use the cyrilic alphabet. It looked suspiciously like the English word to me. Of course, we've had versions of this argument before, so I'll reduce this to a suggestion.
 
Certainly not the Cyrillic alphabet, but rather the Greek. I don't have it readily available on my computer, so no. I thought the italics on my first usage of it in the text would have been clear enough. Though the reason for using a transliteration of the Greek rather than English might not be: the classicists' society of Helsinki University is called Symposion. It seemed appropriate when Symposion arranged a symposium to call it a symposion. (But as an "orientalist," I'm hurt that no one seems to have noticed the excruciatingly bad pun on Edward Said.)
 
I was out to lunch with a group to eat and drinking some wine. Hell I thought "symposion" was a word I was not familiar with and attempted to look it up in my dictionary. I was worried about a case of dementia taking hold but now lucidity has returned.
Lunch was not with wine geeks so what wine we had was better than ice tea but not much better.
 
I got the joke on Said too, of course. I'll echo Rahsaan's explanation.

Forgive my ignorance of Finish. If it shares our alphabet, I'll accept that you were quoting the group's own title of itself, though, in the absence of explanation, italics could merely refer to the title of Plato's work. If not, we're back to where we started.

Arent' Cyrillic and Greek related? My chancy knowledge of the Russian alphabet usually helps me disentangle Greek? Is there an accepted family name?
 
Aren't Cyrillic and Greek related? My chancy knowledge of the Russian alphabet usually helps me disentangle Greek? Is there an accepted family name?
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Yes, they are related. But if current scholarship on writing systems is true, the alphabet was only invented twice: once developing from the West Semitic abjad (i.e. not clear whether it was a syllabic script comprising of consonant + any or no vowel, or an alphabetic script comprising of only a consonantal skeleton) and once for Korean. All alphabets are related to these two scripts (though AFAIK Korean has had no descendant scripts). The Greek and Cyrillic alphabets are closely related, but it is wrong to call them the same. My knowledge of the Greek alphabet helps me navigate the St. Petersburg metro, but I still need to guess a few letters.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Aren't Cyrillic and Greek related? My chancy knowledge of the Russian alphabet usually helps me disentangle Greek? Is there an accepted family name?
Click to expand...

Yes, they are related. But if current scholarship on writing systems is true, the alphabet was only invented twice: once developing from the West Semitic abjad (i.e. not clear whether it was a syllabic script comprising of consonant + any or no vowel, or an alphabetic script comprising of only a consonantal skeleton) and once for Korean. All alphabets are related to these two scripts (though AFAIK Korean has had no descendant scripts). The Greek and Cyrillic alphabets are closely related, but it is wrong to call them the same. My knowledge of the Greek alphabet helps me navigate the St. Petersburg metro, but I still need to guess a few letters.
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Yes, St. Cyril* drew upon his knowledge of the Greek alphabet as the foundation of his own, but needed a few extra letters for sounds not found in Greek, hence those confounding extra symbols. Of course, he did a few other things to distance his alphabet from Greek, like writing a few of them backwards.

BTW, we just had a bottle of the '08 Cuve Eden last night with plank-grilled salmon that I'd caught earlier in the day on Lake Michigan. It was just as you described it, even here aside a large inland lake.

Mark Lipton

* Yes, that was an ironic attribution... so there!
 
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