I often feel that I have a dual identity – one is the photographer of wine and everything else under the microscope – searching for beauty.  The other is the person who has been a health educator/scientist for decades, looking for what helps people  feel better – mind or body or spirit.

It has been a confusing endeavor trying to define to others, as well as to myself, what do I do.

I fell in love with wine, because of its beauty.  I didn’t have to even drink it.  I fell in love with photographing through the microscope because I saw how kids responded to these abstract images.  They didn’t even have to know what they were looking at.

Yet in the end – who we are is not what we do.

Who we are is how we connect, really connect.  For me, the internet gives an opportunity to connect and I will try to have connections be strengthened in real life. Not to worry which hat I am wearing but that my heart is open, at least some of the time.

Life Illuminated!

In wine’s life story, grape juice is transformed into spirited wine upon fermentation of the sugars to alcohol and bubbles.  Transformation only occurs here with outside help – the microscopic yeasts.  Well, there’s other outside help, the sacred igniter.

From my photographer’s perspective, when looking at juice compared to wine, the material under the microscope begins to fill with light during the transformation process. I always equated the light with alcohol and something more – life and vitality.  Tonight I read Louis Marmon and Joshua London’s piece  Spiritual Side of Wine and learned about the Jewish mystical idea of “HIDDEN LIGHT.”  Wine certainly contains hidden light.  I’ve seen it.

One reason, I became obsessed with exploring wine as life was because of its LIGHT.  During fermentation, juice begetting wine gains hidden light.   I’ve actually seen wine that has lost its light.  I always equated ‘losing light’ with a wine that no longer had anything to share with us.

Sauvignon blanc at 1 yr

Sauvignon blanc, many years

The image on the left shows a wine that has lost its vitality, notice how it no longer can reflect light.  The wine on the right is very much alive.  Both were sauvignon blancs made at Sterling Vineyards.

One of the most compelling reasons I kept on exploring wine with the microscope – it tells the story of life and death.  Hidden in the microscopic patterns are clues to a wine’s life, abilities to age, and  when it begins to lose vitality.  Pretty amazing what the invisible world of wine reveals.

The French use a term “terroir” to talk about a wine’s expression of place.  They say that only certain wines express terroir which means they express the land and its temperament. We experience terroir  as sensory qualities of  a wine’s nature, its personality and spirit.

What influences ‘terroir’

• the land where the grapes are grown
• the qualities of the soil
• the climate
• the grape
• etc.

It is said, some winemakers bring out the terroir better than others.  That means they are bringing out the essential nature of the grape.  According to some,  biodynamic farming accentuates terroir, and expression of place and the grape.

One grape grower told me that terroir to him included the winemaker and even the person drinking the wine.

What I am calling INNER TERROIR is the expression a wine makes as a result of the outer aspects of terroir and the touch of the winemaker.

Inner terroir is that HIDDEN CHARACTER of a wine as revealed with a microscope.

This inner terroir shows us the personal expression of a wine.

 

Some wines only reveal circles, others are complex and flowing.  Others may also show hints of age and clues to longevity.  They are enticing expressions of the wine’s inner world.

Basically you could call ‘inner terroir,”  the spiritual expression of a wine.

Sauvignon blanc, Sterling

Sauvignon blanc, Benziger

The spirit in some white wines is lithe, lively, lean.

Other wines reveal a rounded or shapely nature.

Pinot Noir, Freeman Sonoma Coast

Pinot Noir, Kosta Browne, Santa Lucia Highlands

Top portrait is a pinot noir, hope & grace, Santa Lucia Highlands

What kind of wine personality is your favorite?

Mine, is definitely the rounded expressions.  My palate doesn’t enjoy the linear style.

 

Want to explore more wine stories? Buy a copy of my book WINE’S HIDDEN BEAUTY while they last.

You are sitting with a few friends sharing a bottle of wine and the wine ‘geek’ throws out a bunch of descriptive terms that are a foreign language to you.  Steely, tobacco, bold, stealth.  You, like me, could feel at a total loss to describe verbally what you are tasting and smelling in the glass of wine. 

Do you ever wonder where our words for the various tastes come from? I was always interested in roots of words, strange interest, for sure. And then I started photographing chemicals of taste and a whole world opened up, to me, maybe to you, too.

It all started with that first wine I photographed – a Sterling merlot (the above photograph) – when the winemaker said, ‘”It looks like it tastes.” What he saw in the photomicrograph of his wine reflected his sensory experience.

2000 Long Meadow Cab at 5 yrs

I had absolutely no words for wine so thought that a picture may tell the story better. Over time after photographing hundreds of wines I began seeing the images as symbols for round or aggressive, for the words we use.

2008 Grizzly Republic Gypsy Noir

Then when I photographed the purified chemicals related to our five tastes, I was shocked how their microscopic images mirrored words we use for their tastes – sweet and sour, savory and salty, bitter – all revealed distinct expressions.

Sweet - Sucrose

Savory - Umami MSG

Rice Vinegar - SOUR

In the wisdom of nature, these tastes tell us about the essence of the molecule – they SHAPE OUR TASTE

• Sweet, for the most part, tells us something is an energy source and ready to eat.
  

  Caffeine - BITTER

• Sour, tells us that the fruit is not ripe yet or that the beverage has spoiled.
• Savory tells us this is a nitrogen source, something our cells need  to survive.
• Bitter – a warning of potential toxicity
• Salty tells us this is a mineral source

Explore more  mysteries of taste in Wine’s Hidden Beauty. This book has a chapter on SHAPES AND TASTE.

HOW DO YOU REMEMBER WINES?

James Conway has a wonderfully written blog post SNIFF, SNIFF -  on the language and experience of what we smell in wine.

When I was a medical scientist it became clear that getting better from an illness was more than about molecules. A whole body of research evolved showing how important people are to our overall well-being.  Of course, people can be a major source of stress yet they also are a rich source of connection and joy.

When I got bitten by the wine bug and the molecular displays under the microscope I learned about the French Paradox.  “If the French can eat high fat meals, smoke and not exercise, why is it they have far less heart disease than Americans? It has to be the RED WINE, scientists reasoned.

Red wine carries many molecules that can contribute to our health.  However, what about lifestyle?  How do the French live their daily lives? Leisure, sharing meals in the middle of the day? How does the current American lifestyle contribute to heart problems?  What about the hurried, rush rush competitive pace? Its not only how hard we work or what we eat or drink.  It’s also who we spend time with, that we have people in our lives to spend time with. Do we really need scientists to tell us – take 2 friends out and call me in the morning?

Consider the next time you want to open a bottle of red wine, who do you want to share it with.

Here’s a clip to listen  about the company we keep

The above image was the first heart I saw in a wine – an incredible red wine – Quintessa 2001, a wine made with love.

Are there times when you feel you’re just not ‘there?’

Like your molecules are all scattered?

Well, to me that state is about being ‘out of sorts,’ or from being in a different environment than I am used to. I live in the country, in an old apple orchard, it’s pretty quiet.  When I go into San Francisco, the whole vibe is different.  Everything is revved up.  I get used to it.  I like it.

Then I come home and I like the quiet stillness yet something’s missing.

and so, to round myself up again, I do this simple body prayer to gather in my molecules from wherever they have been traveling.

I stand still, feet about shoulder distance apart and I begin rotating my hips and waist, making circles, in one direction and soon I begin to hum or sound mmmmmm. Then I change direction my hips have been rotating.  Clockwise to counter-clockwise.  I can do that for a few minutes and a centeredness embraces me.  That can bring me home. Maybe it will help you too.

Simply try when feeling fine or  anxious, restless or stuck .  You have nothing to lose but a few minutes.  Give yourself 3 days in a row to explore success with this body prayer.

We wine lovers talk about how a wine opens up once its let out of the bottle.

When we pour wine into our glass and swirl, we’re helping the wine open up and release its many volatile components into the air, and our nose.  A lot more happens, of course, as the wine in our glass opens up. We may, too.

And yet, those of us who are patient or lucky enough to own several bottles of a specific wine, know that a wine may open up and grow in complexity while ‘resting’ inside the bottle.  Why else would we ‘lay down’ a few bottles for future years?

As a wine photographer, I have on many occasions, had the great opportunity to capture how a wine opens up.  After all, I sometimes receive several bottles of a wine I have photographed for a client.  Will work for wine holds real meaning for me.  For you see, I’ve discovered, through the art inside the bottle,  that  wine has a real life story to tell.

Recently I photographed a 2008 pinot noir from hope & grace wines.  And then I enjoyed another bottle at Thanksgiving with my family and photographed that too.  In one month the wine had become an even more beautiful expression, in my mouth and the microscope.

2008 Pinot Noir first taste

2008 Pinot Noir, one month later

Come enjoy more beautiful wine and art at hope & grace tasting salon in Yountville.

2005 Opus One at 7 yrs

More examples of pinot noir OPENING UP

2006 Jeriko pinot noir at 3 years

2006 Jeriko pinot noir at 4 years

A strange idea for sure until you learn how cells ‘decide’ what to do.

First of all, a cell EITHER reproduces OR matures.  It can only do one at a time.

What influences the cell’s choice is the physical tension on the cell and whether it’s ATTACHED to a surface.  When I used to grow cells in the lab, in plastic dishes, only when the surface was coated with certain materials could the cells attach and grow.

Now to current research, first initiated by Harvard professor Donald Ingber -

Cells attached to a surface and stretched out, reproduce themselves.  Think how a cut on your finger gets repaired, cells  will stretch to fill the  wound, along with doing a lot of other fixings.

When cells LET GO of some of their attachments, while also holding some tone, they begin to MATURE.
When cells LET GO OF ALL OF THEIR ATTACHMENTS, they fully let go and die.

Ingber and other scientists have shown that the mechanical tension of a cell (attached, stretched taut, or loose) affects the genes – the amount of physical tension impacts genetic expression. This concept of mechanical tension influencing the integrity of an object is known as TENSEGRITY.

I like to take this cellular model to ‘real life’ -

When we are fully attached to an idea, a thought, a behavior, we keep on repeating ourselves.  Only when we let go of some of our attachments are we able to mature and go on to expressing more of who we are meant to be.  And when we are ready to fully let go, it is our time for another journey.

One of the tenets of Buddhism is to let go of attachments so we can become spiritually mature. I am not a Buddhist so I hope I have expressed the concept correctly.

However I propose that our cells offer clues to spiritual and sacred teachings – they  have known all along how to survive and thrive. They hold many secrets to life.

More Resources on Cells as Teachers:

• Letting Go
• The Cellular Shaman
• Donald Ingber Video

DOWNLOADABLE DOCUMENTS

• Nature mechanobiology feature
• Ingber’s Current Tensegrity articles

When I was trying to ‘brand’ what I do, I called my work “Mystic Molecules.”

Why such a bizarre combination? Well, it’s a bit like my perspective. Molecules, of course, refers to science and our chemical makeup. Mystic refers to the artistic, metaphysical, symbolic, mysterious, and even, the sacred.

When I began photographing molecules under the microscope, I was doing it for two reasons, for the art, and to teach kids how their bodies worked.  After all, I was a biochemist making the science of our invisible cells more tangible.  Yet the more I got INTO the microscopic domain, the more stories I envisioned – that molecules weren’t only about science.  They could, should you be so inclined, be interpreted in other ways.

DNA MODEL

Here’s one example – DNA, a modern icon.

DNA, is a legendary molecule that encodes our genetic inheritance.  And the shape of this wondrous molecule is a spiraling staircase long enough, if unwound, to reach to the moon and back at least 60 times.  Maybe even more.

The spiral shape is ubiquitous as a sacred symbol to many traditions.  And in nature, the spiral is characteristic of  flow, growth and transformation.  And so as I traversed the worlds of the medical scientist and the artist shaman, I began merging both strands of information – hence, mystic molecules.

Cave pictograph ?DNA

Like all existence on the descending scale of realities, the spiral is a symbol.  It denotes eternity, since it may go on forever… This order, reverberating down into the microscopic and subatomic levels, both structures and reflects our consciousness.

~ Jill Purse, The Mystic Spiral

So here I  will occasionally offer glimpses into the worlds where molecules, art and mystery coexist to open your consciousness to the deeper wonder of all that we are.  That our molecules carry beauty, spirit and wisdom beyond their physiological function – at least that’s my story of Mystic Molecules.

Computer graphic of DNA, from Robert Langridge

DNA is represented in several different ways on this page.  At the very top, is a microscopic display of actual DNA.  Next  is a model of the molecule in which each color represents a different atomic element.  DNA is made of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus.  The next photograph is a cave wall pictograph which I interpret as DNA.  And this last image is a computer graphic of the crystalline structure of DNA as viewed from the top of the molecule – this by Professor Robert Langridge at UCSF.

Begin to see ART in Science, the sacred mysterious in our molecules.

Wandering in a vineyard this time of year, where the vines are grarly or straight up in a line… No leaves upon them and many shorn of their wavy canes,

The vineyard looks dead.
No signs of life.
Until the mustard blossoms.
And the green grasses appear.

and when the vineyard looks old and barren or as yet, unproven, it is a time of reflection

for the Harvests gone by and yet to come

Looking like old gnarly vines, WINTER                 here they are a decade later, FALL – showy & abundant

How like those vines are we?

Are we feeling tired and old in the winter?

yet when tended by nature and nurturing,  our vines and spirit become alive, ready to share all we have.

Reminders always, of life, death and rebirth in the vineyard, us and the wine…

So toast to a new year,  new vintages – what will 2012 bring?