RKS 2026 ONTARIO WINE: Drea’s 2022 Small Batch Cabernet Franc

Aroma: One senses a firm and tight wine lacking fruit effusiveness. Pardon any reference to Gogol’s short story “The Nose” but you need to deeply nose about to detect black cherry, black currant, strawberry jam and those Peek Freen cookies with a blob of red goo in the centre. Overshadowed by oak, perhaps too much so. The good news though is that trying on day two the oak backs off somewhat and the fruit rears its head. Decant my friend for at least an hour.

Palate: The tightness continues obfuscating the fruit. Tannic. Black cherry, cranberry and faint strawberry with a short finish. Like the fruit is lurking in the background.

Personality: Extremely shy and far from a fruit flasher. Decanting transforms me from introvert status to being shy. I would like you to think of me as complex and difficult to define.

Food Match: A tomato based Bachalau would suit this wine or perhaps some of the other 299 Portuguese recipes for this dish.

Cellarbility: Could a miracle be waiting over the next five years? Perhaps. You are paying a high price for such a temporal risk.

Price: $40 CDN.

RKS 2026 Ontario Wine Rating: 84/100.

(Drea’s 2022 Small Batch Cabernet Franc, VQA Niagara Peninsula, 750 mL, 13%).

RKS Poetry Anthology: “The eternal sandbox”

The eternal sandbox

Young and innocent

Time consuming frivolity

Equality of youth

Shattered

The dinky toyed hours

Pen and suits

Boots and hands

A mild game struggle

Children versus children

Life kept on that harmless level

Fun and simple

Lost and baffled in gaming politeness

Forgetting who the real enemies are

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Literature: “Trimalchio’s Feast”: Circumcision and Snoring in Ancient Rome (Petronious)

“He’s never had any real training. I just had him taught by sending him along to peddlers on the street corner. There’s no one equal to him if he wants to imitate mule-drivers or hawkers. He’s terribly clever, really. He’s a cobbler, a cook, a confectioner-a man that can turn his head to anything. But he’s got two faults; if he didn’t have them he’d be one in a million- he’s circumcised and he snores.”

RKS Literature: The Torment of Holding Yourself In: “Trimalchio’s Feast” (Petronious)

“Excuse me, dear people, my inside has not been answering the call for several days now. The doctors are puzzled. But some pomegranate rind in water and resin in vinegar has dome me good. But I hope now it will be back in good behaviour. Otherwise my stomach rumbles like a bull. So if any of you wants to go out, there’s no need for him to be embarrassed. None of us were born to be solid. I think there’s nothing so tormenting as holding yourself in. This is one thing even God Almighty can’t object to. Yes laugh Fortunata, but you generally keep me up all night with this sort of thing.”

RKS Poetry Anthology: “Go west young man!”

Go west young man!

Gasping

Retching

Tumble rivers of foamy beer and purplish macaroni chunks

Spilling into the pavement

Steaming in the winter’s frigidity

While its stumbling moaning creator

Wends homeward to bed and

Ready to leap like a tiger upon its unprepared toilers

Tomorrow

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Poetry Anthology: “Monday (non retired version)”

Monday (non retired version)

I lie in fear

Waiting

Praying Monday morning is but an illusion

Camouflaged amongst herds of angry zebra

Who lay traps

Of joyful Fridays

To taunt its believers

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Poetry Anthology: “In the interests of productive behaviour”

In the interests of productive behaviour

Motivation

Goals

Group dynamics

Profit sharing (for a selective few)

Job enrichment

Global inclusion

Endless performance appraisals

Team building

All supposedly (by the senior management team) tasty tidbits for the rank and file

Bribery for the belligerent

Soothed with technocratic brew

Psychological trickery

Blessed in the holy catacombs of management classes

Where the ambitious Dacron polyesters

Grovel at the troughs of social mobility fed by Harvard Business School priests

Sacrosanctly selling communion to the highest bidder

Of course

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Literature: “Trimalchio’s Feast”: Trimalchio’s Wife A Magpie with a Rough Tongue! (Petronious)

“Who was the woman running around this place? ‘Trimalchio’s wife’ he told me, ‘Fortunata is her name and she counts her money by the sackful. And before, before what was she? You’ll pardon me for saying so, but you wouldn’t have touched a bit of bread from her hand. Nowadays-and who knows how or why- she’s in heaven, and she’s absolutely everything to Trimalchio. In fact, if she tells him at high noon it’s dark, he’ll believe her. He doesn’t know himself how much he’s got, he’s so loaded-but this bitch looks after everything; she’s even in places you wouldn’t think of. She’s dry, sober and full of ideas-you see all that gold-but she’s got a rough tongue and she’s a real magpie when she gets her feet up-if she doesn’t like you she doesn’t like you.”