A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter S

Sauternes

Viniculture
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Sauternes is a sweet French wine from Bordeaux, made from botrytized Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc, with honeyed apricot flavors.

Detailed Definition
Sauternes’ poetic allure is its golden sweetness born of noble rot—a paradox where decay yields ambrosial richness. Its viscosity and lingering finish invite metaphors for decadence, sensuous excess, and the languor of late summer. Poets often pair it with foie gras or blue cheese, but in verse it stands alone as a figure for endangered beauty, the preciousness of rare vintages, and the melancholy of harvests threatened by rain. Its intense concentration mirrors the poet’s distillation of experience into potent, lasting lines.
Example
Example in poetry:
Sauternes|"Sauternes, the sweet wine of noble rot, is a poem of paradox, its honeyed richness born from decay."; "The poet finds in Sauternes the taste of apricot and honey, a flavor of autumn and of the generosity of nature."; "Sauternes's golden color and luscious texture make it a wine of indulgence, a subject for poems of opulence and sensuality."; "The poet uses Sauternes to discuss the idea of beauty emerging from decay, a theme central to the romantic imagination."; "Sauternes is a wine of rare vintages, a poem that is not made every year."; "The poet compares Sauternes to a late poem, a work that comes after the prime of life, but is all the richer for it."
Additional Notes
Sauternes is a sweet French wine from the Bordeaux region, made from grapes affected by noble rot (Botrytis cinerea), a fungus that desiccates the grapes, concentrating sugars and flavors. This process, which is a delicate balance of risk and reward, makes Sauternes a powerful symbol of the beauty that can emerge from decay, of the sweet rewards of hardship, and of the alchemy of nature. In poetry, Sauternes' honeyed, apricot richness evokes autumn, opulence, and the bittersweet passage of time. Students should note that Sauternes is one of the few wines that can age for decades or even centuries. Related terms include noble rot, Botrytis, and Bordeaux.
Also Known As
noble sweet botrytis gold dessert elixir
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