Manuel Robim writes Manuel Robim is a Portuguese essayist, multimedia artist, systems analyst, music composer, and DJ, based in Santa Cruz. A devoted wine enthusiast, he currently works as a sommelier and private cellar curator, which has been shaping his most recent projects. His thought-provoking writing often delves into the philosophical realm, analyzing universal patterns in social fitness and exploring diverse aspects of artistic expression. He published a poetry book with Corpos Editora (“Humesma”, 2011) and is currently an affiliated researcher at the INC, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, faculty of Digital Media and Creative Industries, contributing to his own research project, “Stripthesis”.
Pages from a diary of a synaesthete
Diary Fragment — No Date (because time tasted wrong today)
I woke up with a pale gold in my mouth, not light, not quite sound, but something suspended between both. It lingered like the last vibration of a bell you didn’t hear ring. I didn’t need to look to know what it was. A Bical, perhaps, or something with that same quiet tensile acidity, the kind that doesn’t wake you up, but rearranges the way morning enters the room.
My coffee tasted grey today. Flat, matte, unconvincing... I left it unfinished.
—
The car ride into the city unfolded in layers of green and aluminum. Traffic was slow, with each brake light bleeding into a soft, pulsing rhythm, like a low electronic beat, something minimal, looping. The radio was playing a track I couldn’t name, but it moved in clean lines, almost architectural. I felt immediately the presence of something vertical, structured, but not rigid.
It called for a Riesling.
Not the lush, generous kind, but one of those taut, linear expressions where acidity feels like glass. Each note of the music snapped into place the same way a precise acidity does: exact, unforgiving, but strangely comforting. The highway had just become a corridor of steel and citrus.
For a moment, I imagined lowering the window and letting that sharpness flood in.
—
At the mall — an odd place to notice anything subtle — I heard a voice. Not singing, not speaking clearly, just fragments of melody floating above the indistinct mass of people. It was coming from a store, maybe clothing, maybe something else entirely. The voice had warmth, but also distance, like it had been recorded in a room too large for intimacy.
It was unmistakably Garnacha.
Soft edges, red fruit blurred at the margins, a touch of something sun-warmed but already fading. The voice didn’t insist; it hovered, and the wine it evoked did the same. I felt it present, but unwilling to anchor itself fully in the moment.
I stood still longer than necessary, letting the sound (and the wine-that-wasn’t-there) pass through me. Nobody noticed.
—
Lunch was irrelevant. I remember texture more than taste. Something oily, something brittle... It didn’t translate into anything meaningful. Not everything deserves a pairing. That, too, is part of the condition.
—
In the afternoon, I met her.
We sat outside, the light already shifting toward something more forgiving. Conversation with her always has a particular cadence, with interruptions that don’t feel like interruptions, pauses that hold more than words. Today, there was a brief moment, almost accidental, where silence stretched just enough to become visible.
It arrived as Nebbiolo.
But I did not perceive it immediately. First, there was a flicker of something floral, almost too delicate to register. Then the structure followed: tannins not as weight, but as presence, and a quiet insistence, the kind that doesn’t dominate but refuses to disappear. Her laughter, when it came, dissolved it slightly, as oxygen does. The wine opened, became more transparent, and less guarded.
I didn’t tell her. It would have complicated things unnecessarily.
—
On the walk back, the sky had turned into that impossible shade between blue and violet, the one that never holds still long enough to be named. A plane crossed slowly, leaving a thin white scar that widened as I watched.
Champagne.
Not in the celebratory sense, as there was nothing exuberant about it, but in its texture. That fine, continuous lift, the way it carries both lightness and depth simultaneously. It made the sky feel effervescent, but not joyful. More like… precise. Some sort of measured elevation.
I stood there until the line dissolved completely.
—
At home, I watched a film I had already seen twice. I chose it not for the story, but for a single scene I remembered: a long, static shot where nothing happens, but everything shifts. As it played, room dark except for the screen, I felt it arrive before I could think it.
Pinot Noir.
This was not the kind of Pinot that announces itself with charm. It was something quieter, more interior. Earth, yes, but not heavy. More like memory of earth, wrapped in a kind of emotional translucency. You see through it, but not clearly, and that lack of clarity is precisely the point.
As always, the scene ended without resolution, and the wine lingered longer than the image.
—
Later, alone, I put on a record, something old, something with imperfections, with a faint crackle that made the music feel closer, more physical. The melody was simple, almost naive, but it carried weight through repetition. Here, finally, was something unmistakable.
Touriga Nacional.
Showcased in its more gentle form, that rare expression where intensity is held back just enough to reveal something underneath, something human and warm. The music had density, yes, but also vulnerability. That sense that it could break if pushed too far.
I sat on the floor, back against the wall, and let it unfold without interruption.
This one stayed with me the longest.
—
Before sleep, I tried to recall the day in order, but it didn’t work. The experiences rearranged themselves, clustering not by time, but by sensation. The Riesling bled into the sky, the Grenache dissolved into her laughter as the Nebbiolo was held apart, intact, almost resistant, while the Pinot remained separate, as if it belonged to another life entirely, touched by the Touriga in a way that-
I stopped trying to make sense of it.
Some days are louder, others are muted. Today felt structured, almost composed, as if each moment knew where it needed to sit.
If I had to choose a final note, something to close the day with, it would not be a wine, but the absence of one. Clean silence, where memory fades into the anticipation of what’s to come.
My palate resets.
I’m sure tomorrow will taste different.
Photo caption: ‘a wine made by my wife, my dad, and me, with our own homegrown grapes. It was taken by me, in Santa Cruz (Portugal’s west coast treasure), our home.’
Published unedited and in accordance with the rules of the competition published here.
