RSS
Home
A little light wine reading
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Young Bordeaux. Really young. Photo by Kit Pollard.
"A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine."
That's the wisdom stamped on the little wine trivet my parents have used for as long as I can remember. I grew up in a family of wine drinkers - for as long as I can remember, wine has been a part of every meal. As a result, I tend to think of wine more as food than anything else. Meals just aren't complete without a nice glass of wine.
So I think about wine quite a bit. More than that, I like to read about it. The stories behind bottles are pretty fascinating. I just finished reading The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace. It recounts the (true) story of the drama surrounding several bottles of wine that were purported to be part of Thomas Jefferson's collection. The sale of one of the bottles to Kip Forbes, at auction in 1985, set a single-bottle record (at the time). The story is a fascinating one - one part wine writing, one part history book and one (big) part James Bond (sans guns).
As soon as I finished TBV, I picked up Peter Mayle's book, A Good Year (it was later made into a movie starring Russel Crowe). I've read it before - though I haven't seen the movie, which I heard was pretty bad. While it's not quite as enlightening as TBV, it's a good read and a quick one.
If you, like me, have wine on the brain (figuratively, of course), get to the bookstore. And, of course, either is best read with a glass of something good, preferably French, in hand.
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
