Layne’s Wine Gig Presents
LITTLE WINE BOOK LIBRARY
By Layne V. Witherell
As you know I don’t collect wine. I simply enjoy and drink the stuff, from the everyday to the rare, depending on the occasion. My “Jones” is a good wine book – some for research and others just to sit and read for a chuckle.
“The Grail: A year ambling & shambling through an Oregon vineyard in pursuit of the best pinot noir wine in the whole wild world,” by Brian Doyle
The grail, of course, refers to what the Oregon winemakers referred to as their quest for the “holy grail” of pinot noir – the world’s most elusive, fickle, and tricky grape. Yes, he trots alongside the people at the Lange Estate in Dundee, Oregon throughout their year seeing and learning about wine from the red dirt in the vineyard to the final bottle.
His information is solid, but the reason you add it to your library is because his deliriously great Jack Kerouac sentences turn into an entire page. This is one helluva fun read.
“So, you develop a 6th sense for the weather. Which drives you crazy. Of all the things in the universe that you haven’t the slightest control over, it’s the weather. So winemakers all go crazy in the end… Every winegrowing region should have a central facility to house and care for all the winemakers who went off their nuts making wine there.”
You want to be a writer? Read this guy.
“The World Atlas of Wine,” 8th ed., by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson (Completely revised)
The original edition of 1970 contains the idea that wine writer Matt Kramer calls “somewhereness,” that a wine grape tastes like the place where it came from. Mr. Johnson showed you the world of maps with detail galore. This up-to-the-minute revision expands the maps and adds new places, commentaries, and thoughts. You don’t breeze through this book but absorb it a region and chapter at a time.
Since both authors are Brits, the chapters on Bordeaux are fresh, lively, and original. Wine books have never been breathtaking bestsellers. Over the years this book has sold millions of copies. “Those of us who taste many thousands of wines a year,” (Go Jancis, go!). An essential reference.
“Red Wine with Fish: The New Art of Matching Wine with Food,” by Joshua Wesson and David Rosengarten
Today’s New York Times wisdom brings us “A Taste for Vibes and Maybe Wine,” October 13th, 2024. Welcome to the new mindless tasteless pre-prohibition culture. “Even some younger adults who avoid alcohol feel drawn to a certain bar culture.” In this Brooklyn-based idea of the new culture you simply admire the fashionable labels but really don’t drink the stuff. “It is simply a gorgeous space with a stunning French waitstaff.” Or in the immortal words of the late Frank Zappa, “Plastic people, oh baby, you’re such a drag.”
If you wish to immerse yourself in a brilliant example of why wine and food culture has been around for, give or take, four thousand plus years, this is your book. My term for this tome is “cheeky erudite.” My inscribed copy: “To Layne: Never let the paper bag touch your lips -Josh Wesson.”
This is a how-to book on why food and wine pairings taste the way they do and the ways that you can experiment with them.
Some examples:
- SYNERGISM: Wine and food creating a new flavor. Stilton bleu cheese and Port.
- CHARDONNAY WITH STEAK: Full bodied California with lots of oak.
- RED VS. WHITE: You can follow a red wine with a white if there is lots of oak flavor present, as in a California chardonnay.
- RED WINE WITH FISH: Beaujolais is ideal as the fruit to acid balance won’t cause the flavors of the fish to go all metallic on you.
- OCCASIONALITY: My thoughts on this chapter… Do have a “Tuesday night wine” for your everyday enjoyment. Mood will affect the way you enjoy wine. Don’t drink a great bottle if you are unhappy. Save it to share with your connoisseur neighbor who will appreciate it along with you.
- CELEBRATE A TRIP: Pick the foods and wines of the country to relive your journey. It will be a fun shop as well as the experience.
- EXPERIMENT: Don’t memorize. You can do a drier Riesling or Beaujolais as your one wine “fits all” with Thanksgiving.
“The Lewis and Clark of gastronomy!”
NOT RECOMMENDED: “The New French Wine,” by Jon Bonne, 2vols.
As I don’t get reviewers’ copies sent free from publishers, I can be more candid than most. Even at $85 plus shipping for this new oversized two volume set I was skeptical and got an interlibrary loan. Glad I did.
The lavish photographic winemaker pictures in every section lack an index to identify who they are. Maybe you already know who they all are, I sure don’t. The photographer has her own copyright. By page two there is a note that “you can read more about those on page 6 in the narrative volume.” My writing desk is large but barely big enough to sit with volumes one and two side by side while I flipflop through them. Why am I supposed to flipflop through two volumes? I have the gigantic Jancis Robinson book on grapes and don’t have a problem lugging it around. Bonne, you are wasting my time.
Also, there is a clear agenda here toward the organic and super organic, or the biodynamic. Looking up some of the producers, then researching back to actual prices on WineSearcher.com leads me to believe that the true audience for this book is a hipster living in a million-dollar condo in Brooklyn with a trust fund.
One last thing irks me. In every other wine book (and I have owned and read thousands over the years) Bordeaux as a region is always at the front and center. It is the largest fine wine growing region on earth. They have been shoved to the back of the book. Not biodynamic enough? Maybe his audience is those New York sommeliers searching for the latest $400 bottle from an unknown grape made by a winemaker living in a yurt in a total backwater in France. Then this is their book.
“What to Drink with What You Eat,” by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page
Thinking of taking out a mortgage for the next few decades paying off those sommelier classes you signed up for on a whim? Or what’s worse, all your snowbird relatives are fleeing to Maine this year for Thanksgiving. This is the one stop shop for all of their culinary questions.
There is a convenient divide between the food and wine section. Some of its strengths are the enormous cheese pairings in case the French relatives show up for dinner. And it is eclectic in their recommendations from barbecue to caviar to Domino’s Pizza (yes, Domino’s Pizza).
The wine section features examples of high tannin wines, herbaceous, oaky, and many more together with the foods that work and the ones that don’t.
I know that these books are a mere drop in the ocean of wine books, but in closing:
- “The Grail” – A great fall read.
- “The World Atlas of Wine” – Be sure to get the 8th edition.
- “Red Wine with Fish” – Long out of print with copies still available on abe.com.
- “The New French Wine” – I will be returning my interlibrary copy soon.
- “What to Drink with What You Eat” – Saves you when the relatives come to visit.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
