WINE READS: A LITERARY ANTHOLOGY OF WINE WRITING

JAY MCINERNEY, GROVE PRESS UK, H/B, $39.99

Collected here are 27 diverse and highly enjoyable pieces of writing about wine, edited by novelist and wine writer Jay Mcinerney. Expecting a rather high-brow scholarly approach, I was delighted to spot the appearance of Aurelio Zen, one of my favourite, fictional Venetian wine-loving detectives (though it’s a hard-fought battle with Commissario Guido Brunetti) as well as Roald Dahl and a piece from Rex Pickett’s Sideways

(on which the 2004 movie was based). Though wine is the common thread there’s not a tasting note in sight; pieces have been selected for being a good read. Jancis Robinson tells of the horrors and delights of blind tastings, there’s a true crime tale about the poisoning of the world’s greatest vineyard and a profile of Madame Clicquot who forged through Napoleon’s defeat to create one of today’s great Champagne houses. It’s always a treat to find a good writer you have never heard of, so I’ll be searching out AJ Liebling’s Between Meals, purely on Mcinerney’s recommendation that it is one of the best books about Paris ever written, ranking alongside Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. TW