Wine Reads: A Literary Anthology of Wine Writing

By Jay McInerney

Country & Townhouse's Best Book for Christmas, 2018

A delectable anthology celebrating the finest writing on wine.

In this richly literary anthology, Jay McInerney - bestselling novelist and acclaimed wine columnist for Town & Country, the Wall Street Journal and House and Garden - selects over twenty pieces of memorable fiction and nonfiction about the making, selling and, of course, drinking of fine wine.

Including excerpts from novels, short fiction, memoir and narrative nonfiction, Wine Reads features big names in the trade and literary heavyweights alike. We follow Kermit Lynch to the Northern Rhône in a chapter from his classic Adventures on the Wine Route. In an excerpt from Between Meals, long-time New Yorker writer A. J. Liebling raises feeding and imbibing on a budget in Paris into something of an art form - and discovers a very good rosé from just west of the Rhone. Michael Dibdin's fictional Venetian detective Aurelio Zen gets a lesson in Barolo, Barbaresco and Brunello vintages from an eccentric celebrity. Jewish-Czech writer and gourmet Joseph Wechsberg visits the medieval Château d'Yquem to sample different years of the "roi des vins" alongside a French connoisseur who had his first taste of wine at age four.
Also showcasing an iconic scene from Rex Pickett's Sideways and work by Jancis Robinson, Benjamin Wallace and McInerney himself, this is an essential volume for any disciple of Bacchus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Release date: Nov 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781611859317

Jay McInerney

Jay McInerney is an American novelist, screenwriter and wine critic. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City, Ransom, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls and The Last of the Savages.

Reviews for Wine Reads

[squirrelhead_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of short stories and essays where wine has THE starring role.  We have a combo of fiction, non-fiction and lots of wine and food references throughout.  One of the names/stories that attracted me was Kermit Lynch.  I don’t think we have ever had a wine with Kermit Lynch’s name attached that we didn’t like.  The book  Adventures on the Wine Route was fairly recently acquired so seeing it in this compendium was a bonus.Remember the movie Sideways?  It’s not an academy award winner but if you’d like to see a movie which revolves around wine, this is one, but I have not read the book.   that book is referenced here as well.  Books like this let me live vicariously with the details about good food and wine.  Fun read.This author has written other books about wine, one I liked was Bacchus and Me: Adventures in the Wine Cellar.