August, 2015 - The Seventh Sphinx

Sense a theme? We are very into wine.

Red, White, and Drunk All Over, Natalie MacLean — An entertaining and practical book by a young, stylish wine writer – half the story of her life as a wine writer and half useful wine user’s manual. A condensed and approachable guide to serving and enjoying wine. Often funny as well, as the title implies.

Adventures on the Wine Route: A Wine Buyer’s Tour of France, Kermit Lynch — A passionate importer shares tales from the road. If you’re not already into wine this might not provide enough context but quite interesting if you’re into French wine. Lots of vignettes/mini histories of his favorite producers.

How to Love Wine, Eric Asimov — A general call not to be intimidated by wine from the New York Times wine critic. Not bad as an opening text if you are just getting into wine, with the basic concept that wine is meant to be enjoyed, and advice to help you avoid all those pitfalls that can make it no fun at all (i.e. stressing out about impressing people (probably you are good at other things), being intimidated by your lack of wine knowledge (you don’t need any to know what you like), worrying that your palate isn’t good enough (it is), bad wine (not as common as it used to be), paying too much (you don’t have to), etc.). Likely preaching to the choir if you already love wine but satisfying to have someone writing intelligent things about wine with which you can agree, reaffirming your good sense.

Bordeaux/Burgundy: A Vintage Rivalry, Jean-Robert Pitte — Great if you are into the history of these regions, which is vast and complex. Lots of rich detail. Reads a bit like a thesis in parts (could be a translation issue – originally written in French, which we like) but obviously well-researched. [See also this interesting tasting/debate with Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson on the topic]

Tasting Pleasure: Confessions of a Wine Lover, Jancis Robinson — Jancis Robinson is to Britain what Robert Parker is to the U.S., the most influential wine critic. Unlike Parker, though, Robinson seems infinitely more personable to me, and more in line with my approach to wine (she doesn’t think much of scores, for example). She co-authors the definitive World Atlas of Wine, did a great series of videos on major grape varieties for the BBC, did an interview/ tasting with the quirky WineLibraryTV (pretty funny contrast between host and guest), and is the author of dozens of books about wine, including this memoir. This chronicles how she sort of stumbles into being such an influential wine critic, and some of her memorable tastings and projects. I’ve liked all of her writing, and really all of her speaking, which is intelligent and no-nonsense with a good sense of humor…I like her.

Reading Between the Wines, Terry Theise — Wine philosophy. Theise reflects on what it means to make wine, what it means to make good wine, what it means to enjoy wine, what it means for wine to be beautiful, what it means for anything to be beautiful…if you are interested in thoughts on what makes a good life, this is a really interesting read.

Passion on the Vine, Sergio Esposito — Of all the wine memoirs* I’ve been reading, this is the best memoir in its own right, independent of wine data. Funny, with life and wine nicely integrated, engaging writing.

*I’m calling them wine memoirs, books written by people who are passionate about wine that are partly about the people and partly about their experiences with wine, though some are more guides or manifestos than memoirs.

Reflections of a Wine Merchant, Neal Rosenthal — As with the Lynch, you want to be pretty into wine to go for this, otherwise it’s a bunch of people and regions and details about wine. OK, but Lynch and Esposito were more interesting to me.

“Staring and staring into the mirror, it sees many faces within its face – the face of the child, the boy, the young man, the not-so-young man – all present still, preserved like fossils on superimposed layers, and, like fossils, dead. Their message to this live dying creature is: Look at us – we have died – what is there to be afraid of?

It answers them: But that happened so gradually, so easily. I’m afraid of being rushed.”
― Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man

“Whatever may be their use in civilized societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“Gussie, a glutton for punishment, stared at himself in the mirror.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves

Mirrors are undoubtedly strange. Common, so we get used to having them everywhere, at least in privileged areas of the world, but for me they never lose their strangeness.

There is the strangeness of the mirror-image itself, the version of the self most familiar to the self, yet bizarrely wonky when compared to a photograph (or reality), the version of the self most familiar to others. Like the discrepancy between your voice as you hear it and your voice on a recording. I have a staunch loyalty to my versions, feeling a shame that the world only gets these diluted, misshapen versions of me.

There is the strangeness of knowing what one looks like at all, the technology for mirrors—and especially accurate, clear mirrors—being relatively recent in human history. There’s a bit in the mockumentary What We Do In the Shadows wherein the vampires, who cannot see their reflections, ask one another to draw their likenesses so they can see what they look like. The drawings are comically bad, which is the bit, but it rings true that they would want to know, and take any scraps of information they could. I want to know. I want every scrap of information.

Then the strangeness of making eye contact with oneself, and seeing (almost seeing) what other people see. And the strangeness of knowing that, because you can only be yourself, you aren’t necessarily seeing what other people see at all, not noticing what they might notice. And so, in a way, you are not able to see yourself at all. I often have this thought with clothing, when I can’t quite decide how it fits. Sometimes I’ll take a photo, and look at that, but what I really want is to see a body identical to mine but not mine wearing the same thing. Then, it seems, on some other being/mannequin/stand-in, I would be able to judge it properly.

I have a suspicion that I spend more time than the average person in front of the mirror. Likely due to some combination of having a lot of mirrors around, giving my skin a lot of careful attention, doing a fair amount of making up, wanting to check on things generally, not trusting my hair to be where I last put it, and liking the act of looking at myself.

This last reason is not, it is important to clarify, because I think I look so great.* I am equally or perhaps even more interested in looking at myself when I look awful, or just unremarkable, which I mean in a matter-of-fact way, sans negativity.** I mainly look unremarkable (that is, normal). Still, I don’t seem to tire of inspecting my reflection, as if it might tell me something.

*Though I do sometimes think this, or something like this. It is more that I now and then have a glad feeling toward my face, like I might toward at anything that pleased me in the moment. Not necessarily because it is ‘pretty’^ in that moment (not because it’s been made to look so-called pretty), but because I just like it, for whatever reason.

^Pretty is a problematic term, no? I use it but as a commercio-cultural construct it’s difficult.

**Negativity is aimed directly at various blemishes and scars to maintain a good relationship with the face as a whole.

My face and body, though in a sense random, genetically random, don’t feel random. They feel integrated. Not significant, exactly, not as if they mean anything, but influential, yes. Perhaps this is only my attachment to the material world.

Month: August 2015

reading: wine, wine, wine

mirror, mirror