Good Grape Wine Company

August 3 2010

Instant Classic: Reading between the Wines by Terry Theise

If Kerouac’s On the Road had a ménage a trois with Palahniuk’s Fight Club and Thoreau’s Walden, resulting in a love child, it might approximate Terry Theise’s book, Reading between the Wines.

And, while this may be the very first book review you will read regarding Theise’s new book from UC Press, it will not be the last.  As I speak, they’re likely inscribing the James Beard Foundation book award for 2011, just ahead of the adulation and commendations for a book that’s an instant classic and rightful companion to what is now a holy trinity of modern wine books.

Joining Lawrence Osbourne’s The Accidental Connoisseur and Matt Kramer’s Making Sense of Wine on the thoughtful wine enthusiasts bookshelf, Theise has written a book that is so wholly singular to his point of view, yet so persuasive that he may yet convert thousands to the wonders of small, artisanal wines from around the world, joining the insider cadre that have followed his German, Austrian and grower Champagne import selections and annual catalog-cum-stream of consciousness manifesto.

To be sure, Theise isn’t the first to espouse a conviction about the value of Old World wines that are authentic, terroir-based and in possession of a bent toward the transcendental, he’s just the first in the last decade to write with enough clarity and generosity of spirit to potentially turn New World agnostics into Old World disciples, connecting with a new generation of wine enthusiasts for whom the lifestyle mavens and old media dogs are as relatable as a narc at a biker rally. 

While reading the slim volume, losing myself in the theatre of my mind, I imagine Theise sitting across the table from me in the dining room of an old row house in a hardscrabble town, maybe Cleveland, Pittsburgh, or Upstate NY, somewhere suitably unfashionable, explaining to me his philosophy on wine—and by proxy—life.  The education is just getting started when Theise says, at the end of the introduction, just pages into the book, “Confected wines are not designed for human beings; they are designed for ‘consumers.’ Which do you want to be?” At this point, he has removed my defenses, punched me in the gut and put his arm around me whispering reassuringly that I am not that big of an asshole, there is still time to see the light; there is hope.

What follows in Reading between the Wines is as thoughtful of a rumination on small wine and the beauty of being human, in all of our fragility, that you are ever likely to find in a wine book.

A few dozen pages later, nearly seduced in the narrative, soaking in a painters eye for detail and a lyricists pen for the unexpressed connective fiber in humanity, Theise says, “We were suburban folk, and a certain existential disconnect was a defining parameter of our experience.” Theise later notes, “If you’re sinking into ennui as yet another corporate type presses his marketing strategies on you, as yet another former dermatologist or veterinarian lords his milk-and-honey lifestyle over you and you wonder what any of it has to do with wine, with why you first fell in love with wine – I have places to show you.”

And, he does.

Theise shepherds us down a meandering path of enlightenment that encompasses a practical and metaphysical take on understanding our palates, a highly subjective take on the world of wine including a set of principles for what matters in vino, an assault against the dumbing down of wine, a parenthetical reference that lasts nearly 30 pages, a vivisection of sacred cows like points scoring, a carving of his Mount Rushmore of wine varietals and a discrete tour of his portfolio of wine via anecdotes.

It’s not a perfect book, no.  But, then, that’s the point.  Life isn’t perfect.  Wine isn’t perfect.  The best that we can do is create something that respects the land, engenders respect in the bottle and acts as a vehicle for a higher understanding.  Wine, in all of its glory, is an attempt to bottle nature’s attempt at perfection as captured by man and his foibles.  Ultimately, the result in book form is as wine luminary Karen MacNeil says, “…the single best book I’ve ever read on why wine matters.”

Indeed.

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