Wine (Object Lessons)

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.While wine drunk millennia ago was the humble beverage of the people, today the drink is inextricable with power, sophistication, and often wealth. Bottles sell for half a million dollars. Point systems tell us which wines are considered the best. Wine professionals give us the language to describe what we taste.Agricultural product and cultural commodity, drink of ritual and drink of addiction, purveyor of pleasure, pain, and memory - wine has never been contained in a single glass. Drawing from science, religion, literature, and memoir, Wine meditates on the power structures bound up with making and drinking this ancient, intoxicating beverage.From the Preface:"This wine,” the historian told me, a glass raised to hisnose, “smells like yellow flowers that bloomed in myvillage when I was a child.”I was having lunch with Joan Gómez Pallarès, a classicistand a wine columnist for Spain’s biggest newspaper, ata cavernous bar near the port of Tarragona, a city in thecountry’s northeast. I’d hoped he, a critic renowned for hisprecise writing, could teach me to be more attentive whenI tasted wine. New to both the country and the drink,I struggled to find words to describe the world aroundme—including what was in my glass. When I sniffed thehoney colored liquid Pallarès had ordered for us, my mindwent blank. I could detect something, but I didn’t have thelanguage to articulate what I was smelling.My perspective changed when I moved to Spain...Working with vines that first year in Spain,I began to live in both structural and ecological time.My life revolved around a vineyard’s rhythms...Long-awaited was vendimia—the harvest. Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. While wine drunk millennia ago was the humble beverage of the people, today the drink is inextricable with power, sophistication, and often wealth. Bottles sell for half a million dollars. Point systems tell us which wines are considered the best. Wine professionals give us the language to describe what we taste. Agricultural product and cultural commodity, drink of ritual and drink of addiction, purveyor of pleasure, pain, and memory - wine has never been contained in a single glass. Drawing from science, religion, literature, and memoir, Wine meditates on the power structures bound up with making and drinking this ancient, intoxicating beverage. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic. "Structured around the seasons, Wine draws from memoir, journalism, literature, and science to explores humans' deep connection to wine and the nexus of wine and power - from inequalities in the winemaking industry to the forces that determine what and how we drink"-- Provided by publisher Series Page 2 Title Page 6 Half Title Page 8 Copyright Page 9 Contents 10 Preface 11 Chapter 1: WINTER 14 Chapter 2: SPRING 46 Chapter 3: SUMMER 78 Chapter 4: FALL 104 Chapter 5: Epilogue 134 Acknowledgements 138 Notes 140 Works Consulted 149 Glossary 151 Works Cited 163 Index 170