What we talk about when we talk about wine
In the theatre of the absurd, playwrights gave artistic articulation to Camus’ philosophy that life is inherently without meaning. How perfect a read is Desert Island Wine, where author Miles Lambert-Gocs reminds us how inherently meaningless so much wine talk can often be.
[Some important characteristics found in the theatre of the absurd: dialogue that is full of cliche' and nonsense, characters forced into repetitive or meaningless acts, plots absurdly expansive, a dismissal of reality.]
Hm.
Lambert-Gocs loves his wine, but not at the expense of sense of humor. With wicked wit does he serve up those “mincing Brits”, traverse Boolgovia (a newly liberated communist country just east of Vienna) to try their new and exciting wines; and unearths the missing pages of such literary classics as Moby Dick (Melville), The Suffering of Young Werther (Goethe), Notes from the Underground (Dostoevsky), and The Stranger (Camus) - works that apparently suffered major cuts due to the temperant environments in which they were writ. But for Lambert-Gocs, we can now appreciate them entire.
This book is full of wonderful vignettes and laugh-out-loud moments. “Just ask Parker if he cares if his wife is a 6 or a 5 by anyone else’s standard.” That’s Dionysus talking, by the way, in the chapter covering CNN’s interview with the great god of the vine. And the interview with the proprietor of the renowned Gobs-of-Fruit Vineyards is especially enlightening.
There are chapters on appellations (”A Personal Stake in Names”), sparkling wines (”Bursting the Bubble of Effervescence”), Jefferson (”Report to Tom”), and Quality Recognition Deficiency Syndrome (”Blind Spot”). Socrates even has his say. And for those of you nature lovers out there, Lambert-Gocs’ guide to how to spot and track enophiles is a must-read.
Lambert-Gocs leaves us with a “Wine Bore Bonus (no funny business)” - a factual, sourced account on the ancient Greek grape variety that begat cabernet. As the author of The Wines of Greece - the definitive work on the history and traditions of Greek wine - Lambert-Gocs knows a thing or two on the subject, and even here his writing flows with the same brimming intelligence.
Ionesco said, “Explanation separates us from astonishment”, and Miles Lambert-Gocs puts aside punditry and all that blathering, instead laying before us a book filled with delightful anecdote, conjecture, and pure fun. Wine talk can certainly be without meaning for any number of us, but I daresay there’s few among us who would state that drinking wine is without any meaning. That said: add Desert Island Wine to your summer reading list, open whatever pleases, and enjoy.
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