Natalie MacLean had me at Hello. Her unusual and picturesque writing style
captivated me immediately. "A pilot light have been ignited inside me; over time
it would grow into the flames of full-blown passion," she writes it in her
introduction. I feel exactly the same way about my relationship with wine as she
described hers. "I need a drink to get through the arsenic hours between five
P.M. and seven P.M. If ever gave in completely to those impulses, I'd throw away
everything I've worked for. My subject is addictive."
A subject all-too-often addressed in dry encyclopedias and consumer guides is
given new life by MacLean, a participatory journalist who is willing to roll up
her sleeves rather than sit back and sniff. She takes her readers along for the
journey through her descriptive words. Burgundy's Cotre d'Or, a thirty-mile
necklace of a region just three hours southeast of Paris, is divided into the
Cote de Nuits and the Cote de Beaune. It starts in Dijon to the North and falls
in a graceful arc, like the curve between the woman's shoulders and hips, to the
fortress of Beaune in the middle, continuing on to Chagny in the south.
MacLean chooses phrases in her book that are easily digestible by the lay
person, yet sophisticated enough to satisfy the toughest wine critic. She
describes drinking a burgundy to be a mind-bending, body-wrapping,
soul-quenching experience no other wine gives.
She visited hundreds of cellars of Champagne in France to the
sun-soaked vineyards of California to write Red, White, and drunk all over. She
recalls her experiences with great enthusiasm. "I'm surprised to be charmed by a
wine that doesn't have the palate-whacking power of big fruit and alcohol. Yet
as I swirl it around, the aromas seem to pull me headfirst into the glass, as
though I'm drawn by gravity through layers of timeworn soil the earth's power to
reclaim all that belongs to her."
Her passion for wine leaps off from cover to cover. MacLean goes undercover
as a sommelier in a five-star restaurant, looks at the influence of powerful
wine critics Jancis Robinson and Robert Parker, invites readers into her dining
room for an informal wine tasting are just a few of the subjects she covers in
her amusing and informative book.
To fund her late-night vinous habits, Natalie MacLean holds down day jobs as
a wine writer, speaker and judge. An accredited sommelier, she is a member of
the National Capital Sommelier Guild, the Wine Writers Circle and several French
wine societies with complicated and impressive names. Her unswerving goal in
life is to intimidate those crusty wine stewards at fine restaurants with her
staggering knowledge.
