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.
More than 73,000 wine lovers subscribe to her free e-newsletter at www.nataliemaclean.com.
For details on attractions, maps, region profiles, popular activities, and information on lodging visit the California Travel & Tourism Commission site at www.visitcalifornia.com.