Summer Reads + Wine Pairings
Explore 'sense of place' through the intersection of literature and wine.
In my twenties, when I lived alone in Brooklyn, summers were a little melancholy. Marrying someone who could easily end each summer day by photographing the sunset played a part in shifting my perception. I’m also not in my twenties anymore, and the things I love—writing, reading, cooking, and wine pairings—are accessible daily, especially during the summer. Now, summer is about the fullness of the present.
This post fuses two summer joys. Literature and wine are both transporting, the former in our absorption with and commitment to characters, plot, story, and a writer’s voice, the latter in understanding where something sensorily alive and pleasing was produced, and how it’s connected to a place in the world. I’m not suggesting you drink a bottle of wine with each selected text below; rather, I suggest exploring the intersection of text and a suggested wine’s flavors and aromas, and noticing what that brings up in terms of memory and imagination.
I’ve asked some of the most insightful readers I know to offer a few recommendations, including my accomplished teaching colleagues and Joel Stein, aka The Corrupt Wine Writer, whose Substack makes for excellent summer reading as well. There are nine book recommendations below, seven novels and two memoirs, each with a suggested wine pairing.
At the very end of this post, please find an invitation to a special event in New York City next Monday, June 8th.
I’m also hosting a Wine Flights book talk Sunday August 2, at 7:00 p.m Eastern (virtually), the selected read being Adventures on the Wine Route by Kermit Lynch. I’ll note this in the Subscriber chat. Let me know if you plan to participate!
Summer Reading List: Fiction
John Mitchell Morris releases his first novel, In the Trembling Heart, through Starlite Street Press on June 16th (pre-order any time though). The book, set in Los Angeles, is absorbing, mining the internal terroir of similar moments I discussed above—being young in a city that can feel overwhelming and unfamiliar and finding selfhood and genuine connection. Porter Benjamin is an aspiring actor from Texas, carrying unresolved grief and uncertainty about his engagement to marry his longtime girlfriend, Sarah. His life and sense of self are transformed in meeting Henry Paley, a revered writer for stage and screen whose career is in a moment of de-evolution. The themes are profound and the writing is electric, an infusion of California sunshine. Thus, I recommend Wonderwerk’s Big Crispy, a low ABV blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Albariño, and Chenin Blanc, all from Clarksburg, lively, bright, and irreverent.
Hemlock is Melissa Faliveno’s second book; the first, Tomboyland, an essay collection, will leave you awed by the capabilities within the essay genre, and of Melissa’s exacting approach to piecing together internal topography with issues of place, class, and gender. In Hemlock, a woman, Sam, returns to the Wisconsin woods from Brooklyn and becomes haunted by her surroundings, the woods where her mother vanished. As the book takes place in springtime and explores, among other things, alcoholism, pair it with Wolffer’s Spring in a Bottle, a non-alcoholic sparkling rosé.
In Ann Patchett’s new work, Whistler, Daphne and her stepfather Eddie reunite forty years after a near-death accident ended Eddie’s relationship with Daphne’s mother. The book considers resilience, transcendence, and the capacity to recast and deepen relationships. My colleague at the State University of New York at Purchase (Purchase College), Emily Sausen, an avid and diverse fiction reader, describes Patchett’s writing as “beautifully spare and unadorned.” Given the focus on joy and possibility, I recommend Chateau Montelena’s celebratory Blanc de Blanc, the iconic winery’s first sparkling, available from July 3 through July 5. Also consider Westborn’s California sparklings, with grapes from historic vineyards in Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino. The Corrupt Wine Writer’s review of these wines, which look exceptional, will post the week of July 4.
The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson debuts June 30. In coastal Massachusetts, Caroline Lash “falls head-over-heels for Van Whittaker, a fleece-wearing, litter-collecting, kayak enthusiast with long, floppy hair and the personality of a Border collie.” Houseboat parties, beach bars, and sunbathing ensue until Van’s ex-girlfriend Bailey becomes pregnant with Van’s baby. Caroline is ousted from the group, inciting “a potent mix of fury and heartbreak.” Emily describes Jackson as “a bit of a modern-day Jane Austen, in that she chronicles social life for the upper classes in a somewhat ironic, amusing way.” You’ll need a wine with salinity for this one, like a Vinho Verde; I’m quite obsessed with the one below. Another compelling option is Portal of the Gardens Avesso Reserve White 2022.
In Lee Conell’s The Party Upstairs, the friendship between Ruby, the daughter of an apartment building super, and Caroline, the daughter of a wealthy tenant, is the foundation for a novel about class difference in New York City. When the two women are adults, Ruby moves back into her parents’ basement apartment; the novel’s crucible is Caroline’s party, “in her father’s glorious penthouse apartment, a party Ruby looks forward to and dreads in equal measure.” This calls for Prosecco, which has complex status given the primacy of Champagne in the world of sparkling wine, too often dismissed before its potential for complexity is understood. Find many excellent options made by Mionetto.
Dreamt I Found You by Jimin Han revisits the archetypal and tragic class-forbidden love story of Chunhyang and Mongryong, Korea’s Romeo and Juliet allegory. Premonition, Korean folklore, and magic propel the story forward. Cousins Dahee and Channing share a deep, sister-like bond throughout their lives. As adults, Dahee lives in a New England beach town. Channing, whose path has been more fraught, loves Minjae Oh, “all the while fending off the advances of powerful, manipulative Kent Cho, a local politician.” As Kent’s obsession intensifies, and Dahee must protect her cousin from meeting Chunhyang and Mongryong’s tragic ending. I’ve linked to some meritorious sojus here, including Yong Soju from Minhwa Spirits. Given the New England coastal setting, I’d also again suggest a wine with salinity, like Vermentino. This one, from Duchman Family Winery, is exquisite.
Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian is about married creative writing professors, Simone and Ethan, whose extramarital entanglements become the subject of a “breathtakingly invasive MFA thesis” written by Simone’s advisee and confidante. Professor Elise Lemire, a writer and scholar about race in America, recommended this one, observing, “This novel might be a tad gimmicky with how it treats POV, but I love a novel where you can tell the author actually suffered through graduate school.” Sold. A ‘seductive’ wine strikes me as one with elegant integration—a good time to explore the 15 Paso Robles wineries that comprise the region’s CAB Collective.
Summer Reading List: Memoir
Joel Stein recommends two memoirs where the later-in-life processing of a father-son relationship restitches past and present. Tom Junod investigates his father’s secrets, transgressions, infidelities, and deceptions in In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man. Junod wrote the iconic Esquire profile of Fred Rogers that became the basis for the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
Restrung: A Memoir of Music and Transformation by Vijay Gupta debuts next week and mines the narrator’s journey from child violin prodigy to joining the L.A. Philharmonic at age 19 to founding Street Symphony, an organization bringing music to the homeless and incarcerated, which earned Gupta a MacArthur genius grant. I’ll share one excerpt of Joel’s interview with Vijay, which posts next week: “It’s a paradox. I loved being on stage. I was 19 years old in the LA Phil, feeling like an absolute badass. Who wouldn’t get off on playing with John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl and seeing 18,000 lightsabers in the audience? So I told myself that brutality was worth it. I didn’t ask myself what happiness meant for me until after I left the LA Philharmonic….”
As both texts unflinchingly look to the past to clarify the present, I’d recommend raiding the cellar, as these writers had to do psychically, for an aged wine from Bourgogne.
Special Events
Let me know if you’d like to join the August 2 book talk! During a 45-minute discussion, do sip wine from a French region of your choosing.
A magical early summer evening is in store at Move the Passion next Monday June 8th, sharing wine from many Italian DOCs as part of The Charming Taste of Europe. Guests will enjoy wines at the Hall Des Lumières, New York Vintners, and the Arlo Soho Rooftop. The event is free but by invitation only—consider yourself invited! Register using the code WINEFLIGHTS. More details: www.movethepassion.com
Absolutely love this theme! Beautiful piece with inspired reads and wine pairings! 👏