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Hedonist in the Cellar
I fell in love with the writing of Jay McInerney many years ago when I was lusting after an Austrian nanny who was taking care of the Ferragamo children residing in a gold wrapped town house on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She and I met in an Irish pub and we talked. The Austrian noted one of the reasons she came to the Big Apple was because 'Bright Lights, Big City' was one of her favorite novels. The year was 1996 and I had just returned from a year spending time searching for the bright lights in the big, Midwestern cities of Detroit and Chicago. 'BL, BC' wasn't on my radar as Columbia's Core Curriculum was stamped on my conscience as the only books worth placing on one's personal favorites list. Crusty, old Classics written by mammoths from Dickens to Zola were part and parcel of my parchment syllabus; nowhere could you find crusted blood dripped from one's cocaine nose on this piece of paper. 'Bright Lights' was published in 1984 and had all the bells and whistles of 1980's New York City's strobe light infested club scene - vodka was taking off at the time and cocaine was the new coffee until Starbucks came along circa 1987 and ripped the reins back to liquid black. My Austrian avatar spoke over circling smoke and all I could think about was powder, Alpine high mountains of the Bolivian marching powder. This girl came all this way to this pub on the upper cross streets of Broadway and 72nd, passing white capped, ski chalets for the magnified, black hole of her nostrils hovering over little white lines of powder on top of your grandmother's, etched gold, heirloom mirror. Like the finely granulated stuff would be better here than there. Better spewing from New York City black tops, than on top of Mont Blanc at 4,800 meters. She was crazy, I thought, as I watched snowflakes fall from her lips in four different languages. In the many ensuing nights of our courtship, the closest we came to a Coke high was that which was cut with the Caribbean's Captain Morgan. And then she left me, high and dry, for Florida. I watched her sail south into the Bright Lights of the sun, leaving New York to get closer to the source, I assume. I moved on. I started drinking vodka and then wine. I started reading McInerney and more about wine. While shopping in a wine store, I spotted, placed on the counter, a new book called 'Bacchus and Me.' The collected wine writings of Jay McInerney. I turned the book on end, opened and read the cover flap. McInerney had been the wine columnist for House & Garden magazine for many years. The book contained a personal selection of his articles. Who knew. Well, five million seven hundred thousand readers of the magazine, near 70% of which are women aged 49 with HHI's of $120K. If polled, I would guess, more than 70% of those women, unless living on the island of Manhattan during the diabolic drug induced days of the early 80's would know Jay McInerney's alter ego from Jay and Silent Bob. So, I walked out of the wine store with the book and no bottle of wine. Fifteen bucks at that time was the top end of my budget for wine, I didn't have the dollars to do the book and a bottle. I opened the book that night and began to read. 'Bacchus and Me,' released in 2002, read like a Rolling Stone for winos. Wine was described in song lyrics and compared to great authors. McInerney professed throughout the pages, that sure, yeah, wine was a food accompaniment but he always brought the background noise to the foreground - every riff, every solo, every chorus and poetic passage from Jethro Tull to Madonna to Baudelaire to whom he emblazoned in his description of Sauternes - "Not since Baudelaire smoked opium has corruption resulted in such beauty." Brilliant, I thought. I have to meet this man. A few years later, I saw my chance in a Paris Review auction. Amongst other literary opportunities to own a piece of Paris Review history or to meet one of its contributors was a lunch with Jay McInerney. The bidding started at $300 and, I assumed, did not include the cost of lunch which would inevitably be out of budget whether or not you decided to tip on the alcoholic beverage portion of the program. I lost the auction before I bid. Too rich for my red wine blood. Time passed and dust collected on 'Bacchus and Me.' Then 2005 rolled around and I was setting sail for Sicily to pursue my education in the wine trade. Waiting a month to catch my plane in early June, I sat many days in the drawing room of the Soho House. Keeping to my self, surfing the internet and writing e-mails. Drinking oolong tea until 4 p.m. when I ordered the obligatory glass of white wine, to get a head-on the after work crowd. And on a Wednesday afternoon, the machine gun fire of fingers on keyboard kept my attention fixed across the room. McInerney was at the club, writing in a public place. He would get up a bit, every now and again, pace around, pour some more Perrier in his glass and continue firing. That's how writers do it. They pound. And with patience, I waited to walk and talk through an introduction. Me to Bacchus. I saw an opening and entered his space. I told him he was my favorite wine writer. He told me he never heard that one before and offered me a seat at the table. I told him of my pending trip to Italy and he said he was leaving for Spain the week next for some wine tasting. He was seeking out some liquid Spanish gold. I had known nothing of Spanish wines and I still don't. He said to keep in touch, but he didn't have a card, but I could reach him at the magazine. So, I did. I wrote him a note and sent it to the Conde Nast building, Times Square. Done. A few weeks later. Back at the Soho House, I received an e-mail from an un-identified, AOL user with the subject line reading 'eerie.'
I can't tell you how weird and wonderful it is that you sent me a bottle of Mas d'en Gil Coma Blanca. I was there at the estate in Priorat two weeks ago, just about a week after we talked, and while I had been led there by my enthusiasm for the red, it was the 99 Coma Blanca which really blew me away and I have been looking for it ever since. When I saw the bottle I was thrilled and amazed.. Of all the wines in the world, how did you pick that one. I can't wait to drink this. And by the way, where the hell does one find it? Thank you thank you. And good luck with your new life. Keep in touch.
Eerie, indeed. I did not send said bottle of wine. To protect myself from false praise and to quell his embarrassment in not recognizing the true giver, I replied.
I just got your note, and although I would love to take credit for such a gift, it wasn't me. I did send you; however, two bottles of wine from the consortium I will be working with while in Sicily - Valle dell'Acate. I thought you would have received them last week. But, since not, keep your eye out and thanks for the brief review of the Coma Blanca. If I run into it, I will let you know. All the best, Dan Actually, I did not send my Sicilian wine either. But I did thereafter. That exchange was in May 2005 and Jay had told me that his next wine book was being released sometime around the Fall '06. The book, 'Hedonist in the Cellar,' has been released, a new collection of articles and better than the first. Like fine wine, blah blah, Jay's wine writing gets better with age and or more drinking. Jay's wine writing doesn't have the ubiquitous "'je ne sais quoi' this wine reminds me of," it has the poetic praise of wine frequently comparing it to everyday vices like tobacco, coffee, truffles, Viagra, chocolate and leather. And to everyday omniscient music and movies, and to the odd references of tuning forks and samurai swords. 'Hedonist' is a must read for the wine educated and the amateur drinker. Hopefully it will engage you and excite you, like it did me, to look at your glass of grape juice in a new Bright Light.
Post - December'06 Back to home...
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