March 1861: March 2020 Book + Bottle Pairing
THE BOOK
On account of the fact that I wished to remain in the world of Louisa Alcott’s Little Women for as long as possible, it was with great pleasure that I accepted the recommendation of a good friend who had just finished reading March, by Geraldine Brooks. I eagerly picked up the book and was immediately rewarded with a jovial young Mr. March and several allusions to his little women that had enticed me to read. Yet, only a couple chapters in I began to feel a sense of loss of innocence and a vague disappointment as I came to know the once revered father figure. For what had once been an idolization of his morality and judgement became an understanding of his insecurity, righteousness, and sensitivity that I had a hard time reconciling. Over the course of the book, however, Brooks examines March’s every thought and indulges his every whim to lay bare the honest character that is much more real: one of conflicted ideals and personal struggles. Like all people, he should be neither idolized nor detested, but understood as simply a man.
The story begins with teenaged March who was a sales peddler that traveled to the south in search of fortune. As a northerner, he is inclined to despise slavery, but during his stay as a guest at a wealthy plantation, he unwittingly becomes accustomed to the glamour and ease that lifestyle provides him until the realities of the horror of the institution force themselves on him. He tries to redeem himself by breaking the rules of the white master and educating a promising young enslaved girl with the help of the black house slave, Grace, whom he develops feelings for. When his actions are discovered, it is Grace, not he, who receives the punishment of an extreme lashing. This seems to be the moment at which March begins his abolitionist mission in earnest, and his affection for Grace grows to absorb all the righteousness of his intentions. However, just as I idolized the character of Mr. March from a lack of truly knowing him, so too does Mr. March hold Grace on a pedestal. March seems to spend the rest of his life punishing himself for the injustice he witnessed and trying to make amends for the pain he inadvertently caused to Grace. He comes to idolize Grace as a beacon of his mission, but idolization is dangerous and futile as it serves to disregard the simple fact that no mortal is perfect, as March finally learns of Grace at the end of the story, finally freeing him from his self-inflicted prison.
“Are there any two words in all of the English language more closely twinned than courage and cowardice? I do not think there is a man alive who will not yearn to possess the former and dread to be accused of the latter. One is held to be the apogee of man’s character, the other its nadir. And yet, to me the two sit side by side on the circle of life, removed from each other by the merest degree of arc.”
Throughout the course of the book, Mr. March fights an internal battle between courage and cowardice as he struggles to implement his strong convictions, and in the course of it, he begins to mature from the zealous, idealistic young man he is at the beginning into a more wise and sophisticated man.
The book reads almost as a coming-of-age story rather than a biography of a grown man. So clearly can we see March’s mind awoken to the realities of the world. March seems so naïve - he resists many times the reality that his “helping” the black characters often puts them in a danger that he himself would never face. He finally acknowledges this fact at the very end of the story when he laments to Grace, “There was a man, Jesse, he handed me a gun, and I handed it back to him. I valued my principles more than I valued their lives. And the outcome is, they are slaves again, or dead.” He naïvely miscommunicates with his wife, too. In one particular scene, both Mr. and Mrs. March can sense that Mr. March is about to commit publicly to join the union cause at war. Mr. March interprets his wife’s gesture in the audience as pride and encouragement in his decision, whereas in part two of the book we hear from Mrs. March herself that this gesture was a pleading for him not to go. While he feels vindicated by his wife, she feels betrayed and ignored. As a chaplain, his job is to comfort men and boys at war, but he so often prioritizes his naïve moralities that he leaves the men he’s supposed to be serving in a state of anxiety and and unsettledness. March wants to help the cause, the war effort, the mistreated blacks, the animals, etc. and has the courage to sacrifice much toward these goals but is also often so paralyzed with righteousness and cowardice that his efforts are unsuccessful. At times I imagined almost an Amelia Bedilia-type character from another age, where the good-hearted intentions belie darkly comic disasters.
“One day I hope to go back. To my wife, to my girls, but also to the man of moral certainty that I was . . . that innocent man, who knew with such clear confidence exactly what it was that he was meant to do.”
As I mentioned, I struggled with Mr. March’s character at times, finding him almost simple minded, albeit principled and kind. Yet while I found the character of Mr. March to be distasteful at times, I found the book to be engrossing and the interpersonal relationships in the book to be especially complex and an unexpected delight. The author’s incredible research, eloquent style, and ability to imagine the lives of characters so different from herself serve to prove her honor of having earned the Pulitzer Prize for its writing. I loved to see Mr. March interact with the “contraband” - his best character definitely surfaced while he taught. I loved the complex way the author presented the character of Master Clement - at first we like him - with his fondness for books and his seeming small kindnesses to his slaves - but then, through the character of Mr. March, we begin to see his true character as they discuss the justifications of slavery, when Mr. Clements prohibits the education of one of his slaves, and when he enacts a horrible punishment on Grace, a character we thought he was protecting. I especially loved the character of Mrs. March - she’s rebellious, outspoken, principled, yet is able to enact her values in her daily life. She’s much more of a realist - a perfect example of this is when Mr. March starts donating to John Brown’s cause in order to make Mrs. March happy. She’s pleased at first, but ultimately Mr. March is an all or nothing kind of guy and ends up giving their entire fortune to the cause, whereas Mrs. March more would have preferred a more moderate, reasonable contribution. I loved to see the different interpretations understood by Mr. and Mrs. March and found it interesting to learn about their relationship and marriage from each character separately.
“I am not alone in this. I only let him do to me what men have ever done to women: march off to empty glory and hollow acclaim and leave us behind to pick up the pieces. The broken cities, the burned barns, the innocent injured beasts, the ruined bodies of the boys we bore and the men we lay with.
The waste of it. I sit here, and I look at him, and it is as if a hundred women sit beside me: the revolutionary farm wife, the English peasant woman, the Spartan mother-‘Come back with your shield or on it,’ she cried, because that was what she was expected to cry. And then she leaned across the broken body of her son and the words turned to dust in her throat.”
On one hand a character study of the absent but beloved father from Little Women, and on the other other hand a books about the moral complexities of the Civil War, March is an excellent read for many types of readers. There is love story, history, and war narrative. We hear from both Mr. and Mrs. March in their turns. In short - the story is complex, and even trying to write this review has me confounded - Do I like Mr. March at the end of the story? Between which characters is the love story meant to be? Is morality a gradient or are there universal truths of right and wrong? How can Mr. March be so righteous in his abolitionist values and be so oblivious to the status of women? Isn’t Mrs. March the true hero of the story or is she impossibly flawed too? All I can do is recommend highly that you read March, perhaps over an equally complex bottle of wine - a claret…
THE WINE
I recall from Little Women the strict prohibitionist nature of the March family, or at least that’s the message given to the young girls. Many abolitionists and advocates of women's rights were also prohibitionists as many identified alcohol as a fuel for the rage and violence men would inflict upon women. Yet, in March it is clear that alcohol, while scarce during wartime, was still honored as both a medicine and a respite from the dark times. While perhaps a more natural pairing with this book might be one of the new alcohol-free tonics that are becoming more popular, I for one can find a wine pairing in even the most sparse of circumstances!
Mrs. March brings her ailing husband some “fine wine” to help him recover from his fevers, and Mr. March takes brandy with his host at the plantation he stays at as a youth. Yet it’s a night of indulging in Claret with the master that sparks March’s courage to kiss Grace for the first time. Since Grace’s relationship with Mr. March was such a foundational theme of the book, I think it only right to do it justice as a pairing for this novel.
What is claret? Pronounced clair - ette, at a most basic level it means a red Bordeaux wine. Due to Bordeaux’s location on the mouth of a river on the Atlantic side of France’s coastline, wines from there were easily exported, especially to Great Britain. Back in the 12th Century when this oenological relationship began, the claret wines were thin and light colored - probably more like rosé. The word itself indicates something clear or light colored, a vastly different impression from the Bordeaux wines of today which are dark and full-bodied and rich. So, the Brits called this wine claret and have had a love affair with it ever since. Due to the close relationship between Britain and the United States, it’s natural that these wines ended up making their way to the new country, as well.
The Gironde, Dordogne, and Garonne rivers that run through Bordeaux have created pockets of land with differing soil types. On the left bank, near the Médoc, the soils are primarily well drained gravels and stones. This is where they grow primarily cabernet sauvignon - the rocks hold heat and reflect it back onto the grapes, allowing them to ripen in a region that is on the same parallel (the 45th) as the Willamette Valley in Oregon, Maine, and South Dakota. On the right bank, the soil has more clay, which doesn’t drain as well (it holds water), so it’s less suited to cabernet sauvignon, but excellently suited to merlot which can ripen without the extra warmth. This is home to the famed regions of St. Émilion and Pomerol. Depending on the particular place you get your wine, generally speaking they’ll lean a little more toward cab or a little more to merlot. The funny thing about this expensive, iconic wine is that at heart, they’re just red blends! Most Bordeaux wines are blends of primarily merlot and cabernet sauvignon, but may also include cabernet franc, petit verdot, carmenère, and malbec.
Historically, there were wineries, called Chateaux, that produced varying levels of quality wines, and in 1855, the best of these were written down as the top growths - you may have heard of “First Growth Bordeaux” like Chateau Margaux or Chateau Latour. Since then, additional classifications have been added (originally, they only ranked Left Bank wines), and volumes of books have been written on the topic of understanding the validity (or not) of these classifications. The history and context of Bordeaux wines is as complex as the story in March - what is it supposed to be, how does money and capitalism impact the status of the wines in this region, how do the grapes interact with one another to create the nuances in the wines, what impact does where the grape is from have on the final wine, and so much more?
Another fun thing to think about while drinking Bordeaux is the interplay between masculine and feminine in the wine. What words do you use to describe the wine you’re drinking, and do they have a gendered connotation? I love reading Karen MacNeils’ writing on wine, and she often uses these sorts of descriptions. This is ALL stereotype, so bear with me: Bordeaux wines are often considered more masculine wines (rugged, tannic, big bodied, grippy, etc.) when compared to the other French icon of red Burgundy (Pinot Noir) (elegant, ethereal, light, etc.). Then, when you get down to just Bordeaux, it’s the cabernet that takes the more masculine descriptors and merlot that seems more feminine. As a pairing for March, where we hear from both Mr. March and Mrs. March, I think the complex interplay between masculine and feminine forces plays out very nicely in both the book and the wine.
For this pairing, any good Bordeaux will do, but let me tell you a little about the specific one I picked. As you know, the physical shop is about to open, so soon I’ll have real wine inventory to go along with these pairings. Book + Bottle is an approachable wine bar - you won’t find thousand dollar bottles here. We want you to be able to try wine that is good, that you can have with dinner or share with friends. We want you to be able to explore what the wine world has to offer you, and so we pick bottles that will take you on this adventure without breaking the bank. This bottle we chose is what some call a Baby Bordeaux because it’s not a particular “growth” or classified wine. It’s made to drink now rather than needing to cellar it for decades before it reaches its peak. It’s made with the same quality and grapes as a top Bordeaux but in a more approachable style.
We chose a 2017 Bordeaux Rouge (meaning a red wine from the Bordeaux region made of grapes that were harvested in 2017) from Château de Fontenille. The 2017 vintage was made of 80% merlot and 20% cabernet sauvignon. Personally, I lean towards the merlot-heavy blends because I think they offer a velvety, smooth mouthfeel that I love without the sometimes harsher tannin and green-ness of a young cabernet. What’s extra cool about this little wine is that the grapes were grown, the wine was produced, and it was bottled on the chateau’s property - that’s what mis en bouteille au chateau means on the front label. This chateau is located not on the Left Bank or the Right Bank of Bordeaux, but in the Entre Deux Mers region - in between the two - meaning that it’s got some gravel and some clay. This wine has a full body, a rich red color, and tastes of black fruit, earth, and light oak.
We definitely recommend pairing this wine with a meal - meat is a classic choice to pair with Bordeaux, but since our character of the day, Mr. March, was an ardent vegetarian, we’ll recommend a hearty mushroom and white bean cassoulet. The mushrooms complement the earth notes of the wine and add a meaty texture, along with the beans, that can stand up to the body and tannin of our wine. This little bottle of wine is modest but delicious and will cost you only about $20 retail when we open later this month.
Cassoulet takes a while to prep, so crack your bottle, get your beans stewing, and start reading March while you wait. Enjoy!