August Adventures: August 2020 Book + Bottle Pairing

For those of you who know me, you know that riesling is my favorite grape. I love it because it’s delicious, of course, but I also love it for the challenge it presents. It’s heady and intellectual and really makes you think as you delve into the layers of complexity with each sip. There’s a ton to learn about the grape and the gorgeous wines it makes around the world.

And, riesling is controversial - my favorite part!! If I had a dollar for every person that told me, “I don’t like riesling!” or “I hate sweet wine,” well then I wouldn’t have needed to hustle a business into existence and would be living on a yacht off the Mediterranean coast. But, they don’t give me a dollar each time someone says those sorts of things, unfortunately. However, I do get extreme pleasure out of helping to change someone’s opinion of my favorite wine. Yesterday, in our Harry Potter themed wine tasting, I threw in a riesling as the Ravenclaw House wine. I watched with glee as people wrinkled up their nose as I told them what they were about to try and then watched with pleasure as their faces relaxed into contentment and they exclaimed that it was their top wine in the line up! This happened repeatedly yesterday evening, and I proudly exclaimed “my work here is done!” But of course it’s not.

We’ll dig in to our particular wine pairing momentarily, but know that I picked this riesling because August is a month of adventuring. We’re all feeling cooped up and trapped - no travel?!?!?! I know so many people whose great vacation plans were cancelled and they’re trying to make the best of it here, in Florida’s sweltering summer hurricane heat. So, we’re going to take this traditional summer vacation month to escape through a book and a bottle. We’re going to have an adventure! We’re going to make August the best month yet! This month, we’re reading a fantastical adventure novel and pairing it with an adventurous white wine. I promise this is as good of an escape as you could ask for right now. Let’s dive in:

THE BOOK

I love when you know you’re going to love a book from the very first line. Two pages in and I was reading aloud to my boyfriend, exclaiming how unjust the world is that someone can write this well. I want to be able to write like that. And it’s her debut novel!! What did she do, just sit down one day and write the perfect book?! So unfair. But I digress - you get my point - her writing is delicious. I’m jealous, that’s all. This is the kind of book you will stay up all night reading — what a genuine source of pleasure.

It’s the theme, though, that makes this book so good. Doors. Not “doors” as she explains at the beginning of the story, but “Doors,” with a capital D. She explains how her father, a scholar, would explain this concept: “‘If we address stories as archaeological sites, and dust through their layers with meticulous care, we find at some level there is always a doorway. A dividing point between here and there, us and them, mundane and magical. It is at the moments when the doors open, when things flow between the worlds, that stories happen.’” (chills, right?). I’m known amongst family and friends for my absurdly absent memory, but I have a distinct memory of one of my first anthropology classes in college and learning about this new word called liminality that also explains this concept.

Liminality is that moment when you are neither here nor there. Originally conceptualized to explain a moment in a ritual where you are not yet the new self the ritual promises you, but you are no longer the person you were before. Betwixt and between, as Victor Turner (the founder of the modern concept of Liminality) called it.

Just as chaos is the source of order, liminality represents the unlimited possibilities from which social structure emerges. While in the liminal state, human beings are stripped of anything that might differentiate them from their fellow human beings—they are in between the social structure, temporarily fallen through the cracks, so to speak, and it is in these cracks, in the interstices of social structure, that they are most aware of themselves. 

— C. La Sure (http://www.liminality.org/) summarizing Victor Turner’s theory of Liminality

I found this principle so deep - an explanation for so many things. Every culture seems to have a way of viewing the liminal - there are so many in betweens we go through as people. It’s the apex, the tipping point, the shadow, the window, the Door. You are a moment when you can step forward or step back but for that moment, you’re just right there. All this rushed back to me while reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow.

Harrow takes this theme of Doors and makes it even more pleasurable to us bibliophiles - the Doors are where stories develop. It’s a book that leads January Scaller, the main character, through her first door and onto her wild adventure. Stories and books are at the core of this novel - they’re used to bookend pieces of history to situate this story in real life, making the fantastical elements even more magical. The stories in this novel are what create the magic, they are magic.

January, herself, is at first situated in an in-between place — she’s motherless and being raised by her father’s wealthy employer; she’s not white nor is she “colored;” she moves between Kentucky and New England; she’s a child on the verge of growing up. Living in this in-between place, the books are her Door, her portal to another world, to learning who she is and taking the step toward becoming entirely herself. On this adventure, she’s surrounded by magical, mystical curiosities - the remnants of her father’s New England Archaeological Society and the artifacts of her magical escapades. The descriptions will delight you and hold you in their magical clutches.

As January adventures into her magical worlds, you won’t want to leave her side. The writing is delightful, the story is entrancing, and the experience is near perfect. The only thing that could make it better is a cold glass of…

THE WINE

…riesling. Not syrupy sweet icky riesling. Not Blue Nun riesling. Not grandma’s riesling. But, crisp, light, ethereal riesling. Riesling that is light and edgy and exciting and dry. There’s a liveliness that wakes you up and makes you want to go adventuring. Or, if you’re drinking it while adventuring (highly recommend), then you feel like all is right in the world.

Have you ever drunk an Austrian wine? Do you perhaps hold an unknown grudge against riesling? We picked this wine to help you adventure into uncharted territory - to try something new. But this wine will also transport you to another place, just like the Doors in The Ten Thousand Doors of January. The wine feels like it’s lifting you up out of your seat and levitating you to a better place. Through a Door into a magical realm. The only problem with this is that you might have to pause your reading to process what’s happening in your mouth.

Most rieslings, contrary to popular belief, are in fact, dry wines (not sweet). This is especially true for Austrian riesling. Our wine this month is Weingut Huber’s Riesling Terrassen from the Traisental region of Austria.

The color is extremely light - straw colored - with just a glint of something metallic - hinting at the magic you’re about to imbibe. When you stick your nose in the glass, you’ll get a light and lovely bouquet of lemon rind, white flowers, and just under ripe pears or maybe a hint of a mango. On first sip you’ll get a mouthful of citrus — lemons and limes — that lingers on your palate and vibrates on your teeth. Some white peach, faint pineapple, and fresh ginger creep in to make things interesting. This wine has high acidity and tons of minerality. The wine gives the sensation of wet stones, crushed limestone, and salt air. A perfect adventure wine.

This wine would go extremely well by itself on a terrace (where the name of the wine comes from!) with a poached salmon with dill, or with a creamy chicken dish. The high acidity in the wine will cut through cream or fats nicely, and the body of this particular riesling is a little more mouth-filling than some which will help it pair with even more types of food.

The wine will linger in your mouth after the last sip for ages. As will the joy from finishing The Ten Thousand Doors of January. We all need an uplift about now, and I hope this can be yours as it was for me.

Cheers!