Q4 Book + Bottle Pairings from the Readers + Drinkers Circle

Our theme this quarter is family. Family makes us who we are, both building us up and tearing us down over the generations. They help us and hurt us, inspire us and teach us. Family is husband and wife, brother and sister, grandmother and granddaughter, mother and son, biological and adopted, given and chosen, and all the beautiful combinations between. I love family dramas because we can all relate in some way - family is something we all have, and within family is family dynamics. Perhaps not everyone’s family is as dramatic as those in these books, but we can catch moments that feel familiar, comforting, or particularly edgy, drawing us deep into the story at a profoundly personal level and keeping us there throughout the narrative. As we enter the holiday season, family becomes more apparent in our lives, from Thanksgiving and Christmas to holiday family gatherings and the obligation of gift buying. I hope that reflecting on family through the following stories over the next few months keeps you grounded, provides you a few quiet smiles of recognition, and provides a balanced lens through which to view your own clan. It’s cozy season, so grab a blanket, pour a glass, and dive into the familiar stories we’ve found for you this quarter.

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PAIRING 1:

Our first pairing encapsulates a story that many of us are familiar with. A child grows up and sets off on their own, to carve a path for themselves different from that of their kin, yet ultimately realizing the beauty of what was left behind, returning in celebration. I’m personally familiar with this motif as a native daughter of St. Petersburg, who returned after a 14 year sojourn, triumphing in my return to open this beautiful place, reunited once again with my family and friends. It’s a story retold time and again, yet infinitely captivating as we follow the characters awaiting their decision that we ultimately know they’ll make. Both our wine and our book for this pairing tell a similar tale. Castello Di Monsanto Chianti Classico Riserva 2018 is a red wine from Tuscany, from a winery with a long family history.

In 1961, Laura Bianchi’s grandfather purchased a beautiful winery estate in the heart of Tuscany near the hill of il Poggio. So in love with the land, he decided to make a special wine just from the sangiovese grapes from il Poggio - something not done in those days when blending of regions and grapes was preferred. Through this decision, he built the first cru of Chianti Classico (il Poggio), putting sangiovese back on the map as a noble grape variety. Laura’s father Fabrizio grew up on this land, falling even more in love and investing all of himself in the business and lifestyle of wine. He never left - why would he? He had everything. Yet, his daughter, Laura, also grew up on the property, and while she loved it, she felt that itch that so many youngsters have - to find their own way, tread their own path, become their own person. Laura left to study law and became an attorney, a decision that would ultimately help save the family business when the chemical giant, also named Monsanto, sued the winery to change its name. Laura, filled with the pride of her family’s business, researched until she found a guest book with an entry from the chemical company’s president noting, “What an honor to have the same name. You produce wonderful wines.” The case was dismissed. Now, having followed her heart back to her land, she now has more than 30 years of experience as a winemaker under her belt, and working alongside her father once again, Laura continues the family legacy of Monsanto.

Lisa Jewell’s novel The House We Grew Up In, also sees the younger generation returning to their childhood home, though under more depressing circumstances and with a slightly less happy ending. Jewell is known for her ability to create tension amongst a group of people, in this case, siblings who come back home to help clean out their childhood home where their mother has become a horrific hoarder over the recent years. As they unpack all the physical stuff from the house, they are simultaneously unpacking the events of a traumatic Easter Sunday that initiated the unraveling of their seemingly perfect little family. Written with Jewell’s classic psychological suspense as a backbone, I recommend reading this one in October to capture the mood of Halloween and to set you up to appreciate your own family a bit more leading up to Thanksgiving.

PAIRING 2:

The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson is a recently published novel getting lots of positive buzz. It’s a story of several generations of indigenous women in Minnesota who work the land, from farming to gardening, the plant seeds linking the generations together while also serving as a beautiful metaphor for the generational connection to their ancestors. The narrative focuses on the women of the family from the main perspective of Rosalie, who, along with her husband, seek to keep farming against the odds of corporate agriculture, genetically modified seeds, and a changing landscape. This story is gorgeously written, completely heartwarming, and is a book you’ll share with your friends and family so they can also live in the cocoon of warmth that this story delivers.

I love that this book also ties in with the wine from our first pairing with the theme of a woman returning to her home, saving the family, and fighting against a corporate chemical giant, but I also think it pairs beautifully with Lakewood Vineyard’s Bubbly Candeo, which has its own story linking it to our second novel. Lakewood is a family estate in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. It truly is a family enterprise - the family having been farmers, and even grapegrowers for generations. For decades the family had been farming grapes for the Taylor Wine Company - one of the largest producers of American wine at the time. Taylor, founded in 1880, was a family run winery that produced mostly sweet red wine out of indigenous American grapes like Concord, Catawba, and more - stuff we rarely see on the market these days. The money was good, it kept the small farming region of upstate New York happy. But in the 70s two things happened: Taylor sold to Coca Cola, who quickly cut costs, paying the farmers only a fraction of what they had been making before, and the trend in wine swung back to where it is now, demanding dry wine of the European varieties. This devastated many families in the region and the ones that are still around today are the ones that took matters into their own hands and adapted. Lakewood saw the potential, one of the brothers went to school for oenology, and now today they’re making world class wines from both American and European varieties – a true success story.

I was fortunate enough to visit Lakewood in August and try many of their outstanding wines. We currently have their cabernet franc on our shelves at the shop, but one wine in particular stood out to me as something so cool I needed to share! In addition to producing the well known European varieties like cabernet franc, Lakewood also seeks to make world class wines from native American varieties, as well. This Bubbly Candeo sparkling wine is one of those. Made from a vitis labrusca grape called Cayuga White (European varietals like cabernet franc are a different species of grapevine called vitis vinifera.) and done in a prosecco style, this is a refreshing, very easy to drink sparkling wine for any occasion. Their expert winemaking produces a product that can compete with the best true prosecco from Italy, but in our own uniquely American way.

The American story is bittersweet - from the mistreatment of generations of Native Americans to the dismissiveness of Native American grape varieties, both of which get a well deserved sweet ending in this pairing. Both the wine and the novel weave tales of overcoming hardships and how tapping into the energy of your ancestors can help you overcome all the odds, and make an excellent backdrop to celebrate the Native American roots of our Thanksgiving holiday.

PAIRING 3:

Our third pairing highlights the husband and wife family dynamic set against the backdrop of the ex-pat dream of moving to a bucolic life in France. In both Thomas and Beal in the Midi by Christopher Tilghman and with the Wine from Clos Chanteduc, an American couple move to France to make wine. As with all our pairings, we definitely recommend saving some of this wine for when you’re reading the novel as I think you’ll get such a sense of place from not only the France connection, but also of strangers in a strange land making something beautiful out of something difficult.

In the novel, Thomas and Beal escape from the racist policies of post-reconstruction America in 1984, moving from Maryland to Paris and then to the Languedoc - a region in the southwest of France also known as the midi. Thomas is white and Beal is black and they know each other because Beal’s family worked as slaves for Thomas’s. They fall in love (do they? Or are they escaping something else?) and they run away to France where they expect that they will feel less persecuted than they were back home. This is not an overly romanticized marriage - they seem more to be partners than newlyweds and are tempted by others throughout the book. Yet, I see this as a more true view of marriages, and thus more exciting. Through your partner you begin to understand who you really are. Hopping between Paris during the nostalgic fin de siecle period and the rugged life of farming in the south of France, this is a meandering story where the beautiful writing is more of the point than a structured plot with a clean ending, allowing us to linger in the vineyards even after the story closes.

In a pleasant parallel, the Clos Chandeduc winery has a similar creation tale of an American couple who move to France to make wine. Patricia and Walter Wells also left the states as newlyweds and moved to Paris. Patricia was a wine writer and food critic, so while not quite a fin de siecle lifestyle, she also brushed shoulders with artists, writers, and chefs of her period. Just as Thomas and Beal were, Patricia and Walter were drawn to the south of France and the call of wine and in 1984 they bought a gorgeous property in the southern Rhone Valley, in Provence (east of the midi from the novel). Here, Patricia could cook and teach surrounded by world class vineyards and inspiring views. While the Wells don’t make the wine themselves, they do outsource the growing and making to famed winemakers, always having food pairings as the essence of the wine.

The wine is dark, a typical regional blend of grenache and syrah, and pairs perfectly with the rich foods of Christmastime. As you dream of escaping the holiday shopping season for a cozy, bucolic wine estate far away in the south of France, this wine and novel will help you make it an even more vivid dream.

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