I arrived at the first night of the first BU wine class clutching my box of tasting glasses relieved they were still intact after jamming them—self included, of course—onto the subway. And while we immediately filled them with wine, Bill began the lecture and these brand-new glasses filled with wine stared me down, taunting me. Never in my life had I waited so long to taste something right in front of me (for the record, it was two hours).
For some reason I found myself reading “Love by the Glass” in the mornings. And with every turn of the page I yearned to open a bottle of wine. Normally this wouldn’t be an obstacle for me but it was generally ten in the morning on a Sunday. It felt like day one of Wine One all over again.
And with that aside complete, here is the more traditional review section:
When traveling abroad, there is something that almost always gives one away as being foreign—whether it’s your shoes, your accent when you speak their language, or some other Achilles heel—in Greece I will always betray myself when faced with a frappe. Frappe is an iced coffee shaken (not stirred) with cream and sugar often served with a straw. A true Greek can spend the entire day sipping one glass. Me? I suck it down in about thirty seconds.
For the Brecher-Gaiters wine is more about the experience than the wine itself and that’s the main “lesson” of the book. In many ways it’s the philosophy I brought back after living in Greece so many years ago that I kept close to my heart but slowly slipped away. And now? I don’t remember the last time I tasted food so I found myself reading faster and faster, knowing they have children, to discover how they balance family and wine.
In essence, “Love by the Glass” is their wine column—an accessible discussion of wine imbued with personality—written chronologically and augmented with some additional personal information.
FIREWORKS
The book ended with a bang! Open That Bottle Night! Just like fireworks, there was a finale: a sampling of responses they received from their first OTBN column.
For me, it was exhilarating. As you can see from our OTBN history, while late to the game, I am a convert. But even more incredible is that we (almost all of us, Katrin was bailing water out of her basement) attended the Wentworth-By-The-Sea Wine Festival on Saturday, February 21 (incidentally close to the official OTBN 2010 which was February 27) where we were generally feeling indifferent until we discovered a treasure: Chateau Musar.
Even though we were there to scout wines for our upcoming SNSC on Spanish whites, one of my goals for the event was to purchase a gift. That night I was attending the tenth anniversary of my former book club. The book: Love By the Glass. The gift was for Sam, the reason book club was celebrating its anniversary and the host of the affair.
The wine was from Lebanon and one of the oldest wines in the room by far; a 1997. It immediately grabbed our attention unlike anything else in the room.
Last night as I reached the dénouement (I’ve always wanted to use that word since I learned it in seventh grade English class), I was stunned and pleased to discover the most incredible coincidence: Chateau Musar was the same wine Ms. Gaiter and Mr. Brecher chose to open on the inaugural OTBN and the very same wine I gave Sam.
Post Script: I’ve always struggled with reading The Wall Street Journal and within the first few pages of the book found my release. Mr. Brecher reconciles his own conflict when he asserts to his friends that truth is apolitical and the WSJ is committed to truth.
