A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine (Jay McInerney)

Hardcover Edition. 

In the two decades since Bright Lights, Big City reinvigorated contemporary fiction, Jay McInerney can claim a great many accomplishments, including the mantle that Salon has given him: “the best wine writer in America.” Of his previous collection, Bacchus and Me, Robert M. Parker, Jr., concluded:  “Brilliant, witty, comical, and often shamelessly candid and provocative.” And The New York Times added: “McInerney’s wine judgments are sound, his anecdotes witty, and his literary references impeccable. Not many wine books are good reads; this one is.”

In A Hedonist in the Cellar, he gathers more than five years’ worth of essays and continues his exploration of what’s new, what’s enduring, and what’s surprising, giving his palate a complete workout and the reader an indispensable, idiosyncratic guide to a world of almost infinite variety. Rieslings from the Finger Lakes, Armagnac from Gascony, powerhouse amarones from Valpolicella, the most fearsome critics in England, chocolate-friendly bottles from all over the globe, new developments in Chile and Argentina—these are only some of the delights now ready to be savored in a collection driven not only by wine itself but also the people who make it and those whose enjoyment is matched by their curiosity.