Wine Book & Book Wine Review #5

I am back with yet another wine book review and a book wine to match :) This time I listened to an audiobook again because life is getting too busy to spend hours with a printed book all about wine... Fortunately, the book is narrated by the author himself. I believe that André Hueston Mack is one of the best wine communicators in wine today and so I bought his book without reading any reviews and went into it blind.

99 Bottles by André Hueston Mack

I can summarise my impression about the book by saying that as a wine nerd, I was underwhelmed, and the book is one of those that were probably more interesting to write than to read. Essentially, this book is an autobiography and Mack tells his story in the wine business using the 99 bottles as the structure. The list is arranged chronologically (in order that the author encountered these wines in his life) and each wine has only a short description that is followed by an account of an event in Mack's life or a lesson that he learnt.

Because of this autobiographical nature of the book, I left disappointed. I expected to learn more about some of the most special bottles in the world. Instead, I just listened to Mack mention Château Mouton Rothschild and then go on to share a special relationship he had early on in his career with a guest. The majority of the bottles in the book are very well-known and Mack does not add any in-depth information about them. He inserts bits of wine trivia that are basic and simple to understand, similarly to what he does in his Bon Appetit videos: "what is Merlot" and "what is Sauternes". I understand that my wine knowledge is very advanced relative to an average person but I do not think I learnt anything new and exciting about wine from this book. I understand that this was perhaps a mismatch of my own expectation. However, what really annoyed me was that on top of that Mack allowed himself make mistakes such as insisting that the word "off-dry" means sweet in wine speak (he called 5 puttonyos Tokaji an off-dry wine) and did not try hard at all to pronounce anything right in the audiobook. I am not a pronunciation purist by any means but at some point it just seems disrespectful.

I can assume that the book was meant to be written for beginners but then I am puzzled as to why autobiography was the right choice for introducing them into wine. I think people usually pick up biographical books about persons that they are already very interested in. However, there definitely is a target audience of readers who can relate to Mack's background and would therefore trust him on this educational journey. I do not know how many people there are who would feel that way and pick up the book for those reasons because they would already have to be interested in the topic of wine, know of Mack, yet know so little about the world of wine yet. Still, they certainly are out there and it's important that the book exists to bring them to our shared wine party as well.

Often when I read an autobiography, I get a feeling that it must have been very fun to write the book; perhaps, the author even had more fun writing it than I am having reading it. 99 Bottles certainly felt this way: it must have been a very interesting and satisfying process for a person as accomplished as Mack to recount his journey and tell through his own favourite lens. What a fun thing to do anyway, choose 99 bottles that defined your life! However, the book really "missed me" as a target audience and I can only wonder how many people there are out there for whom the book can do what the author wants it to.

For the matching wine today I chose the bottle number 14 from the book: Calera Pinot Noir. It accompanied one of the most important stories in the book: the issue of racism in the service industry. Yet, Mack spoke very highly of the wine and somehow I had never tried it before. In addition, I could not really afford a 1983 Château Margot or Henri Jayer's Echezaux :)

• 2022 Calera Pinot Noir Central Coast 87 Points

  USA, California, Central Coast

  Appearance: medium ruby.
  Nose: intense and perfumed with aromas of fresh blackberry, cranberry, violets, and sous bois. A touch of old dry oak and leather. Cigar. Really nice actually: relatively complex, already developing, and inviting.
  Palate: surprisingly heavy with medium+ body and high alcohol (14.5%!). The alcohol does not burn and throw off the entire balance but is still clearly too much and steals the attention. Medium acidity which also doesn’t seem like enough and medium- tannin. Notes of blackberry and cherry. Leather and anise.
  Finish: medium.
  
  8/18. To be honest, the nose is great, but the palate is just too heavy. I will be drinking this wine slowly, mostly enjoying the smell.

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