Red, White, and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass

John Abbott is a professor of history at Laurentian University’s Algoma University College. He is the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste Marie and The History of Fort St. Joseph.

Critical acclaim for this book has focused primarily on surfaces: the
sensuous prose, the confessional asides, and the writer’s power of
persuasion. This is to emphasize means at the expense of ends; to single
out the vehicle rather than the journey and its instructional purpose.
Natalie MacLean is a born teacher. The raconteur’s DNA resides in her
Maritime genes. She reminds one of Herodotus, who scoured Asia Minor for
the fabulous stories that he told in the marketplace. Like him, she has
the rare ability to take her listeners by the hand and turn hearing into
sight.

Readers who know their subject quickly realize that a superb primer on
the elements of wine appreciation is embedded in the artfully arranged
stories. We are encouraged by her initial confession that she began her
journey in ignorance; novices may take heart. There’s the epiphany
(the bottle of Brunello), finding the language to describe the
experience, and taking a wine appreciation course (value of informed
instruction). Subsequently, she takes us to Burgundy, first to the
“shrine” of Romanee-Conti, then to Domaine Leflaive, for a lesson on
terroir and its management, a risky, but courageous and correct decision
in the making of MacLean’s lesson plan. Along the way she effortlessly
explains such associated details as the French system of quality
designation. Each succeeding chapter is similarly planned to include the
presentation of a main theme, generated by conversations with notable
figures in relevant places, into which are inserted the pertinent
elements of wine appreciation. She explores the mystery of Zinfandel
(and discovers the hard reality of vineyard labour in California, while
revealing the importance of low cropping to quality in the bottle);
Champagne (the region, the product, and how to evaluate it and its fizzy
cousins); wine criticism (deconstructing the contrasting points of view
offered by Jancis Robinson and Robert Parker on wine styles); wine
retailing (what the consumer needs to know); stemware (evaluating
shapes, sizes, and what represents value for money); wine and the dinner
party (decanting, wine and food pairing); the restaurant’s wine list
(decoding it and avoiding the horrors of house wine); and wine writing
(styles and pleasures).

Red, White, and Drunk All Over is by far the best introduction to the
subject for anyone whose interest has been piqued by that first, special
bottle.