Country & Townhouse's Best Book for Christmas, 2018

A delectable anthology celebrating the finest writing on wine.

In this richly literary anthology, Jay McInerney - bestselling novelist and acclaimed wine columnist for Town & Country, the Wall Street Journal and House and Garden - selects over twenty pieces of memorable fiction and nonfiction about the making, selling and, of course, drinking of fine wine.

Including excerpts from novels, short fiction, memoir and narrative nonfiction, Wine Reads features big names in the trade and literary heavyweights alike. We follow Kermit Lynch to the Northern Rhône, while long-time New Yorker writer A. J. Liebling raises feeding and imbibing on a budget in Paris into something of an art form. Michael Dibdin's fictional Venetian detective Aurelio Zen gets a lesson in Barolo, Barbaresco and Brunello vintages from an eccentric celebrity, and writer and gourmet Joseph Wechsberg visits the medieval Château d'Yquem to sample different years of the roi des vins.

Also showcasing an iconic scene from Rex Pickett's Sideways and work by Jancis Robinson, Roald Dahl, Auberon Waugh and McInerney himself, this is an essential volume for any disciple of Bacchus.

"One of the most gifted writers of his generation...whatever he does makes fascinating reading." - Observer

"No contemporary author quite matches Jay McInerney." - Mail on Sunday

"A scabrously scintillating stylist." - Guardian

"His wine judgments are sound, his anecdotes witty and his literary references impeccable." - New York Times

"The best wine writer in America." - Salon