🍷 A Hedonist in the Cellar by Jay McInerney | Wine Analysis & Global Vineyards Explored

0:00You know, there is a specific kind of social anxiety that kicks in when a waiter hands you a wine list that weighs more than your dinner plate. It's that sinking feeling that you are about to be tested on the subject you didn't study for in a language you don't even speak. Oh, the imposter syndrome of the dining room. Yeah. It's a very real phenomenon. It's totally real. And we've built up this this fortress around wine, you know, velvet ropes, unpronounceable French geography, and frankly, a lot of intimidating chemistry. Yeah. But the guide we are using for today's deep dive, he argues that we've been looking at it all wrong. We shouldn't be treating wine like a specimen to be dissected in a lab. No. We should be treating it like a character in a novel. Which makes perfect sense considering our source material today is a hedonist in the cellar. Yeah. Adventures in a wine by Jay McInerney. Right. And for anyone who only knows McInerney as, you know, the literary brat pack icon who wrote bright lights, big city, this might seem like a strange pivot or really strange pivot.

1:00But this collection of essays is fascinating because he brings a novelist's eye to the cellar. He isn't looking for pH levels. He's looking for the narrative arc. And that is really the mission for this deep dive. Yeah. We are not going to give you a lecture on viticulture or soil composition. Y'all please know. We are going to try and extract McInerney's cheat codes for understanding wine, the personalities, the metaphors, and the stories that actually make the liquid taste better. Yeah. Because that is his core thesis, isn't it? That the story changes the taste. It absolutely is. And he's quite explicit about it. He argues that wine appreciation is, well, it's fundamentally subjective. It's about memory. He has this great line where he calls wine a lubricant that stimulates conversation and a sacramental beverage. Yeah. He's upfront about it being an intoxicant. He doesn't shy away from the buzz, which, you know, a lot of critics pretend doesn't exist. Right. They talk around it. They do. But he differentiates between drinking to forget and drinking to remember.

2:00And his own memory of where this whole obsession started is. Well, it's not exactly a chateau in Bordeaux, is it? No, I'm close. It's a place called the Westcott Corjol Shop in Syracuse, New York. The Bousseteria. Right. He calls it a Bousseteria. And this provides such important context because this was back when he was a student studying under the legendary Raymond Carver. Wow. So by day, he is learning literary minimalism and dirty realism. And by night, he is selling night train and wild Irish rose to what he describes as hardcore, low-budget alcoholics. I mean, the visual is just so stark, he's literally dodging stickups at gunpoint. Exactly. But in the downtime, he starts reading these dusty old wine books, the owner left lying around. It's almost like a goodwill hunting scenario, but with fortified wine. That's a great way to put it. And that leads to the pivotal moment. He gets his first novel accepted for publication. Right. And he wants to celebrate. He doesn't grab the M.D. 2020 or a six pack of beer. He splurges on a bottle of 1978 Smith Halt Lafitte, a serious Bordeaux.

3:03A huge step up from night train. A giant leap. And he admits looking back, was it objectively the best wine he ever drank? Probably not. But because of the moment, that triumph of the book deal, it tasted like nectar. And that's the macaroni rule we should keep in mind through all of this. The occasion creates the flavor. But he didn't just stay a fan, he became a columnist. And I love the anecdote about how he justified that career pivot, especially given his literary fame. The Julia Roberts story. Yes. He initially turned down a profile of Julia Roberts because he had this high-brow self-importance. You know, he was a novelist after all. Of course. But then he realized that writing a wine column was a similar no-brainer. Yeah. He could get paid to pursue his obsession. But because he's an outsider, he brings this fresh language to it. That's the key. He compares wines to actresses, to rock bands, to authors. Which is infinitely more useful than just saying hints of blackberry. So much more useful. When you compare a wine to an actress,

4:04you immediately understand its personality. Is it loud? Is it elegant? Is it aging gracefully? You get it instantly. Okay, so let's get into the actual juice. Mac and Ernie breaks his adventures down by style and he starts with the whites. Now, usually when people want a signal, they know wine. They talk about big, heavy reds. Always. But Mac and Ernie pushes back on that. He starts with his absolute obsession. A wine that I honestly think most people have never even heard of. Conjrew. Yeah. It is a bit of an insider's handshake wine. Conjrew comes to the Northern Rome Valley in France and is made entirely from the Viennier grape. Viennier. Okay, that's tricky, right? I feel like I see it occasionally, but it's not a staple like Chardonnay. It's incredibly tricky. It's low in acid, it's prone to disease, and it is really hard to grow. Mac and Ernie compares choosing a favorite wine to choosing a favorite Beatles song. You know, it's impossible. Sure. But he lands on Conjrew because it is so distinct. He says it tastes like white peaches, his favorite fruit.

5:05And exclusively evokes Gagand's Tahitian paintings. I want to pause on that comparison because it is so vivid. Gagand's paintings are lush, they're exotic. They're almost overwhelming in their color and sensuality. He is saying this wine isn't intellectual and sharp. It's fleshy. Fleshy is the perfect word. He calls it a wine for lovers, not fighters. And technically, that's because it lacks acidity. In wine school, they teach you that acid is the backbone that lets a wine age. It preserves the wine. To skeleton. It's the skeleton. And Conjrew doesn't really have one. It falls apart if you keep it too long. It is built for immediate, hedonistic pleasure. So if you see a bottle of Conjrew on a list, specifically from a producer like Gregor Lovarene, the move is to order it and drink it now. Don't save it. Right. Drink it now. Gregor actually helped save the Appalachian when it was nearly extinct in the mid-20th century. He has a label called Lodorian that looks like an Art Nouveau poster. Oh, wow. And McInerney says the label perfectly matches the taste.

6:06It's just decadent, floral, and unapologetically romantic. Okay, so that is the obscure romantic choice. But then he pivots to a wine that is famous for all the wrong reasons. So, uh, so wow. I feel like so is the wine punch line of the 1970s. It was the fuel of ignorant youth as McInerney puts it. We all have that image of the giant 1.5 liter bottle of bolusovay. The green bottle. The green bottle, yeah. McInerney describes seeing the lime green warehouse from the highway in Italy. It was industrial farming, high yields, flavorless grapes, basically water with alcohol. But he argues that Sovaid has been rehabilitated. This is a classic underdog sports movie narrative within the wine world. It is. And it's driven by two very different characters. On one side, you have Roberto and Selmy. Okay. McInerney paints him as this Porsche driving black product cloud modernist, a total perfectionist. How the cool guy? The cool guy. And he was so frustrated by the lazy laws

7:08allowing bad wine to be called Sovaid that he literally divorced the region. He took the name Sovaid off his labels because he felt his wine was too good for it. That is a serious power move. I'm not Sovaid. I meant Selmy. It's a huge statement. And then on the other side, you have the traditionalist, Leonardo Pirroplon. He's the opposite. The guy in the cardigan, the home body. But he proved that the Garganega grape, that's what makes Sovaid can actually have mineral depth and almond notes. It can age. So the takeaway here is, don't judge a wine by its reputation from 1980. If you see a Purapan Sovaid grab it, it's complex, not insipid mouthwash. Exactly. The good stuff is out there. Okay, let's talk about the elephant in the room regarding white wine. The ABC crowd. Anything but Shardonnay. Mac and Ernie documents this massive shift in California, Shardonnay from the Baywatch era to the modern era. That is the perfect analogy. He describes the 90s style of Shardonnay as Pamela Anderson. Fat, loud and sunburned. Which means what? Technically, I know Oki is a descriptor,

8:08but what is actually happening in the bottle there? Well, it's a combination of things. You have high alcohol from very ripe grapes, tons of new oak barrels, which gives you that vanilla, toast, butter, scotch flavor. Okay. And heavy malalactic fermentation. We define that malalactic fermentation. It sounds like a disease. It sounds terrible, doesn't it? It's actually a secondary process. After the yeast turns sugar into alcohol, a specific bacteria converts malic acid, which is tart, think green apple, into lactic acid, which is soft, like milk or butter. So that's where the buttery shardonnay comes from? That is exactly where it comes from. And in the 90s, winemakers crank this up to 11. You're basically drinking a vanilla milkshake. And Mac and Ernie says the reaction to that was the thinnest in movement. Right. Winemakers started looking for elegant, racy and nervous wines. Nervous. That sounds like a bad thing. Like the wine has anxiety. It sounds bad, but in wine speak, it's a huge compliment. It means high energy, high acidity, that skeleton of the wine we were talking about.

9:10Okay. Mac and Ernie quotes Robert Sinsky, a wine maker who put it brilliantly. You don't want a milkshake with your fish. No, you do not. You need acid to cut through the food. So you see producers like brewer Clifton making inox shardonnay. Inox means stainless steel. So no oak barrels. No oak, no butter. Just the naked fruit. It's a total rejection of that Pamela Anderson style. Before we leave the whites, we have to touch on the sommelier secret, Rysling. Hmm. I feel like this is the hardest cell for the average drinker, because everyone assumes it is going to be syrup. It's the biggest misconception in the wine world. Mac and Ernie compares drinking a great dry German Rysling to inhaling a small electrode of eel. That is such a visceral image. It implies a shock, a jolt. It's that tension between ripe fruit and bracing acidity. And Mac and Ernie makes a really practical point about food pairing here. We're eating more Asian food, more Thai, more Vietnamese. Sure. If you drink a bone dry Cabernet with spicy lemongrass soup,

10:11the wine is going to taste bitter and metallic. It's awful. You actually need a little bit of sugar to handle the spice. So the sugar acts as a kind of fire extinguisher for the heat? Exactly. While the acid cleans everything up, it's the perfect match. And he gives us a great way to distinguish between the two heavy hitters of Rysling, Germany and Austria. Yes, this is a great mental shortcut. He says German Rysling, specifically from the Mothel, is apple pie with lemon juice. It's softer, more floral. Okay. But Austrian Rysling, from the Washo, is like a samurai sword slicing a lime and a peach. Great bone stretch. Exactly. It's sharper, drier, often has more body, more alcohol. If for anyone terrified of reading a German wine label, which looks like a gothic nightmare, they are intimidating. Mac and Ernie gives you two words to look for. Cabernet and spittlies. Right. Cabernet is the lightest style, lower alcohol, perfect for lunch. Spittlies means late harvest. So the grape state on the vine longer, it's richer, more intense, but still has that electric acidity.

11:13If you know those two words, you can navigate the electric eel section of the wine list. All right, let's cross over to the dark side. Yeah. Segment two, the reds. And Mac and Ernie starts with the wine that sounds exhausting. I'm her own. Romana Del Forno, who is the master of the style, calls it an extreme emotional wine. It sounds like a teenager. It kind of acts like one. Amarone comes from the Veneto region in Italy. It's a dry wine, but it mimics sweetness because it is so massive. We are talking 15, 16, sometimes 17% alcohol. Whoa. And the way they make it is just bizarre. They don't just crush the grapes. They harvest them, and then they let them sit on bamboo mats in addicts for months to dry out. Hey, in addicts, not sellers. In addicts, correct. They want airflow. They are literally turning the grapes into raisins. To concentrate everything. The sugar, the flavor, the acids. Mac and Ernie calls it turbocharging the grape. So when you finally ferment that raisin juice, you get these huge flavors of dates,

12:15figs, black licorice leather. Because of the perfect primer wine. Why that? Because it is not subtle at all. If you are learning to taste wine, and someone says this tastes like figs, in a Pino Noir, you might struggle to find it. Right, you're searching for it. In a neurone, the figs smacks you in the face. It's loud, it's obvious. And the personalities match the wine. You have Del Forno, who Mac and Ernie describes looking like a weather-beaten James Gandalfini. Intense, uncompromising. The modern powerhouse. And then you have Giuseppe Cantarelli. The resident saint? He's the old guard, the traditionalist. He works in a seller that looks medieval. While Del Forno is about power and modern intensity, Quinterelli is about contemplation. But both represent this idea that wine can be extreme. It doesn't have to be polite. From the addicts of Italy to the warehouses of California, this is my favorite cultural snapshot in the book, The Shadistas of Santa Barbara. Yes, this just overturns the whole Falcon Crest image of California wine.

13:15Completely. We usually think of Napa, Grand Gates, Manicured Lawns, Wealthy Owners. But Mac and Ernie takes us to Lampock, specifically the wine ghetto. And these are just aluminum-sided industrial sheds. And the wine makers are not landed gentry. No, they're guys maxing out their credit cards. They have day jobs. Mac and Ernie compares the vibe to Silicon Valley in the 70s or Paris in the 20s. It's scrappy and communal. They share equipment, right? They share equipment. They taste each other's barrels. It's this amazing collaborative spirit. And what are they making in these sheds? Mostly syrup. And the reason is purely economic Punoan War grapes became way too expensive because of the movie sideways and the general boom. Ah, the sideways effect. The sideways effect. So Syra was the affordable alternative. And you have the duo brewer Clifton. Again, Greg Brewer was a French professor. Steve Clifton was a rock guitarist. That sounds like a sitcom set up. The professor and the rocker. It works, though. Their aesthetic is sushi chef minimalism. What does that mean? They want to do as little as possible to the grapes.

14:17They aren't trying to impose a style on the wine. They're trying to let the fruit speak for itself. Get out of the way. It's a very different philosophy from the big corporate wine making world. Speaking of distinctive styles, let's talk about the black wine. Cajours. This sounds like something of villain drinks in Game of Thrones. It has a very butch identity as McInerney puts it. Cajours is a region in southwest France and the grape is Malbec. Oh, Malbec. Yeah. But not like the Argentinian stuff. Not at all. Everyone knows Malbec from Argentina today. It's plush. It's fruity. But original French Cajours is a beast. Peter the Great supposedly drank it to settle the stomach. They used to use it to punch up weak bordeaux wines because it was so dark and tannic. So McInerney suggests this isn't a cocktail one. You don't just sip this on its own. Definitely not. You do not sip Cajours by the pool. This is a wine for a high fat, high protein diet, duck confit, casoulet, foie gras. The tannins need something to fight against. Exactly. The tannins, that drawing sensation in your mouth,

15:19need fat to bind to. If you drink this with the salad, it will strip the enamel off your teeth. But with duck fat, it is magical. Finally, in the red section, we have to talk about the heartbreak grape, Pinot noir. Why does this grape drive people so crazy? Because it's the most transparent. It has very thin skin. So it's incredibly sensitive to everything. To heat, to cold, to the soil, to the wine maker's mood, even. It's temperamental. Very. And McInerney has a section here called the imitative fallacy. He realizes he keeps equating the wine maker's personality with the wine itself. The examples are hilarious. He talks about Denise Shirtleff, who makes this delicate, lacy Pinot, and he compares her to Mia Ferro. Right. A very specific, delicate persona. And then there's Lane Tanner, who makes a bolder, spicier Pinot. She tells him, my wine is the other woman, definitely not the wife. Which is a hell of a marketing slogan. I'd buy that. It tells you exactly what to expect. Excitement, maybe a little danger, not long-term commitment.

16:21But McInerney also takes us to South Africa, to Hamilton Russell Vineyards. And this shows the agricultural reality of Pinot. It's not just poetry in a bottle. What do you mean? Well, the wine maker there is dealing with marauding baboons and finding prehistoric handaxes in the soil. It reminds you that before wine is a luxury good, it is farming. It's a struggle against nature. So we've covered the grapes. But McInerney is a novelist and novelist love characters. Yeah. Segment three is where we meet the mad scientists. I like to go start with Michelle Sheputje and the Roan. That's kind of sounds intense. Hypo-manic is the word McInerney uses. Sheputje is a dynamo. There's a story that he walked on a broken leg for two months before seeing a doctor because he was just too busy. That tells you everything you need to know. It really does. He's a fierce competitor. When someone asked him what wine pairs best with asparagus, which is notoriously hard to pair because it makes wine taste metallic. Yeah, it ruins wine. Sheputje just said,

17:21the perfect match for asparagus is my competitor's wines. Brutal. That is just savage. But he's also deeply philosophical. He is. He's a major proponent of biodynamics. Which is what? Exactly. Is it just organic farming? It's organic plus mysticism. It involves things like burying cowhorns filled with manure according to the lunar cycle. Okay, that sounds weird. It sounds completely weird. Scientists roll their eyes, but Sheputje calls it homiopathy, applied to plants. His goal isn't just clean wine. He wants to remove all the chemical noise. So the terroir, the soil, the place can speak clearly. He has that line. The brain is a pleasure killer. Yes. He thinks if you analyze the wine too much, you ruin the experience. He compares it to making love. You don't need to be a gynecologist to enjoy it. That seems to be a recurring theme with the greats. You want to bypass the inlet and hit you in the gut. Absolutely. Speaking of bypassing the intellect, let's talk about Randall Graham of Bonnie Dune. McInerney calls him the Bizarro Twin of Robert Mondevi.

18:23And it's so true. While Mondevi was trying to make California respectable and copy the French nobility, Randall Graham was just making jokes. He is the undisputed king of puns. He has a wine called Cardinal Zinn. Cardinal Zinn, a critique of pure reasoning and the famous Lissigar volant. The flying cigar. Where does that come from? It's a reference to an actual municipal decree in Chattanoif du Pape from the 1950s that banned UFOs, which they called flying cigars, from landing in the vineyards. You're kidding. Not kidding. It's a real law. I love that Graham named his flagship wine after a piece of bureaucratic absurdity. It shows his irreverence. But underneath all the jokes, McInerney points out that Graham is a serious innovator. He was pushing for screw caps way before they were acceptable for premium wine. He got a lot of flax for that, didn't he? A ton of flax. He also created the DE None Club, the distinctive esoteric wine network, basically to force people to try weird grapes. And he rails against what he calls

19:24the Viagrification of wine. The Viagrification. The trend of making wines artificially powerful, over-extracted, and hard. He wants wines that are elegant and drinkable, not just impressive or too simple. I also have a character from my neck of the woods, New York. Willie Frank. Willie Frank is the voice in the wilderness. He is described as highly caffeinated, strident, and he speaks in the third person. Willie rips up 50 varieties. You have an amazing quote about yeast. Oh, it's the best. Sulfur gives wild yeast a headache so they don't go into an orgy. I'm never going to look at fermentation the same way. An orgy of yeast. It's an incredible image. But his contribution is massive. Everyone said New York was too cold for vitus finifera. The real European wine rigs like Rysling and Pinot Noir. Right. They said you could only grow conquered grapes. Exactly, the grapes that taste like Foxy grape jelly. Willie Frank proved them all wrong. He showed that the finger lakes could produce world-class Rysling. He was a true pioneer. We have to close this segment with the Smith Brothers of Smith, Madron.

20:25These guys feel like they walked out of a western movie. They look like grizzly atoms. Beards, mountain men, the whole deal. They operate on spring mountain in Napa. McInerney describes their location as Prelepsarian Napa. Napa before the fall. For the fall before the limo's and the $100 tasting fees. And their equipment sounds unique. He calls it Rube Goldberg machinery. It's held together with duct tape and hope. They dry farm, which means they don't irrigate the vines. Which is very rare in California. Very rare. It forces the roots to go deep into the mountain to find water, which creates these intense, complex grapes. And the biggest irony is, in the heart of Cabernet country, they are making world-class Rysling. They are doing everything wrong by modern commercial standards. And the result is just incredible. Okay, so we met the rebels in the Sheds in the Mystics, Barri and Calhorns. Now, let's put on our tuxedos. Segment four is the expensive dates. These are the wines that cost more than a car payment. And McInerney starts with a story

21:25that gives me second-hand anxiety. The blind tasting at the dinner party. This is the classic wine snob nightmare. He arrives late to a high society dinner. The hostess hands him a glass of red wine in front of everyone and basically says, okay, Mr. Wine columnist, what is it? The ultimate test. The pressure. And he nails it. He guesses Hopperion, 1982. How? Is it a magic trick? It's about recognizing the tell. Every great wine has a signature, a fingerprint. And for Hopperion, McInerney describes the smell as cigar box, Monte Cristo, black truffle, hot brick, and old saddle. Hot brick and old saddle. It sounds terrible when you say it out loud, but I know exactly that smell. That dusty, earthy, savory smell. It is so specific and savory. Hopperion is the oldest, brand-name luxury wine in the world. Samuel Peep's wrote about drinking Hobrion in London in 1663. Wow. Thomas Jefferson bought it. It's known as the first growth of poets and lovers because it's not just about power. It's about that complex, earthy nuance. Then he moves to another legend,

22:26Shavall Plonk, White Horse. This is on the right bank of Bordeaux, and the key technical difference here is the Great Blend. Left bank Bordeaux is mostly Cabernet Sauvignon. Shavall Blonk is largely Cabernet franc. And the texture difference. He uses a fabric metaphor that I love. It's so good. He says, if other Bordeaux is scratchy hair as tweed, sturdy, maybe a little rough, then Shavall Blonk is cashmere. It's silky, it's seamless. He compares it to the writer Turgenev, earthy, but sophisticated. We have to mention the 1947 vintage of Shavall Blonk. It's often called the greatest wine ever made. And yet, technically, it was a disaster. It was a freakishly hot year. The surmentation got out of control. The wine has high volatile acidity, basically vinegar notes, and tons of residual sugar. It almost tastes like port. So by the textbook, it's a flawed wine. It's completely flawed, but in the glass, it is hedonistic perfection. It just reinforces Machinery's point. Greatness isn't about following the rules. It is about the experience.

23:28We can't talk about luxury without talking about the new world attempts to replicate it. We have to talk about bond. Bond is the project of Bill Harlan in Napa, and he wanted to create a stable of thoroughbreds. The concept is fascinating. It is virtual single vineyard. What does that mean, virtual single vineyard? Usually a domain or an estate owns the land. Harlan doesn't own all these vineyards. He has long-term contracts, re-controlls, everything about the farming, total control. But the wines, Melbury, St. Eden, Viscina, they don't say Napa Valley in big letters. They sell the brand. It's like buying a luxury handbag. You are buying the bond name and its consistency. It is the ultimate cult, Cabernet, rich, flawless, and astronomically expensive. So we've drunk the wine. Now we have to argue about it. Segment five. The critics in philosophers. And Machinery introduces us to Kermit Lynch. The great Contrarian importer. If everyone is going right, Kermit goes left. He's based in Berkeley connected to the whole slow food movement in Chespinese.

24:29Right. And he famously asked, why is it that most men don't like fat women, but they think they like fat wines? Oh, that is a provocative question. He is attacking that Pamela Anderson style again. He believes in authentic wine. He hates filtration because he thinks it strips character. He says modern Bordeaux taste like California Cabernet, lipstick and high heels. So he wants wine that tastes like its place? He wants wine that tastes like dirt in a good way. He wants some weariness. And then you have Abraham Waw, who takes that dirt preference to a comedic, almost grotesque extreme. Waw is the son of the novelist Evelyn Waw, and he treated wine writing as a vituperative art. He thought you should find mortal enemies in wine. He wasn't looking for balance. He was looking for extreme character. He looked for flavors like rotting wood, sewage, and French railway stations. Yes. I have to ask, what does French railway station imply? Is it urine and cold dust? I think we can safely assume that's what he meant. But to him, that was character.

25:29That was interesting. He was a jilted lover constantly searching for the heavy swarthy burgundies of his youth. Mac and Ernie points out those old wines were probably adulterated with strong wine from Elgears or the Rhone to give them color and body. But Waw missed that filthy style. He hated the clean, hygienic modern wines. It just highlights how incredibly subjective this all is. One man sewage is another man's grand crew. And that is the perfect segue to the final battle. Michael Broadbent versus Jansus Robinson, the old guard versus the new. Broadbent was the old guard. The ultimate old guard. He had 137 identical notebooks obsessed with vintage charts very, very British. He thought Americans sniff and talk too much and should just drink. A man after my own heart. And then comes Jansus Robinson. She's the new wave. She was the first critic to take Australian wine seriously. She demystified wine for Mac and Ernie. She represents the open mind while Broadbent represents the closed classical tradition.

26:29So bringing this all back to the Mac and Ernie way, we've gone from Shadistas to old saddles. What is the takeaway for the listener standing in the wine aisle today feeling that anxiety? I think it's permission. Permission to ignore the chemistry in the jargon. Mac and Ernie talks about sensual satory. It's about letting the wine trigger a memory or story in your own head. If a wine reminds you of a rock band, say it. If it tastes like electric eel, say it. Your description is as valid as anyone else's. The brain is a pleasure killer. That's the quote we have to remember. Yeah, that's the one. And also permission to explore. Mac and Ernie argues we are in a golden age of diversity. You can get a weird unfiltered wine from a shed in Lampok or a cashmere smooth bordeaux. So don't just drink the same shard nay every night. Be a hedonist. Explore the seller. I love that. Life is too short for boring wine. Thanks for diving in with us on this one. Cheers, my pleasure. We'll catch you next time on the deep death.