Addie should have listened to her mentor  that told her never to make a deal with a spirit after dark in Villons, France,. We follow the story of Addie LaRue through 300 years of being perpetually 23 years old and forgotten by every person she encounters. She experiences some of the best and worst of the last three centuries in Europe and North America unremembered, until the owner of The Last Word, Henry. Addie was able to build a relationship with Henry because he had also made a deal. Will she be able to finally make a mark on the world? Or had she already?

Much as Addie made a difference in her short time with people by inspiring them, wine has been associated with art for centuries. Winemakers are artists, artists create while drinking wine and art openings always serve wine. Today we are tasting a Vina Bosconia 2009 from Lopez de Heredia in Spain. Notes of red fruit, dusty leather, dill, chocolate, wet soil, vanilla and spices unfurl slowly after an acidic first sip.

In our story and our wine choice, prepare to have your biases challenged and your heart opened.

Lydia is a bookshop owner in Acapulco, MX; when a new customer, Javier, begins frequenting her shop, Lydia charms him with her love of books and becomes the ‘queen of his soul’ (not his heart…that is reserved for his wife). When Lydia’s husband writes an exposé revealing Javier to be the new cartel jefe known as ‘The Owl,’ she assures Sebastian that they will be safe. She is so wrong. This begins a journey to El Norte fraught with peril and sacrifice aboard La Bestia, a train heading north and then coyote-run through the desert on foot. It is heartbreaking and triumphant, but most of all unshrinking.

We are sipping 2017 L.A. Cetto Petite Sirah from the Guadalupe Valley. This winery includes an immigrant story as the original Cetto forefather left Italy for Mexico to make wine in Tijuana. This bold, acidic, tannic wine has notes of plum, blackberry, fig and earthiness, and it will pairs well with braised meat, ribs, or a hearty casserole.

Dawn’s life had always been about transitions, as an Egyptologist and later as a death doula, she helped bring understanding and purpose to the slow slide from life to death. Her passion for ancient relics was interrupted by her own mother’s untimely passing and her taking custody of her younger brother and soon thereafter the birth of her daughter, Merit. 15 years later, she is sent on a quest by one of her dying clients, Winn, that will change her life forever. Dawn must face the past and the man that she left behind in Egypt and contend with all of the passions she put on the back burner to take care of others so long ago. Surviving a plane crash helps her to have perspective on her choices and she realizes what is most important to her. Today we are going to sip a 2018 Courbis Cornas which has been described as ‘a 93 point syrah with plump minerality that is well-balanced with notes of smoked meat, dark fruit and chocolate’ on its shelf talker. What is a shelf talker, you ask? The artistic descriptions in front of a wine on the shelf of a wine shop. Think of it like a dating profile for your wine. Which bottle would you like to spend the evening with? They will interpret for you the more complex attributes and help you go home happy.

This episode was recorded before the current climate with Russia and the Ukraine.  We struggled with if we should release this episode and decided that given the storyline of the book, we should move forward.  

Over the last couple of years, many of us can relate to the idea of house arrest, but Count Alexander Rustov was imprisoned in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow for 32 years for an anti-Stalin poem written in 1922. We get to see this slice of life from a 100 square foot room in one of the poshest hotels in Russia where Alexander dines in restaurants, gets his weekly cut and shave and makes friends over the years, especially with Nina, a little girl who grows up around the hotel. Nina ultimately asks the Count to watch her daughter, Sophia, while she goes to extricate her husband from prison in Siberia. There are romances, infidels and intrigue throughout Rustov’s time at the hotel, along with Châteauneuf du Pape, a very special wine; we sipped a 2009 one from Bosquet des Papes. It suits this story well because we see the deepening of Count Alexander Rustov’s character over 32 years just as this wine deepens in complexity over time, developing notes of red fruit, leather, rosemary, sage and scrubland. Aerate this wine and allow its story to unfold as you prepare a feast of sausage, lamb, game or chargrilled cauliflower to pair with it. It’s worth taking the time.

When Lillian got a letter out of the blue from her high school friend Madison, she never imagined she’d end up nannying for Madison’s 10-year old step-kids Bessie and Roland, twins who spontaneously combust when emotionally agitated. While the kids aren’t harmed in the process, everything they touch is destroyed. Madison’s husband Jasper has high political aspirations, so Lillian and the kids are relegated to the pool house to keep his image intact while Lillian starts troubleshooting the kids’ affliction. Will Madison and Lillian stay friends or will their employer/employee relationship make that impossible? Troubleshooting like Lillian does with the twins is necessary for wineries as well. Planting at higher altitudes, planting at aspects facing the sun, dry farming, hail cannons and drip irrigation are all problem solving methods vintners use. The Tablas Creek Winery, who produced the 2018 Red Blend we are sampling today, created a 120 acre California farm specializing in Rhone Valley grapes. The winery is at an altitude of 1,000 ft and they are organic and biodynamic, a method employing the assistance of sheep, alpacas, donkeys, owls and bees…how’s that for resourceful wine-making? All that innovation has resulted in an unfined/unfiltered wine with notes of black pepper, dark chocolate, black cherry and soy sauce best enjoyed with a hearty beef meal.

Paul Stewart, a Scottish food writer heads to Tuscany to tame his writer’s block and get re-inspired by Tuscany’s food and wine. What could go wrong? When your rental car company sets you up to take the fall for a car theft, plenty! Paul’s newfound friend from the plane ride sets him up with another rental company, but all they have available is a bulldozer which Paul drives through Tuscany, changing how he sees the countryside and how the people see him. He rescues a fellow author/damsel in distress, Anna, from a ditch and helps a local vintner, Tonio, to relocate his grape vines 500 meters into the 5,200 acre Brunello region, allowing him to charge a premium for his beautiful Rosso wine. Along the way, Paul discovers rustic Tuscan food and a romance he was too close to see. We are sampling a similarly complex 2019 Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona Rosso di Montalcino made from the same grapes as the Brunello in the story, but they are grown outside the 5,200 acre appellation area. This wine is organic and bold, with earthy tannins making it a wine for pairing with red meat or a red sauce like bolognese. There are notes of black cherry, violet, blackberry, tomato and dusty leather. The Ciacci Rosso may not command the high price point of a Brunello, but you may just experience the region like Paul Stewart with an open mind and a curious palate.

What if your entire life’s circumstances pushed against society’s norms and you found yourself willingly becoming a wife one day a week while other women took turns with your husband on other nights? This is the situation Thursday finds herself in with Seth- her given name is also her day as Seth’s wife: Thursday. She talks about Monday and Tuesday as unnamed characters in this plot until she finds a way to meet them by stalking Hanna (Monday) and Regina (Tuesday). When Thursday meets Regina, she meets her match. When mental illness and naked revenge meet, things unravel spectacularly. Your head may spin from all the twists and turns…Quick! pour yourself a lovely glass of 2019 Castelfeder Pinot Grigio from Alto Adige, Italy. The label may be boring but the wine is complex, much like the plot of this novel! With aromas of pears & saline, this wine has apple, pear, and citrus notes, with a slightly bitter finish. Bitterness pairs with Regina’s ploys perfectly.

Widow Astrid Strick and her adult children Elliot, Porter and Nicky figure out together how to grow into who they are while living in the fish bowl of a small town. When Astrid sees Barbara Baker get fatally hit by a school bus, she still carries the anger and shame of a secret (or lie) Barbara told years ago about her son kissing a boy. See the Stricks navigate single parenthood, infidelity, social climbing and adolescent troublemaking as they discover how to be a family. As the town is faced with August, a friend of Nicky’s daughter Cece, literally parading down the street as his alter-ego Robin in a dress, it opens the door for other characters to own who they truly are. This includes the shocking discovery of Birdie and Astrid’s relationship. It may take more than the bottle of wine Birdie brings to a Strick family dinner to sort all this drama out!

Since we are on the subject of wine as a gift, we are cracking open a lovely bottle for sharing; a 2016 Pinot Noir Cuvee de Trois from Joseph Swan with notes of cherry, dark berries, delicate flowers and cola, of all things. If you are looking for a gift, don’t be embarrassed by judging a wine by its cover… labels are often the deciding factor in a wine purchase. Choose a popular pour like Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Malbec, Riesling or Syrah with a winning label in your price range, and you are off to the races! If you are looking to say ‘thank you’ to your host, you can’t go wrong with bubbles… chilled champagne, anyone?

Have you ever wanted a do-over on your life choices? We meet Nora on one of the worst days of her life as she goes to see her childhood librarian, Mrs. Elm, who introduces her to the midnight library where each book contains the life she could have lived if she had made different decisions. Nora doesn’t just read about these lives, she actually lives them until she finds they are wrong for her and she returns to the midnight library with Mrs. Elm. Go along for the ride as she cliff jumps, becomes a celebrity, dates a celebrity, battles a polar bear, becomes a Philosophy professor, wife and mother and runs the Buena Vista Winery with Eduardo. Along the way Nora meets Hugo, who is also a ‘slider’, which means he slides from life to life exploring all the versions of himself he could have been and he helps her understand what is happening and how to navigate it. We discover with Nora and Hugo that our choices change everything and that things we think are all about us (our regrets, our failings) are usually not ours to carry at all. Things often turn out just how they are supposed to. Since the Buena Vista Winery, which Nora runs with Eduardo in one of her lives, grows Syrah in reality, today we are sipping a J.L. Chave, a Northern Rhone Syrah from the Saint Joseph region of France which has been making this variety since 1481. This full-bodied red wine has notes of black fruit, bacon fat, violets, black tea and leather, and it pairs well with BBQ, ribs and lamb. Had Nora chosen to stay at Buena Vista, she certainly would have discovered this pairing.

Imagine being celebrated at an award ceremony at a California winery and having your mom and your boyfriend not show up, only to find out they both died in a plane crash on their way. This is the plight of Natalie Harper, who inherits both her mom’s run-down bookshop and care of her grandfather as a result of the tragedy. It seems all is lost, but the shop’s handyman Pete ‘Peach’ Galloway and his daughter Dorothy keep finding solutions...like Dorothy’s favorite author Trevor Dashwood, who always looks for the flip side in any tough situation, coming to do a book signing in the quaint little shop. The characters all find their way from grieving to thriving along the way to saving the shop. The wine we chose to pair with this lovely story is a 2018 Old Vine Zinfandel from Bedrock Wine Company, as it has notes of ‘Peach’, violets and cherries. This company has another thing in common with the story, they rehabilitated old California vineyards and processes much as Natalie started in a California vineyard before bringing the bookshop back to life.  Learn how grape juice becomes wine, the difference between how yeast and bacteria interact with wine, what viticulture and terroir have to do with your favorite sip and how zinfandel can be both a red and white wine.