Three Great Book Club Books and Wines for 2022 (pairing books and wine, A Certain Hunger, Luster, In the Dream House, Chianti Rufina, White Cotes-du-Rhone, Zinfandel)

Show Notes

Episode 38: Three Great Book Club Books and Wines for 2022 (book clubs, pairing books and wine, A Certain Hunger, Luster, In the Dream House)  00:00

Hello! And welcome to The Wine Pair Podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and this is my son (what?!?) and my wine pairing partner in crime for today’s episode, Giuseppe! 

That’s right - today I am super excited for this episode because I am being joined by my oldest son - although I still call him my baby even though he isn’t a baby - Giuseppe. We decided we would give Carmela, Giuseppe’s mom, the night off because doing this podcast is a lot of pressure on her. Right?!? No, actually she has had a busy week and so Giuseppe is joining me and we are going to have a ton of fun!  So, while this is not quite the Wine Pair you are used to, it still counts because there are two of us, same family, all that stuff. Amiright?!? 

Are you excited Joey? I should mention that I call him Joey even though his name is Giuseppe. And, yes, Giuseppe is Italian for Joseph, so Joey works. 

And, just to make sure you are all not worried about it, Giuseppe can you verify your age?!? So, he is of legal drinking age and I can verify it because I was there when he was born. Which just makes me kind of old. 

But thank you Joey for joining your old dad. I couldn’t be more thrilled. Do you think I maybe over-prepared for this episode?

Ok, today we are going to do something really fun and I think really compelling. When Joey kindly volunteered to give Carmela that night off, we had to come up with an idea for an episode, and I think you came up with the idea of pairing books and wine, and then we kind of morphed it to focusing on book clubs. Is that how you recall it? 

And, so thinking about what books would be great to read in a book club, and what wines would be great to pair with those wines just feels like a really fun idea, and something perfect for this podcast, and perfect for you and me. So, we have three books and three wines and we are going to talk a little bit about why we chose those books and chose the wines to go with them -  - and then we are going to taste and review the three wines. We will not taste the books. Cause that would be weird. 

And, as a quick orientation for those of you who may be new to the podcast, that is what we do in each episode - we taste and review three wines that are reasonably priced - meaning under $20 - and that should be easy to find, in a local store or online in the hopes of helping you find some wines you may like or want to try. And today, we are combining that wine discovery with some books that just seem like brilliant, compelling, and interesting reads, and particularly good for book clubs. 

Now on the subject of book clubs, things may have changed since COVID, but according to an article I found on the interwebs, in 2020, about 5 million Americans got together regularly, sometimes in person or and sometimes virtually, to talk about a book they decided to read as a group. (Most book clubs are on the small side, usually made up of ten or fewer people.)

I kind of think that if book clubs lost some of their normal rhythm when COVID hit and people couldn’t get together, they are going to come back in full force as people jones for some together time, and time to share laughs and thoughts and ideas and wines. Don’t you think?

And, getting together to talk, drink, and eat, which is what people do in book clubs, is something that we humans have been doing since before there were things like books or movies. Sitting around and talking about ideas is just part of what we do. 

And that is what we are going to do today - talk about some books and drink some wine. And like I mentioned, this is great for the two of us because we are both linked to books and reading. I was an English major in college and taught high school English for several years, and you just graduated a few years ago with a degree in theater, and as part of that, I know you read a ton of plays, and you are still a prolific reader, aren’t you?

What we want to do in this episode is introduce you to three intriguing books, and then talk about and taste and review three just as intriguing wines to go with the books that complement the books. As much as we know the books we chose have great stories to tell, the wines should have great stories to tell, and be fun conversation pieces for your book club, too. I think it will be really fun to have books and wines that you can make part of the evening and part of the conversation. 

So, I am super excited to talk about these books and these wines . . . 

But first . . . we have to do our shameless plug, right Giuseppe? If you like what you are hearing, we would love for you to subscribe to our podcast, and we would also really appreciate it if you would leave us an awesome a rating and review so that people who may stumble upon us will tune in to our podcast. 

If you want to reach out to us with ideas, or thoughts, or just to talk - you can DM us on Instagram at thewinepairpodcast or contact us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com.

And, as we do every week, we’ll tell you someone we think you should tell about The Wine Pair Podcast, and this week we would like you to tell the person at your local bookstore for  few reasons. First, you should be going to local book stores whenever you can because they need the support! Second, I kind of think that people who work at local bookstores probably would like the podcast, for reals. 

ARTICLES

• https://bookriot.com/a-history-of-book-clubs/#:~:text=In%20the%20general%20population%2C%20book,of%20ten%20or%20fewer%20members. 
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/my-pandemic-book-club-changed-the-way-i-think-about-literature--and-community/2022/01/04/1695a34e-6cd5-11ec-b9fc-b394d592a7a6_story.html 

Topic: Three Great Book Club Books for 2022: A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G Summers, Luster by Raven Leilani, and In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado  09:43

Just to give our listeners a little background on Giuseppe, not only is he an avid reader, he is really good about finding books that are great gifts for people on things like birthdays and holidays, and I have to say your choices have been solid. You mom in particular has always really liked the books you have chosen, and I don’t think they are books she would have selected without your guidance. Which to me is a little bit about how I feel like I try to pick wines - try to find something that fits the situation or the food, but that may not be a totally obvious choice. Why do you like giving books and how what do you think about when you are choosing books for people?

So let’s talk a little bit about the books you chose today, so we can understand what criteria you used to select your books. First let’s dig into the criteria. 

Is this different than the way you would choose books for yourself?

And now tell me a little about these books you chose and what makes them compelling and maybe good books to read and discuss with others in a book club. 

Books we selected for your book club:

• A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G Summers
• Luster by Raven Leilani
• In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

ARTICLES

• https://www.heyalma.com/chelsea-g-summers-gives-us-the-literary-female-psychopath-weve-been-waiting-for/ 
• https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/71146734-luster#:~:text=Instead%20I%20let%20myself%20be,command%20of%20the%20wine%20list.%E2%80%9D 
• https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/carmen-maria-machado-memoir-review-dream-house.html 

Three Great Book Club Wines for 2022 We Chose for This Episode 20:24

So, these three books were really fun to figure out what wines to pair with them. Again, for me it was kind of like pairing food and wine. . . I wanted to make connections that were clearly related to the books, but go a step further so that they are conversation pieces for your Book Club as well. Again, to us it just seems that the wine and the books should both be fun things to discuss.

The first book and wine pairing to me was the easiest - and that is the pairing with A Certain Hunger. In the book, the narrator, who is a food critic, seems to have a strong appetite, if you will, for Italian men, and therefore Italian food and so the wine of choice for me had to be Italian, which is also kind of fun because we are of Italian American heritage, and we drink a lot of Italian wine, but haven’t done a ton of it so far on the podcast.

There is an interview with the author that is really good, and here is a quote from her: "In 2011, my job sent me to live in Italy, and a friend remarked that now I could write my own version of Eat, Pray, Love. “Yeah,” I said, “only I’ll write Love, Prey, Eat, the chick-lit zombie book that no one ever asked for.”

With the Italian food dishes she serves, the kind of Italian wine was an interesting puzzle. Now, the obvious choices are either going to be a Sangiovese wine or a Nebbiolo wine, but I wanted to see if we could choose something just a little bit off the beaten path - but still easy to find and reasonably priced - so I chose Chianti Rufina. Now Chianti itself is a food wine - like a lot of Italian wines, there is a lot of acidity which makes them perfect for food. In Italy, wine is considered the 5th food group. I find Chianti Rufina a little bit richer and deeper than a Chianti Classico, and so really good with the foods that the narrator talks about - like red meat roasts - and so this felt like a great fit. The wine even looks like a blood. If you are going to serve this wine, I would definitely serve it with food - charcuterie with cured meats is perfect. And, the tie in with Hannibal Lector from The Silence of the Lambs is obvious.

The second book, Luster, and wine pairing are definitely tied together, but I wanted to do a little twist on the wine choice because there are a number of twists and bends that go on in the book Luster. In the book, there is a quote that comes up a lot in reviews: “He is the most obvious thing that has ever happened to me, and all around the city it is happening to other silly, half-formed women excited by men who’ve simply met the prerequisite of living a little more life, . . .  And at the end of the quote she says: Instead I let myself be awed by his middling command of the wine list.”

The wine list quote cracked me up, and I can totally see this pretentious middle aged man trying to impress a young woman by talking about his knowledge of the wine list. At one point in the book the narrator mentions that he had ordered a Cotes-du-Rhone. Although it never says it in the book, I am almost sure he would have ordered a red Cotes-du-Rhone, a classic GSM blend, and so I purposely chose a white Cotes-du-Rhone wine, for a few reasons.

First, I wanted to make sure we had a white wine on the list today. It just felt weird to do a book club episode with all red wines. Second, it felt more interesting to bend the expectations of this character by having him choose a white Cotes-du-Rhone. And third, as a conversation piece in your Book Club, it seemed fun to do a white wine that is both unique and uncommon. White wines make up only about 10% of the production in Cotes-du-Rhone, and there are different styles of white Cotes-du-Rhone depending on where the wine is from - the north or the south of the region. The wines tend to be complex, with fruit notes and also what they call vegetal notes (which can be off-putting) and even smoky and spicy notes, so there can be a lot going on and so this felt like a fun wine to bring to a Book Club that you could talk about as well, and see if it complements the characters at wll.

The final wine was the hardest to choose, but I think we have a winner. In the book In the Dream House, near the end there is a chapter called Dream House as Ending, and the author says this: Should I loop back to a memory from the Dream House? A lovely one? Will that work, a between what could have been and what was? A memory of the two of us freshly returned from a local winery, sipping on a spicy Zinfandel and eating some kind of feta dip and telling a story?”

So, to me, the link is obvious and clear. You read this book in your Book Club, and you serve Zinfandel with feta dip. That one is a slam dunk. But Zinfandel is also an interesting choice for a few reasons - it is spicy, it can be drunk young, but it is also a big bodied, highly tannic wine without a lot of acidity that has great flavor and goes great with food. To me, it is a crowd pleasing red that doesn’t get enough credit, but you have to choose carefully - because sometimes it can come across as very racy and hot - with too much alcohol, because it is a high alcohol wine. Well crafted Zin is smooth, juicy, and delicious. Sort of like relationships - you have to choose carefully, or you can end up with a hot, racy, but difficult wine, or you can have a delicious, juicy, nuanced wine. Which sounds fun for a book club event.

And, the specific wine we chose to pair with this book - the Michael Lavelle Zinfandel - describes itself this way, which feels like a perfect fit, a great conversation piece: The Iris Zinfandel is intentionally mysterious and cerebral. You can’t quite pin down what's happening, but you want it to keep happening.

As we have been saying, the wine should be a part of the conversation, too, and this wine with its pretty bottle and interesting story - it is a black owned wine brand - is a great choice. 

Ok, enough with this jibber jabber - I think it’s time to drink some wine!

ARTICLES AND LINKS

• https://www.decanter.com/learn/what-is-chianti-rufina-ask-decanter-395196/
• https://www.bonappetit.com/story/a-certain-hunger-chelsea-g-summers 
• https://www.winemag.com/2022/05/04/rhone-valley-white-wine-guide/
• https://books.google.com/books?id=9AGxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT23&lpg=PT23&dq=what+wine+did+eric+drink+in+the+novel+luster&source=bl&ots=Y7PT-VmMOF&sig=ACfU3U1_IeXlohx6r7jvJhd4JPb1nYFD8w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjtpv6z0v74AhUIHDQIHWJ4Bx8Q6AF6BAgxEAM#v=onepage&q=what%20wine%20did%20eric%20drink%20in%20the%20novel%20luster&f=false 
• https://sipmichaellavelle.com/collections/wine/products/2018-iris-zinfandel
• https://www.grapex.com/national-portfolio/fattoria-di-basciano/fattoria-di-basciano-chianti-rufina/ 
• https://www.providencejournal.com/story/lifestyle/food/2018/04/14/time-for-wine-zinfandel-is-working-through-its-identity-crisis/12703508007/ 

Chianti Rufina, Cotes-du-Rhone Blanc, and Zinfandel book and wine pairing tasting and review 27:00

Wine: Fattoria di Basciano Chianti Rufina
Region: Italy, Tuscany
Producer: Fattoria Basciano
Year: 2018
Price: $15.00
Retailer: Invino
Alcohol: 13.5%
Grapes: 95% Sangiovese, 5% Colorino
Professional Rating: 90 Wine Spectator
Book we are pairing with this wine: A Certain Hunger by Chelsea Summers

What we tasted and smelled in this Chianti Rufina: Leather, cured meat, umami, black cherry, grape juice, tar, tobacco, wood, black pepper, cinnamon. Chewy. Rich. Blood red color goes great with the book. Good choice for Cabernet lovers?
Food to pair with this Chianti Rufina: Pasta with red sauce, eggplant parmigiana, ragu sauce, stewed meats, charcuterie board, hamburger, pizza. 

As a reminder on our rating scale, we rate on a scale of 1-10, where 7 and above means that we would buy it, and 4 and below means that we are likely to pour it down the sink, and in-between we are likely to drink it and finish it, but we are probably not going to buy it. 

Rating for Fattoria di Basciano Chianti Rufina: 

• Joe: 8/10
• Giuseppe: 7/10

Wine: Pierre Henri Morel Laudun Côtes-du-Rhone Villages - a White Cotes-du-Rhone
Region: France, Rhone
Producer: Pierre Henri Morel
Year: 2021
Price: $12.79 (member discount)
Retailer: Total wine
Alcohol: 14%
Grapes: Grenache Blanc, Clairette, Bourboulenc
Book we are pairing with this wine: Luster by Raven Leilani

What we tasted and smelled in this White Cotes-du-Rhone: Ice, urine, french fries, apple, pineapple, tropical fruit, citrus, reminiscent of Sauvignon Blanc, apple cider, Red Delicious apple, ripe banana, Capri Sun, hints of tea at the end. Summer vibe.
Food to pair with this White Cotes-du-Rhone: Summer salads, salads with fruit and nuts in them. Eating outside in the summer sun.

Rating for Pierre Henri Morel Laudun Côtes-du-Rhone Villages: 

• Joe: 7/10
• Giuseppe:  6/10

Wine: Michael Lavelle Iris Zinfandel
Region: California, Lodi
Producer: Michael Lavelle
Year: 2018
Price: $23.00
Retailer: Website (https://sipmichaellavelle.com/)
Alcohol: 14.2%
Grapes: Zinfandel
Book we are pairing with this wine: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

What we tasted and smelled in this Zinfandel: Fire, smoke, gunpowder, cabinet, wood, incense, cedar, spicy, paprika, plum, black cherry, black licorice, pepper, cayenne. Complex wine.
Food to pair with this Zinfandel: Puttanesca, spicy foods, pizza with red pepper flakes, Italian dishes.

Rating for Michael Lavelle Iris Zinfandel: 

• Joe: 8/10
• Giuseppe: 9/10

Which one of these are you finishing tonight?

• Giuseppe: Michael Lavelle Iris Zinfandel
• Joe: Fattoria di Basciano Chianti Rufina

Taste profiles expected from Chianti Rufina, White Cotes-du-Rhone, and Zinfandel:  47:48

• Chianti Rufina taste profile
  • Cherry, roasted tomato, sweet balsamic, oregano, espresso
  • Red currant, raspberry, fig, dried flowers, leather, woodsmoke, tobacco, clove, cinnamon, clay pot, cured meat
  • Review of this wine: Berry, cherry and violet aromas and flavors
• White Cotes-du-Rhone taste profile
  • Jeb Dunnuck on this wine (2018 version) white peach, tangerine, and floral notes as well as a kiss of pineapple
  • Melon, pear, peach, white blossoms, lemon rinds, spicy, white pepper, fennel, licorice, saline
• Zinfandel taste profile
  • Blackberry, strawberry, peach preserves, cinnamon, sweet tobacco
  • Lodi: Raspberry jam, peach preserves, blackberry bramble, hickory, star anise
  • From website: Aroma: Complex Aromatics with lush blueberry, Black currant, boysenberry and figs for fruit alongside notes of dark chocolate, vanilla & cinnamon Palate: On the front of the palate reveals ripe raspberry, red cherry and madagascar vanilla bean. The mid-palate features continued fruit with subtle savory elements of autumn leaf, and cedar with rounded, plush tannins that extend into a long finish featuring black cherry, blackberry and cocoa nips notes.

Outro and how to find The Wine Pair Podcast 50:50

As always, thank you so very much for listening to us, The Wine Pair, and you know, while you’re thinking about it, we think you should subscribe and give us a nice rating! 

We would also love to hear from you. Please reach out to us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com, you can email us at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com, you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter, and we would be so happy if you DM’ed us and told us what you think, if you have ideas for future episodes or wines you are curious about or wine styles you are interested in or ways of growing wines you are curious about! And, we hope you tell your friends and family and loved ones and your mom and everyone who ever said anything nice to you about us!

Thanks for listening to the Wine Pair podcast, and we will see you next time. And, as we say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine