Inspiring Thirst: Vintage Selections from the Kermit Lynch Wine Brochure

Though this collection of essays, gleaned from Lynch's wine sales brochures from 1974 to 2003, seems at first glance to be little more than wine propaganda, the industry expert's humorously written descriptions will educate as much as they entertain. Originally written to bolster sales at Lynch's now legendary wine import shop in Berkeley, Calif., the essays reproduced here serve as an easy-to-imbibe master class for aficionados of French wines. And few writers--even Gourmet's venerable wine scribe Gerald Asher--can do as princely a job enlisting mere words to describe wine with such precision. Lynch is just as comfortable articulating the ""resiny rosemary-like fragrance"" of an Auguste Clape Cornas as he is a 1984 Gilbert Alquier Faugeres with a ""deep purple color, complex aroma and a good chewy quality."" And lest readers think that good wine must be expensive, there's the 1997 Madiran, which leaves a ""big, round, powerful impression on the palate"" but not on the wallet. Lynch divides his time between France and California, and the ""wine people"" he profiles on both sides of the Atlantic are one of the collection's greatest discoveries. Of the merry vintners at Chateau de Perron, the author writes: ""Why do I always have the impression that I have interrupted them at play?... And what kind of smile is that on her face? I'd call it mischievous...."" Much wine writing today is infused with a pompous, exclusionary air; not so with Lynch's casual but informative compendium. These witty writings--sometimes sweet and sometimes dry--are a fitting paean to the author's lifelong obsession, and the richly photographed tome should be required reading for devotees of nature's poetry in a bottle.