A vintage collection
By Wine Atlas, Monday 3 April 2006 :: Wine - United-States :: #113 :: rss
Since its founding in 1941, Gourmet magazine has understood that wine is as vital to pleasurable dining as food.
In "History in a Glass: Sixty Years of Wine Writing from Gourmet" (Modern Library, 374 pages, $24.95), Gourmet editor in chief Ruth Reichl shares her 43 favorite wine columns from the magazine -- a mix of eclectic pieces by literary icons and keen analyses by wine experts whose perspectives ring true today.
Reichl, who ran the Swallow restaurant in Berkeley in the 1970s before embarking on a food-writing career that took her to the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Gourmet, writes in her introduction that her favorite wine writer is Frank Schoonmaker, who frequented Gourmet's pages in the 1940s and '50s.
Schoonmaker makes 10 appearances in "History in a Glass," surpassed only by San Franciscan Gerald Asher, with 11. Asher, a former Chronicle columnist and longtime contributing editor at Gourmet, is my favorite among the book's contributors. His thoughtful prose is as elegant as aged Bordeaux; when he writes on Provence, I smell the flowers.
Continue reading: sfgate.com
