Shop For Inspiring Thirst: Vintage Selections from The Kermit Lynch Wine Brochure

Over All Rating Reviews :

If you're someone who has been buying, cellaring and enjoying wine for a long time, this book is an exercise in time travel not to be missed. It goes without saying that a compendium of Kermit's newsletters going back to 1974 will be chock full of colorful and witty writing, including more clever barbs directed at the Cult of the Point Score, heavily extracted and high alcohol "hedonistic fruit bombs," and a certain Emperor Who Has No Nose than you can shake a corkscrew at.

But the real fun here is seeing offerings like Francois Jobard's 1978 Meursault Genevrieres for $210 a case; or de Villaine's 1979 Aligote de Bouzeron for all of $72.90 a case and his 1991 Bourgogne rouge "La Digoine" for a princely $160 a case; or Raveneau's 1983s, ranging from the Butteaux for $120 a case to Valmur for $210 a case -- sorry, limit of six bottles on that Valmur, my salivating friend. Or howzabout being driven to tears by the listing for 1978 Henri Jayer Echezeaux at $480 a case on release, and the legendary 1978 Richebourg at $70 a bottle, with that pesky six bottle limit. Yes, it will make your heart skip a beat! The one that got away, indeed.

Also of interest is watching as KLWM introduces relatively "unknown" growers to the U.S., sometimes to find said growers becoming superstars and moving on to other (possibly greener?) pastures for distribution in our market -- Messrs. Jayer, de Montille, Dagueneau and Chave spring immediately to mind.

All in all, it's a truly entertaining wine lover's trip down memory lane. And while you may still regret not having snapped up all the '78 Jayer Richebourg you could afford (and cajole KLWM into selling to you) way back when, you no longer have to suffer the loss of all those KLWM newsletters you carelessly tossed out after reading them over the years. Most of them are right here, in one nice, neat, compact volume!

Get more detail about Inspiring Thirst: Vintage Selections from The Kermit Lynch Wine Brochure.