Natalie MacLean Interview,
Red, White & Drunk All Over,
Toronto: September 2006,
Gremolata Number 90.

Natalie MacLean Interview
By Malcolm Jolley

Natalie MacLean’s Red, White and Drunk All Over has already elicited praise from wine and food world luminaries like Hugh Johnson, Kermit Lynch and Michael Ruhlman, and closer to home fans like Jamie Kennedy, James Chatto and John Szabo. In other words, her book is a very big deal this season and I caught up with the multiple James Beard Award Winner and Ottawa native to talk about the chronicle that takes her across the world and into the parlours and caves of some of the most interesting people connected to wine.

THE INTERVIEW

Gremolata: This is a very personal book. Was that on purpose or did it just work out that way?

Natalie MacLean: Well, that's just kind of the way I write. I like first person narrative, not because of any grandiose sense of vanity, but I find that more of me goes onto the page when I'm talking personally. Then, in turn, I find that readers have always resonated more with the personal stories. So, I can write about the things to keep in mind when ordering off of a restaurant wine list, but when I write about the night I tried to work as sommelier, people like that more. It's an adventure: you still learn about wine, but it's mixed into the story. There are people involved, and some drama, and will it work out? I just think that's a more interesting way to write.

G: So what happened when you worked as a sommelier?

NM: [Laughs.] Well, I worked at a five star restaurant in Quebec, Le Baccarat. It's in one of the casinos - they often have very good, high end restaurants.

G: To reward the high rollers, or take back their winnings!

NM: Right! So, they all wear tuxedos there...

G: How's your French?

NM: Tres mauvais, and with a Cape Breton accent, so it's no good. So I served the English speaking customers. Anyway, I got all dressed up in what looked like an undertaker's suit, and shadowed the real sommelier around for half the night. Then, at about eight o’clock I started working on my own. And I was serving very expensive wine. The bottles on their list range from the 'cheap' at $50 to $70 all the way to $10,000.

G: This what they call a "trophy cellar"?

NM: It is. There's something like 16,000 bottles.

So I'm handed the wine list, which has 400 bottles on it and they're mostly French, which is not my expertise, and I'm sent out to talk about them. Fortunately I had a fair amount of people who knew what they wanted. But I did have quite a few who asked me questions, and it was fun! I loved the interaction. It was like live theatre: very exciting. Of course, at one point, I managed to dribble red wine all over the white table cloth.

G: Ouch.

NM: So embarrassing. She didn't call over the Maitre d' but this woman was not impressed to see her cult Californian Cabernet miss the glass. But that was the worst. There were other odd things, like trying to pour from a height. When you're standing up it's hard to tell if you're pouring all the glasses at an equal level. I had to squat down. [MacLean bends down.] I had to go like this to make sure. It wasn't very dignified. I looked like a golfer inspecting the green. But I made sure everyone got the same amount of wine, and it was good fun.

I was really a way to talk about good wine service and how to choose from a restaurant list without getting really, really boring.

G: And what are those things?

NM: Well, they're integrated, but let’s talk about picking a wine from a list first. In a restaurant where there is a sommelier, or a "wine gal", or "wine dude", as they're sometimes called...

G: Sounds like California.

NM: Yeah, it's all very casual these days. But even if there's no one with that title, just say, "can I chat with the person who made up this list?" Just see if you can get some help. You know, I'm a wine writer, but sometimes there's no one who knows that list better than the person who made it: what's drinking well, and all that kind of stuff.

A lot of people are intimidated asking for help because they don't want to look stupid and that sort of thing. But you can ask in a different way. Instead of saying, "Could you suggest a red wine?" you could say, “We really like full bodied Aussie wines." And you can be quietly pointing at the wines in your price range at the same time. You don't have to declare how much you want to spend!

G: Price: that's always so awkward.

NM: Well, how much are you willing to pay for love? Or a business deal? [Laughs.] But seriously, a good sommelier will ask you what you're eating and they'll try and match. Or you can suggest it up front: "We're all having meat dishes tonight." There's a way of getting past your fear or anxiety of feeling stupid for asking for help. And this works in a wine store, too. Just think of a few questions that narrow it down.

Now, if there's no one who can really help you and you're on your own with a list, there are some good values these days worth looking for. Of course it depends on what you like. I'm a big fan of Canadian wines and I think they're some of the best values at the liquor store or on a wine list. So if I didn't recognise anything, but there were a bunch of Niagara's, that's where I'd go. Other wines that offer good value are Aussie Shirazes, or Chilean Cabernets. It also depends on what kind of budget you're dealing with. They do say you shouldn't pick the cheapest wine on the list. That it's probably just there as a whatever you call it. Everybody goes to the third cheapest one, when they don't want to spend a lot of money. But that one was probably the cheapest one last week, so... Anyway, that's kind of it: ask for help, know what you like, what you want to eat and what you want to pay.

G: What about service? What's good service?

NM: The server should be very helpful and they should guide the conversation. You really shouldn’t have to even ask those questions I just talked about. And when they come back with the bottle, it should always be presented. That’s not a pretension, that's just making sure you get the wine that you ordered. That there hasn't been any sort of bait and switch going on, or if it's a different vintage or vineyard. And when they show the bottle, they should also repeat you what you ordered: "Here's the 1992 Château Something or Other, X Vineyard." that's just another check to make sure you're getting what you wanted.

You should always be able to sample, to taste. Again, that's not a pretension, that's just making sure that bottle isn't off. That's something I write about at the end of the sommelier chapter. There was an instance in France where I was served a bottle of wine that was corked. I was alone, travelling for work - so, I was already a loser for sitting by myself. Then, I wanted to move because the next table was smoking. So the sommelier already didn't like me very much.

G: And the assumption in France is that you're lucky to even be served.

NM: Oh yeah. Plus you're a woman alone.

G: Right.

NM: And he doesn't know I'm a wine writer. I don't announce that because I don't like froufrou treatment. But the wine is corked. Now, I don't reject bottles very often, in fact I hadn't for a very long time, so my strategy was to be very quiet about it and say, "Could you try this? I think it's off." Of course, he marches it off to the middle of the room, tries it dramatically, comes back and claims it's fine!

So I kept drinking it a little bit. I was celebrating - it was actually my birthday...

G: No! That's awful!

NM: Yeah, and I was drinking a very expensive wine, that was corked. So, first I got angry, then I got upset. You know I can really empathise with people who have a hard time with wine service because by the time I had enough of this and asked for the manager I just burst into tears. People have told me that they find it hard to believe that this could happen to me: "you're a wine writer!" But you know, sometimes choosing a wine and then rejecting it comprises the full arc of a Greek tragedy: there's the shame, the embarrassment... anyway it ended up happily that night, but it can be tough.

This is actually an important point: you can send it back. And not just if it's corked or off. You have to ask yourself, do you like it? This is part of the pricing. And especially if the sommelier has recommended it and you get the wine and you don't like it, then you have the right to send it back. That option, that insurance clause - whatever you want to call it - is in the pricing. They should expect people to send wine back. Yet, even though they say between five and ten percent of bottles are corked, less than one percent of wines ordered are ever sent back, according to the sommeliers I've talked to.

G: I know that before I became seriously interested in wine, I suffered through more than one corked bottle and thought to myself, I don't think I like this wine very much.

NM: Right. Lots of notes of mouldy boxes. It's one of those social hang-ups. Ordering wine is a social hang-up, but sending it back is even worse.

G: Well, you don't want to be difficult. Especially if you're Canadian. But that's a good pint, that the return is factored into the glass. And I guess they can offer the bottle by the glass, if you just don't like it.

NM: That's right, if the wine is technically fine, but really not to your taste, they can offer what's in the bottle by the glass.

G: I'm glad you brought up France. I loved the first chapter where you go the great houses of Burgundy - talk about being intimidated! I wondered if you didn't write the book just so you go and taste Domain Romanée Conti!

NM: Well, I was going to start the book in California, but then I realised there'd be a lot left unexplained if we didn't start with the Old World. The benchmark wines are either Burgundy or Bordeaux, and I did go to Bordeaux, but I began with Burgundy because it’s a hard wine to understand and a region that is very complex. It was good place to write about how wine is grown, then we moved to the New World to talk a bit more on how it's made. And Pinot Noir is a personal favourite, so it came kind of naturally.

G: I liked your treatment of biodynamism - biodynamic wines. You seem sceptical but admit the product is often superior.

NM: Yeah. It is very strange, but it also has some sound principles concerning the effects of nature and the cycles of the Earth. And I do think we've gotten away from that, so it's good to get back to it, even if it does have a bit of witchcraft attached to it. I mean, some of the practices are pretty strange, burying bull's horns and things like that, but they all do have rationales behind them. I don't think it's so kooky to go with the moon cycles, anyway. And it's a good thing for what it's doing for wine, organic and biodynamic growing. It's about giving back to the soil and not about making wine for the marketing department. And some wines are these days: they're sprouting right from page three of the marketing plan.

G: I'm always suspicious when it looks like they spent more money printing the label than making the wine.

NM: I went through a stage where if it was a really beautiful label, then I didn't buy the wine. But then I started drinking really bad wines with ugly labels, so...

G: Where do you fall in the New World versus Old World debate?

NM: Personal preferences? I think I'm bridging the gap. I love Pinot Noir, but I love it from Burgundy, Oregon, the cool regions of California, from Canada (both regions: Niagara and the Okanagan), and especially New Zealand. So, I have a bit of a fixation on one grape. There's just nothing like a Burgundy, with its Old World earthiness, mushroom, fall burning leaves and all that stuff. Then, there's something completely different in a Pinot Noir from New Zealand, but the melody line is the same between them.

G: Red, White and Drunk All Over book touches on the Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson feud, with Hugh Johnson wading in and all that.

NM: It was great timing for my book! Actually, it was very interesting because I had done a couple of profiles of Robert Parker and had a long recorded interview, and then I also interviewed Jancis by phone. Hugh Johnson I quoted from his recent autobiography, because I did want him to weigh in briefly, thought the chapter is really about Parker and Robinson, so I didn't want too many voices there.

The feud really crystallizes the debate about what wine is about. The two of them are really at odds - more than odds - over a single bottle of wine: the 2003 Château Pavie from St. Emillion. Jancis gave it 12 out of 20 and called it a 'portly-sweet late harvest Zinfandel', or something like that. Not very nice. And Robert Parker said it was made by perfectionists and probably one of the best examples of the 2003 from the right bank and gave it a score somewhere between 96 and 100. Then it seemed like all the critics on either side of the Atlantic started lining up behind either Parker or Jancis according to where they lived. So we started to see some real palate differences, real differences in what wine should be. There's a whole debate going on now in the wine world where some are saying that alcohol is too high, the extraction is too high, that Parker has had too much influence, that wine makers are Parkerizing their wines to suit his palate. And then, now, there are other studies coming out that counter all of this. But, what I thought the feud did was really set-up the opposing poles on the views about wine and that was interesting. Of course, the debate turned into personal attacks, accusations about blind tastings and other things that got into the headlines. But, I thought, the other really valuable thing about it was that it showed how much we care about what wine is and where it's going. I can't imagine having this debate over different vodkas, or orange juice or anything like that. I think that's a good thing, it keeps wine alive.

G: This is a literary book. There are all kinds of references to the great canon of Western literature, and also classic food writers and wine writers. Who do you love to read on food and wine?

NM: I have unbound admiration for M.F.K. Fisher. I love Dorothy Parker, just for her wit and how much she liked to drink! She was a tough broad. And I love Collette. For her sensuality, but also because she came from Burgundy, her family were wine makers.

G: I didn't know that.

NM: Yeah, she wrote a little bit about wine. Her mother talks about her "rosy cheeks, showing the vineyards of France" because they were giving her wine as a kid... From Canada, I love James Chatto, John Allemang in The Globe. Jeffrey Steingarten for his wit, and Alan Richman in the States. Gina Mallet, a lovely food writer - so elegant. It's an endless list.

G: You know, I like that you're very upfront in this book, and in your newsletters, about the fact that wine has alcohol and if you drink enough of it you'll get drunk. I mean, that's a real taboo. Wine is supposed to be this ethereal thing, not some base Earthly pleasure.

NM: It is especially taboo for a wine writer to admit that he or she likes the buzz. But wine is a full sensory experience. It's not just tasting notes.

G: I think you enjoyed writing this book.

NM: It's been a real ride. I'm so glad I did it. It let me dig deeper than the writing I've done for magazines and newspapers. And I got to meet so many more people. This business, or industry, or whatever it is, is so full of charismatic, obsessive, passionate people. You know, I think what I'm really trying to do is use wine as a way into people's lives. You want to learn about wine in a wine book, of course. But I think you also want to learn about people and adventure and drama and feel some connection. Even though you may never meet any of these people, you share that passion for wine. And it's kind of neat to know what's going on all over the globe.

MORE NATALIE ONLINE:
www.NatalieMacLean.com
Gremolata 013: Natalie MacLean

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