I have been part of several book clubs over the past two decades, but I have always wished for a wine-centric book club. Obviously, “book club” is Latin for “wine drinking” so more accurately, I have wanted to have a book club focused on reading wine-related books.
During the recent shutdown, the perfect opportunity to create such a book club presented itself.
I actually bought the Godforsaken Grapes book a while ago but never started reading it until recently. I was familiar with the Robert Parker rant that led to the book’s title, but I was guessing 
that this would be an equally dogmatic rant about the natural wine movement or some such. Fortunately, it was not.
Instead, the book is part travel book and part wine book as the author weaves story after story of either obscure grapes or obscure winegrowing regions. Jason Young is a very gifted storyteller making this book appropriate for wine newbies and certified cork dorks alike. Some fact-checking errors put me off a bit, but it was more than offset by the amount of research and insights that the author put into the final book.
For your book club
We went out to find wines that were related to the weekly reading assignments, which turned out to be tricky in, sadly, many cases. It’s not a perfect reflection of every last wine mentioned in the book, but it’s a start.
Since we already did the work looking up the wines, I’m sharing it with you. Feel free to use this pdf for your own book club discussion and wine-drinking pleasures.
Enjoy!
