Customer Reviews

Inspiring Thirst: Vintage Selections from the Kermit Lynch Wine Brochure

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WOW! What a great book. It came from Amazon yesterday and I can't put it down. Humorous, clever, insightful, educational, entertaining and fun.
This 400 page book of selections from the 1974 to 2003 Kermit Lynch wine brochure rather reminds me of the old Peterman's catalogues. It is full of great wine stories and personalities interspersed with food and travel tips.
Lynch is quite opinionated, but an entertaining writer. I have learned a lot from this book and it has truly changed how I think about wine.

Nearly 20 years ago I had the pleasure of reading Kermit Lynch's first book, "Adventures On the Wine Route." Back then I thought it was by far the best wine-related book I had ever read and my opinion hasn't changed. I would look forward to receiving the monthly Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant newsletters because they were so well-written. I would save them because they were such great reading material, and thought what a good book they would make.

Well, that's just what Mr. Lynch did, turned them into a book. His writings make me thirst for the wines he describes. The thing is, of course he is a salesman since he owns a wine shop, but he backs himself up by importing some mighty good wines. Seeing his name as the importer on a bottle of wine inspires confidence.

Inspiring Thirst is a collection of selections from Mr. Lynch's monthly wine letter and I found it fascinating to follow the journey from its beginnings up to the time the book was published. And also to be in wonderment at how low the prices used to be on such great bottles of wine - unbelievable.

The author definitely has a way with words and leaves no doubt that he loves what he does. The selections in the book, just like every newsletter or brochure he has printed, is a learning experience. It is far from the typical wine shop mailing that screams the point score awarded it by Robert Parker or the Wine Spectator and how limited the production is of that latest boutique find. You will find no point scores in Mr. Lynch's world, nor will you find attempts to stir up a frenzy over the most recent "vintage of the century" that needs to be touted. I love his own "vintage chart" (which happens to be a blank piece of paper). I laughed when it first came in the mail, and laughed upon seeing it again in the book.

This book gets a most enthusiastic thumbs up. Oh, and by the way, while it is a rather expensive book, the quality of the pages and binding (not to mention the reading material itself) make it worth the money.

If you could see me now, you'd notice that I'm just the slightest shade of green. This happens everytime I read a book by Kermit Lynch. No, I'm not ill, just envious. Is it really fair that Kermit was blessed as one of our nation's greatest palates AND one of our greatest writers? And if I ever get a chance to hear his band, I understand I'd be jealous of that too.

I found this, his latest collection of wine missives, difficult to put down. His engaging writing style allowed me to clearly imagine tagging along on each of his European sojourns. I imagined standing next to him in every cellar he described, sitting at every meal he journaled.

If you're anything like me, somewhere in the middle of chapter two or three, you'll begin plotting ways to convince your family a vacation in the French wine country beats Disneyland any day.

Dave Chambers, Wine Merchant
Sideways Wine Club

I quickly became addicted to the Kermit Lynch Newsletters (and wine) after moving to San Francisco in 1999. My stack of collected newsletters was often revisited and rearranged for convenience (ascending, descending, seasonally), and I eventually had to buy those scary extra large sized binder clips to hold them together. I've always regretted the relative lateness of my enlightenment (through Kermit's book (Adventures), store, and newsletters) to unfiltered, properly shipped, traditional, un-chaptalized wine. This book makes that regret even more painful.

I relived that moment when, as a child (hopefully), you discover time did not start with your birth. "What, Trignon was produced before 1998? And I'll never get to taste it? And it cost how much?"

While Inspiring Thirst did show me that the next Vieux Telegraphe is very likely lurking in my binder clipped collection of newsletters for very cheap, one thing I've realized is that just knowing the facts and history behind a wine (as most books give you) does nothing for the experience. A good storyteller is invaluable, and can make seemingly ordinary wines as special as anything the Bruniers have produced.

Order this book, subscribe to the newsletter, and hope they decide to release volume two soon before that binder clip starts to give way.

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!