I’ve just finished The Accidental Connoisseur, by Lawrence Osbourne (Chapters, Amazon). It is a delightful read and heartily recommended both to pros who are interested in knowing more about the personalities he encounters, and neophytes who are just interested in knowing more.

Osbourne’s writing style is delicious. I don’t know if it’s his British birth or some particularly noteworthy American education, but he slings words like nobody’s business, and tasty words at that. His prose is charming and elegant, without being heavy, as one might imagine a book about wine could easily become. The reason to read it, though, is not just the writing.

The thing, I think, that makes this book such a joy is that while Osbourne is clearly interested enough in wine to set off around the world visiting wineries and their winemakers, he approaches it as an eager novice, fully aware of his own uninitiated status. The book is ostensibly about his quest to find and develop his own taste, but this is often little more than a frame story to tie together the brilliant character sketches of the vignerons of California, then France, then Italy. He approaches every encounter with an awkwardness that is disarming for those worried the book will be over their head, but he is really quite insightful and sensitive to the particular fetishes and pains of each of his tour guides.

If one is compelled to balance praise with criticism, there is some, not much, but some to be found. A new reader might be a touch dazzled by the hard to pronounce place names, varietal names, brand names, and people names all of which, especially in foreign languages, tend to blur together. Fear not though, this level of detail is not important unless you’re a student thereof, and whenever he really needs you to remember
a person, place or thing he gives you ample reminders. Another strike, and this perhaps of particular note to the readers here, is that outside of France, Italy and California, there is a passing mention of Australia, and maybe an innuendo about Chile, and that is all. Still, if Canada is to be realistic about its place in the wine world, it ought to admit that it has a long way to go and that when a writer is plumbing the depths of world wine tradition, the VQA is not his first phone call.

Overall these omissions do little to mar a book (which never claimed to be a complete survey in any event) which is otherwise in almost all ways delightful. Cheers to a book about wine that manages to be engaging, entertaining, personable, and to restrict its use of tasting notes to a bare, civil minimum. Recommended.