What I’m Reading: A Southern Rhône Legend Passes, a DRC Heist, and a New Book on California Wine

The news never stops coming, and keeping up with everything is an impossible task. Regrettably, there are too few hours in a day that one can devote to reading, and though I attempt to stay on top of as much as I can, my stacks of newspapers, magazines, and books are always beckoning (and expanding). There’s wine and food, of course, but there’s so much more, from literature and cinema to essays and profiles. Here’s a look at a few things that caught my eye this week.

Kermit Lynch is one of my favorite wine-world personalities. He’s a legend, and his classic book, Kermit Lynch’s Adventure on the Wine Route – A Wine Buyer’s Tour of France, is a must-have. His Berkeley-based wine store, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, founded 53 years ago, is expanding for the first time. Larkspur, California, is the lucky place. Here are the details.

DRC. Those three letters attract a lot of attention in the world of wine, including the unwanted kind, as Christian Borel, wine director at L’ Auberge Provençale, knows too well. Two miscreants made off with six bottles of wine worth around $42,000 last month after Borel gave them a tour of the cellar at his family’s restaurant. “They’re stealing Romanée-Conti!”

We’ll long remember Emmanuel Reynaud, the man who ascended to the proprietorship of Château Rayas in 1997 upon the death of his uncle Jacques. Reynaud’s wines are southern Rhône luminaries — he was also winemaker at Château des Tours, where his career began, and at Château de Fonsalette — and fetch high prices at auction. Rest in peace, Monsieur Reynaud.

Ste. Michelle Wine Estates has been purchased by a Yakima Valley family for an undisclosed sum. The Wyckoffs now own the state’s “first premium wine company,” which was founded in 1933. A private equity firm was the previous owner of Ste. Michelle; it paid $1.2 billion to Altria Group for the asset in 2021. The Woodinville, Washingon-based property keeps chugging on.

I have fond memories of my first year in New York City, quiveringly alive with excitement and eager to immerse myself in restaurants and music and theater, which I did with abandon. It was a grand time, full of luxury and semi-squalor in equal parts. Robert Sietsema also experienced a memorable headlong affair with the city, albeit years earlier than mine. Here, his Memories of East Village restaurants, circa 1977.

Martin Parr was a great photographer. His work may not suit your sensibilities, but his artistry and eye for exquisite detail are indisputable. He died last week at 73, and man, did he care for people, in all their inglorious excesses and self-delusional foibles. An image-rich life is over.

Elaine Chukan Brown has published a new book, one I look forward to reviewing. Its title is “The Wines of California” and here is Elin McCoy’s take on it.

The life and work of Oliver Sacks have long fascinated me. He was a tortured genius who abused his body and mind, a writer of grace and care whose humanity and love and demons illuminated much about the mind and spirit. Rachel Aviv has written an important article about how the doctor put his self, in all of its complexity, into his case studies.

John Updike, the man and his work, might have fallen out of favor in the literary world, but he’s still in my personal canon. He was a prolific writer, and Penguin Random House recently published “Selected Letters of John Updike,” a 912-page volume sure to please all Updike fans.

I’d be remiss if I did not close this segment of “What I’m Reading” with an appreciation of Tom Stoppard, the world-creating playwright of astounding works including “Arcadia,” “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” and “Leopoldstadt.” The man was physically attractive, possessed a heat-producing intellect, and made a mark on the drama world that puts him in company with the likes of Shakespeare, Beckett, Kushner, Brecht, and O’Neill. Much has been written since his death, which occurred on November 29, and I urge you to read all of the remembrances. Here, Mark Damazer gives us a place to start.