|
| Wine and words: A perfect pairing Photo from Jupiter Images |
Last week, I spent half an hour on the phone with a book group from Minnesota. Based on the laughter and high spirits I heard on the other end of the line, these fifteen or so women seemed to be having a rollicking good time together.
One explanation may be that they were sampling some of the wines that make appearances in The House of Mondavi – the Charles Shaw brand sold at Trader Joe’s (better known by its nickname of Two-Buck Chuck) and the Robert Mondavi Private Selection. As one of the members quipped, “Sadly, we just couldn’t afford Opus One!”
I was also fascinated to see that the group had just begun a blog called Chapter Chat. I’ve been in a book group now for eight years (it’s the impetus for my reading Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.) What a good idea.
A member of the group wrote me a lovely note afterwards, pointing out some aspects of the Mondavi saga I hadn’t thought about before. Here’s what she had to say:
Hi Julia,
Thank you so much for the chat last night. It was so nice to hear the
insights that only the author could give.
We had a ridiculous amount of wine to sample, and great conversation!
I said early on reading your book, that if I didn’t know it was a
biography I would have thought someone was parodying the Jacob and Esau
story from the Old Testament. Complete with mother trying to get the
birthright to the youngest son instead of the oldest, multiple wives,
dynasties and heartbreak.
We discussed such things as “Is it possible to create something great if
you’re not a perfectionist, like Robert was?”, “Who were our favorite and
least favorite characters?”, and “At what point/s could something have been
done to change the outcome?”
It was terribly sad to me, and I’m sure to you too. Oddly enough, I
thought one of the kindest moments was towards the end of the book, when
Timothy called Michael to give him a heads up, “You’re about to get your ass
handed to you in a sling.” It made me cry to think of the time these
brothers, and the whole family, had wasted fighting one another.
We will keep our eyes peeled for your next book, (and of course would
always serve as test dummies for supplying reading guides etc.)
Thanks again for a lovely evening.
It was my treat too.