Jay McInerney Coming to Music Hall

On Thursday, November 29, The Music Hall’s Writers in the Loft series welcomes wine expert and novelist Jay McInerney.  The Wall Street Journal wine columnist, and author of such generation-defining books as  BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY and RANSOM, comes to town with THE JUICE: Vinous Veritas, his newest collection of wine essays. 

The 7 p.m. event will be held at The Music Hall Loft located at 131 Congress St., Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

The guest moderator for the evening will be Jude Blake, a local wine connoisseur and educator who is a close friend, neighbor, and supporter of The Music Hall. Said Ms. Blake, “We are so very fortunate to have these ‘writers’ programs  in our own downtown arts center.  In addition to the discussion and question and answer session with Jay McInerney about The Juice, I’m particularly excited to be working with The Music Hall on wines for the evening. We’ll have some of the author’s wine selections available for tasting and discussion.  Now that is what I call bringing a book totally to life!”

ABOUT THE BOOK

This new collection of essays by the acclaimed novelist—and, according to Salon, “the best wine writer in America”—is generous and far-reaching, deeply knowledgeable, and often hilarious. 

For more than a decade, Jay McInerney’s vinous essays, now featured in The Wall Street Journal, have been praised by restaurateurs (“Filled with small courses and surprising and exotic flavors, educational and delicious at the same time” —Mario Batali), by esteemed critics (“Brilliant, witty, comical, and often shamelessly candid and provocative” —Robert M. Parker Jr.), and by the media (“His wine judgments are sound, his anecdotes witty, and his literary references impeccable” —The New York Times).

Here McInerney provides a master class in the almost infinite varieties of wine and the people and places that produce it all the world over, from the historic past to the often-confusing present. From such legendary châteaus as Margaux and Latour and Palmer to vineyards in Australia and New Zealand and South Africa, to new contenders in Santa Rita Hills and Paso Robles, we learn about terroir  and biodynamic viticulture, what Champagnes are affordable (or decidedly not), even what to drink over thirty-seven courses at Ferran Adrià's El Bulli—in all, an array of grapes and wine styles that is comprehensive and thirst inducing.

And conspicuous throughout is McInerney’s trademark flair and expertise, which in 2006 prompted the James Beard Foundation to grant him the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR and MODERATOR

Jay McInerney writes a wine column for The Wall Street Journal and is a regular contributor to The Guardian and Corriere della Sera. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, Granta, and The Paris Review.  In 2006, Time cited Bright Lights, Big City as one of nine generation-defining novels of the twentieth century, and The Good Life received the Prix Littéraire at the Deauville Film Festival in 2007. How It Ended:  New and Collected Stories (2009) “reminds us,” Sam Tanenhaus wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “how impressively broad McInerney's scope has been and how confidently he has ranged across wide swaths of our national experience.”

The evening’s moderator, Jude Blake, had the good fortune to grow up in a family where good wine and conversation about it regularly graced the family dinner table.  A former corporate marketing executive in the food and beverage industry, Jude has also served on the board of directors of a prominent Napa Valley winery and a global wine import company.  Jude now pursues her wine passion as a wine educator, collector, and aficionado of ‘the juice.’

Submitted by Kathleen Soldati, director of marketing, The Music Hall, Portsmouth