Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much - Softcover

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Natalie MacLean, named the World’s Best Drinks Writer, has also won four James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards. She’s the bestselling author of Red, White, and Drunk All Over and hosts the New York Times recommended podcast Unreserved Wine Talk. Natalie lives in Ottawa.

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Boil and Bubble

I wake to the smell of burning. Heat runs up and down my body. My tongue feels like sandpaper. Why are my eyes glued shut?

Ahhh. Last night.

It started with two glasses of champagne to kick off dinner, then three (four?) glasses of pinot noir. The real culprit must have been that glass (okay, two) of port.

My family passed the decanter around the table clockwise to symbolize the passing of time with the ones you love. A beautiful ritual binding us together. Now all that booze is splitting my head in two. The little drummer boy starts pounding on my cerebral cortex.

Wait.

That’s not burning, it’s smoked bacon.

My eyelids creak as I pry them open.

Notes of Andy Williams singing “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” drift up the stairs to my bedroom. I tune in to the sounds and aromas of morning happiness.

It’s ten days to Christmas 2012, and somehow I’ve made it to the end of the year from hell, not just intact but … could it be? … yes, happy. The thought makes me spring out of bed, which I now regret, and sit back down.

Why doesn’t Andy just shut up about jingle belling? He’s clanging against the other soundtrack in my head: I’m queasy, queasy like Sunday morning.

Damn. Why did I drink so much?

Hey, it’s December 15, and everyone celebrates a little more than usual during the festive season. Why shouldn’t I?

I ease off the bed, wash my face, and brush my tangled seaweed hair before inching downstairs.

“Good morning, princess,” my boyfriend, Daniel, says as I enter the kitchen.

I wince, but not at his pet name for me, as it comes from a good place. This hangover doesn’t.

He smiles and flips the bacon. Daniel is Prince Charming in my fairy tale, with curly brown hair and a football-quarterback build.

He loves to cook and he even cleans up afterward. I affectionately call him my Cinderfella.

Mom sits at the kitchen island with my fourteen-year-old son, Cameron, playing crazy eights. She’s come up from Nova Scotia to stay with us for the holidays.

“Oh, you rascal, you,” she says, as Cameron makes her pick up six cards. She looks at me from behind her steel-rimmed glasses and nods. My family’s warmth eases the pain in my head. All the heartbreak, depression, and anxiety at the beginning of this year seem to fade with the closing credits of 2012. I’ve survived the separation, found love, and I’m still writing. My life has somehow magically come back together.

There are just fifteen hours left before my world implodes.

“I’m making rosemary chicken with roasted artichoke for dinner,” Daniel says. “Got a wine for that?”
“Not yet, but I will.” Sure, I have a cellar, but I love seeing what’s new on store shelves. Also, did I mention that I’m a professional?

I can shop for wine while nursing a hangover.

I’m not worried about the chicken, which plays nicely with wine, but artichoke is one of the problem children of the pairing world. It contains an organic acid that fools us into thinking everything we eat or drink afterward is sweeter than it is, including wine. This kind of mission impossible is something I do frequently for my family.

“Cameron, come with me after breakfast … we still have a few gifts to get.”

His bright blue eyes are hopeful. “Like a PlayStation?”

Damn. I’ve been trying to keep him away from video games for as long as possible. But it feels mean, with my separation from his father at the beginning of the year, and now the holidays are approaching. He has weathered our split well.

“Perhaps you should ask Santa for it.” I wink.

“Good idea. Do you think the elves can throw in a console stand?” He grins.

Back in my office, snow swirls outside the window. I email another writer to confirm that I’m updating the way I post wine reviews on my website so he’ll stop pestering me. This is part of a long stream of nasty comments I’ve received over the years.

There are only twelve hours and forty-three minutes before my Nightmare Before Christmas begins.

My books, Red, White, and Drunk All Over and Unquenchable, celebrate the pleasure of wine. Many readers embrace my loopy tales. Some older male wine writers loathe them. Silly chick lit — their equivalent of “women’s wines”: chardonnay, pinot grigio, prosecco, rosé. Bitch pours. The opposite of their sophisticated sommelier selections.

To hell with them.

I am woman. Watch me pour.

That’s why I’ve long been fascinated with literary witches who didn’t care what labels society put on them, from the three sisters in Shakespeare’s Macbeth to the women in The Witches of Eastwick. They were persecuted for their “powers” — or, more likely, their misunderstood (and feared) skills.

Even Maleficent, in the 2014 Disney film, was originally a good fairy with powers over plants and herbs, until the man she loved most betrayed her. Same old playbook. There’s a happy ending, though. She regains her strength through the phoenix, the mythological bird that rises from the ashes of its predecessor. Maleficent’s kiss, not one from a prince, wakes up Sleeping Beauty.

I write for people like me who relate to an occasional tipsy evening — and dealing with the aftermath. Like right now. Ow.

It wasn’t the buzz so much as the upwelling joy that pulled me to wine. I remember the September evening years ago when I visited Merry Edwards Winery and Vineyards, in Sonoma. The sweet smell of grapes and alcohol hung heavy in the air of the barrel room. As I walked into the vineyard, the slanting amber rays slid over my shoulders. Wine drew me outside again, connecting me with the earth. It got me out of my head and away from the computer I was chained to in my previous tech job. Some employees there slept under their desks to work longer. We were “mole people,” I used to joke. We shrank from sunlight.

When I returned to the tasting room, I drank the wine to make the sun and soil part of me. Then I wrote about it to metabolize my feelings and digest its sensuality.

After Cameron and I pick up the gifts, we walk into the liquor store. I remember when he was just four. He had looked up at me and asked loudly, “Why do we always go to the boos store, Mommy?”

“Because Mommy writes about wine. It’s her career,” I told him in an equally loud voice, avoiding eye contact with other customers.

Then I looked up at the lady with an over-oaked merlot. “That’s why no one needs to call Child Services.”

Cameron and I stroll down an aisle of sauvignon blanc. Bone-dry, with racy acidity and herbal aromas, it’ll be a lovely counterpoint to the artichoke, while cutting through the tender roast chicken.

With other dishes, I use the lemon or butter rule. If I squeeze some lemon juice on the food, for example, seared halibut, then I drink a wine with edgy acidity like sauvignon blanc or gru¨ner veltliner. However, if I slather melting butter on my entrée, say a big juicy steak, then I pair it with a rich, full-bodied cabernet, or even a barrel-aged chardonnay. Yes, white wine with red meat. How rogue. The buttery, toasty notes of the chardonnay will complement the caramelized flavours of the meat.

As I stop to pick a bottle, a young couple a few feet away debates...