Free The Juice by Jay McInerney

measured Alexandrines reminiscent of Racine. Burgundy is celebrated in bawdy tavern songs.” No doubt where the man’s heart lies. In fact he seems to be saying that Bordeaux has no heart, that it’s all head, but of course he was selling Burgundy. Hethen goes on to give us a detailed tour of the region that remains useful to this day while referencing Thackeray, Alexandre Dumas, Petrarch, Philip the Bold, and many others.
    Schoonmaker seems to have had more taste than business acumen. At the age of sixty-seven he sold his business to Pillsbury, staying on as part of a new wine division. The union was not a happy one. After his death in 1976, Seagram took over Schoonmaker’s Burgundy portfolio, which was then purchased in 2001 by Diageo. Some seventy-five years after Schoonmaker started his company, the domaines represented at Diageo’s 2009 Manhattan tasting are still among the most revered in Burgundy. Ramonet, Niellon, Matrot, d’Angerville, de Courcel, Grivot, and Roumier are among its most consistently excellent producers, as they proved yet again with their 2007 wines. Several growers admitted it was a challenging vintage, given the cool summer, but many of these wines, especially the reds, were surprisingly accessible and attractive at this early stage, unlike, say, the big but backward 2005s, which will require cellar time to mellow out. Though it was probably a stronger year for the whites, the reds are more precocious, providing great drinking from five to ten years of age. The words “pretty” and “charming” kept coming up among growers and tasters with regard to the reds. For those unfamiliar with the fleshy, earthy pleasure of good Burgundy, the relatively inexpensive 2007s could be a good place to start. Tell your wine merchant, or sommelier, that Frank sent you.

The Salesman with the Golden Palate
    Even in a life as eventful as Alexis Lichine’s, 1951 would count as a very big year. He published
Wines of France
, which would go through many editions and influence several generations of Americans. That same year he realized a lifelong dream and purchased Château Prieuré-Cantenac, a classified Bordeaux château that soon was officially rechristened Château Prieuré-Lichine. His genius as a salesman was inseparable from his gift for self-promotion, and for many years his name was one of the most successful brands in the world of fine wine. Along the way he married a countess and then a movie star, won a Bronze Star and a Croix de Guerre for his service in World War II, bought a vast apartment on Fifth Avenue, and intrepidly barnstormed the heartland, spreading the gospel of fine wine.
    Lichine’s father, a wealthy businessman, managed to escape Moscow with his family in 1917 shortly after the Bolshevik revolution. After a brief stay in New York, they settled in Paris, where Alexis attended a lycée. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, he returned to Paris and landed a job at the
Herald Tribune
. Shortly after the repeal of Prohibition, the paper commissioned Lichine to write a series about French wines for the benefit of newly liberated American palates. He honed his own palate while researching the articles, touring the great wine regions of France.
    Though he would continue to write about wine throughout his life, Lichine was a salesman at heart, and in 1934, with Prohibition ending, he moved to New York. After working for several retailers,he teamed up with Frank Schoonmaker, a connoisseur and the author of
The Complete Wine Book
who had established a successful importing business in the wake of repeal. Schoonmaker and Lichine were a potent team, an odd couple who shared the same passion for wine. Together, and then separately, as rivals, they virtually created the American market for French wine.
    Their association was highly successful, despite, or perhaps because of, temperamental differences. “Although he respected his palate, Schoonmaker evidently considered Lichine