To Fall in Love, Drink This: A Wine Writer's Memoir

by Alice Sari Feiring

Nominated for a James Beard Award

Named a Best Wine Book of 2022 by The New York Times, Forbes, and The Washington Post

From veteran wine writer and James Beard Award winner Alice Feiring, an insightful and entertaining memoir of wine, love, heartbreak, and the never-ending process of coming-of-age.

Alice Feiring is a special sort of wine writer—the kind who dares to disagree with wine “experts”, and who believes wholeheartedly that the best wine writing is about life.

To Fall in Love, Drink This is both her love letter to wine and a lifelong coming-of-age story. In a series of candid, wise, and humorous personal essays, Feiring tells the story of her parents’ divorce, her first big wine assignment, the end of an eleven-year relationship, the death of her father, a near-fatal brush with a serial killer, pandemic lockdown, and more—and suffuses each with love, romance, pain, joy, and wine. Each essay is “accompanied” by a no-nonsense wine take-away designed to answer the questions everyday wine lovers have about wine—age, price, grapes, vineyards, and vintners.

This frank, charismatic work is a refreshingly grounded addition to the genre of wine-writing. Feiring has crafted a timeless, positively unpretentious memoir that will appeal to everyone who has ever enjoyed a glass of wine.

Genres: Memoir, Wine, Nonfiction, Food, Biography Memoir, Biography

272 pages, Paperback

Published August 9, 2022

Reviews

[Alyssa Morales · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was, in a word, transformative. Not only in the way it transformed me, a girl approaching her late 20s who always had an interest in wine and who is now seeing it as a world with enough room for her. But also, in the way you watch Alice Feiring grow and change. I have never in my life been so awed by a persons experience. It’s almost as if every story was handpicked for me.

This book forced me to examine my own connections to wine, and why I’ve always felt such a strange attraction to it. As Alice illustrates over, and over (and yet, it never gets repetitive) wine is as much about connection, community, and history as it is about say, drunkenness. I thought of my mother, who spent many days out at the wine tastings in Temecula- look, I’m not saying Temecula has good wines- what do I know? But I am saying that those times when she would leave me and my brother in favor of a rare spent day hanging out with the girls from the neighborhood have stayed with me. The glamour of it. Mommy was slipping away into another world, one that I wouldn’t belong to for a long time yet.

My point is, follow Alice down this rabbit hole. You will maybe not be so shocked to find that in wine, there is inevitably truth, and Alice Feiring is willing to give it to you straight.

I’ll never miss another article by Alice Feiring, and I surely will never look at wine the same again.

[Judi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of good wine information. Her style was almost hysterical...everything, the wine tasting was so, um, emotionally fraught...exhausting. At one point, she wrote, “Coming out of Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, I could feel the Mexican dust coating my hair and vineyard grit lining my nails.” I'm from LA and I would hard pressed to find 'Mexican dust' coming up all the way to LA. never mind 'vineyard grit'! Also, was sometimes hard to follow given varying times things were happening.

[Alana · Rating 3 out of 5]

About to be more annoying at the wine store.

[Laura Farina]

Wine world so mesmerizing for real

[Bailey Hack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learning about natural wine through storytelling - what could be better?

[Lauren Oudine · Rating 5 out of 5]

ate this up unexpectedly, need to know this much about wine

[Carrie Honaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so glad one of the booktenders at Lucian Books and Wine suggested this title. It was such a fun read and hit that sweet spot of great wine writing and beautiful memoir.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me go all Humpty Dumpty. It broke me. Like the character on the cover, this paperback gem is deceptive (in the best way). You think you're on a sojourn bout wine (and you are), but wine turns out to be the liquid current carrying a subject more profound, sibling love. By the end, Alice magically glued my pieces back together and left me humbled...and I'd like to think a little wiser, too. I called my sister after turning the last page, Valpolicella in hand ~

If you've ever loved another human, or been broken by one, this book is for you.... (as are thoughtful wine recommendations to see you through)

If you've gotten this far, thank you for reading my review.

Best,
Judy

[Zelia Silverio · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like wine and I like short stories, but somehow these two didn’t harmonize so well here for me. Yes, there’s passion but not one story was able to hook me or care enough to actually pursue said wines.

[Kerry Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won a copy of this memoir in a Goodreads Giveaway.

Feiring is a professional wine writer, so her writing is well practiced and engaging. Rather than a memoir perse, this read more like a series of essays, gathered in no particular order - sometimes the jumping timelines were a bit confusing for me. And the wine recommendations were a bit overwhelming, because there were a lot - she focused greatly on flavor notes and profiles that are drool worthy, but overly general,’then listing dozens of wines to try.

Not a stand out, but a decent read, particularly for a wine lover.

[Fran · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know that I am the target audience for this memoir. I appreciate wine, but have no knowledge of or really any desire to deep dive into its study.
Therefore, most of the wine recommendations were simply skimmed over while I dug into the author's personal stories.
You could say that I read this in the completely opposite manner that most people read food blogs. I enjoyed the background story and skipped over the recipe. 🤷‍♀️

[Katherine Burd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. It’s the kind of thing I’d like to write. I love hearing a memoir from someone who didn’t get it all right at a prodigious age, someone who’s not looking to sound faultless and accomplished, but someone who’s just still learning and sharing her knowledge. Can’t wait to share it with my friends.

[mimoo · Rating 1 out of 5]

got to page 239/248 to find out feiring allegedly victim-blamed a sexual assault survivor in 2019, direct phrasing “grief was compounded by an unfortunate brush with cancel culture and my own cancer diagnosis months in the fall of 2019.” while i believe in educated redirection from one’s past failings and she has apparently since apologized, such change must be genuine and dedicated, and the specific phrasing she uses is not very assuring. that slid the book (starting at a 4 then 3 then) from a 2 to 1, as it aligned with my issues prior to that discovery.

what i previously wrote:

she seems to operate at times without considering the space she’s taking up or how others will react. the self importance and self centring which surfaces (protruding even with leniency for memoir format) gets tiring. very mean about the women in her dad’s life in an immature and one-dimensional way, which undermines her point. a much more anxiety inducing and triggering read than anticipated. the prose is evocative (for better or worse), sometimes too cliche and first year undergrad which undermines its sincerity and validity, but she’s informative. feiring does well conjuring wines and scenarios, but in parts she felt abrasive or ignorant in the way whiteness and boomer status occupies space infringing on others without incentive to stop and reconsider its surroundings. prose awkward in some parts too and text started to drag towards the end. feels bad to read non-critical references to an isra*l trip and borat in a book. her reflections seem to surface-level acknowledge then-shortcomings or simplified insights, but it’s hard to say from her writing if it goes deeper — this was my issue that compounded with her “brush with cancel culture.”

did not like her centring of self and whiteness on the topic of the lynchings, the white guilt and emotion of sadness taking main stage (thinking of christina sharpe’s writings from ordinary notes here once again). in some parts the imperative to connect the topic back to wine undermines it and feels disrespectful and heavy handed, overly direct and literal when it could have been avoided had it been approached and phrased in connection a different way. (ie her mention of a fire affecting a particular terroir, merely commenting on its smoky effect on the wine not being a negative for her — especially with climate and sociopolitical issues mentioned elsewhere). would not read again or gift to others. contemplated bumping another 1 star review to a 2 because this was worse for me.

[Sammy B · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took a little while for me to get into this book only because I wasn’t expecting any part of what I read. I loved the recommendations and her stories relating to particular wines that have stayed with her over the years. I didn’t love were the poorly taken pictures of the wines sprinkled in. I really enjoyed her talking about her mom and how she helped inspire her speech in front of all of those people. I could feel the love in the words she wrote about her brother and how devastating it was when she lost him. The way she wrote about wine gave it life and you can tell she feels this is apart of her, like when she was worried during Covid that she lost her taste-buds but just needed a wine with oxidization. Something that really resonated with me was her talking about her initial interaction with a serial rapist/killer and how she visited him later on in prison but was able to recognize the signs of his psychopathy and how horrible he was.

I saved so many wines on my Vivino app but was SO excited to see Eminence Road Winery from the Finger Lakes as that is a very dear winery to me, the wine is wonderful and the owners are so lovely! There are a bunch of new wines I learned about that i’m excited to try thanks to her!

[ceeg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just don’t know about this one. Reads more like a collection of essays, even a collection of articles, than a memoir. Feiring puts herself into such a neat little box of straightforward quirks and personality traits that at the end of this book, I’m not sure I actually know her. Heavy on cliche. Needs two more passes by the editor; the syntax of some of these sentences, I am agog!

There are some moments that really shine, and I respect taking a big swing by making the story non-linear. I loved the chapter when she ran away, the trip to Poland, the brushes with a serial killer. She has great stories! Yet she won’t let us discover it for ourselves.

Above all, I am alienated by her distaste for additives and exaltation of natural wines. She repeats over and over again, “72 legal additives”. Why is that bad? What is wrong with adding sulfur to allow further aging? I agree with her on most points: yes the industrialization and of winemaking has made some shit wine and bad behaviors. Yes over-fertilization is going to kill terroir. I find the lack of any criticism towards the natural wine movement to be a glaring omission from the book.

I’m disappointed by the book but excited to try all the wines she recommended. For all its flaws, I am dying to try some Georgian wines.

[Simge · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an absolutely delightful read! I am glad I picked up this book from a museum gift shop, after some hesitation. Would there be anything interesting in a wine writer's memoir? Did I really want to read pages full of intrigue from the world of commercial wine-making, or inflated lists of far-fetched tasting notes? Egged on by a friend (who kept emphasizing the price tag of the book - it was on sale for $5), I relented. And I am happy that I did.

There is something pleasurably relatable in the delicate, earthy prose of Alice Feiring; who skillfully interweaves the memorable turning points of her life with the bottles that accompanied those memories. There is a bottle of wine for first love and for first heart break, for joy and despair, for wins and for losses. The author has surely had an ordinary yet remarkable life (if you think about it for a moment, these two adjectives are not necessarily in contradiction), and true to her profession, she knew how to pair her life with wine. A wonderful book for anyone who appreciates a good bottle of wine or a good story (or, ideally, both).

[Tom Donaghey · Rating 5 out of 5]

To Fall In Love, Drink This (2022) byAlice Fearing. This is a wine lover’s delight. Alice Fearing is a professional wine critic so you should be able to trust the numerous drinking recommendations that follow each chapter as being tasty entries into the different worlds of wine. And there are many different worlds.
But this is foremost a memoir detailing many different portions of her life. We see her with her beloved grandfather who introduced her to “HOW” to smell things, which led to a greater understanding of what wine is and could be. There is a first crush, a love affair, the loneliness of covid isolation and many more sections of her life. It is with her vantage point of understanding so many wines and her ability to relate those wines to various portions of her life that manages to capture us and allows her to take us down the bung hole of tasting.
An easy read that explains so many varied things about wine, and life. Please sample a recommendation or two as you page through this gifted writer’s life

[Kasia Hubbard · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, I know almost nothing about wines besides being able to separate white from red and dry from sweet, but have always remained intrigued although clueless as to pick a good one. Alice takes you on a journey to do just that, not because of name brands, but because of the wine's history and story as to how and where and what technique is used, but in a way that is like telling stories about a friends personality and/or quirks. Along the way, you also get to know Alice very well, from how she started her journey and through all the twists and turns into who she is today. Very down to earth and very unpretentious. I especially loved the wine list from different regions to try (and I shall!) Excellent job and no wonder she's called a gem. I can see why.
*I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This review is my own opinion*

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alice Feiring has always had more words for wine than I could possibly imagine, but this volume reveals her origin story in a series of personal essays that are as worthy of savoring as the finest Barolo.

Her essays take us from her Orthodox upbringing on Long Island straight through the sudn necessity of drinking alone during the early days of New York City's COVID lockdown. And one need not be an oenophile to appreciate her skilled storytelling in this her sixth book. These stories are every bit as engaging as those of any essay writer I've ever read. Joan Didion. Susan Orlean. Zadie Smith. They are that good.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alice Feiring tells her story of wine through her memories of her past. She then explains how the wine figured into the story then tells about the wine.

I found this interesting. I learned a lot. I did not know there was natural wines made without the 72 additives that can be used in corporate wine making. I liked how she explained where the grapes came from and how they smell and taste once in the bottle. I also liked that each chapter was a story from her life and how it affected her. She did not have the easiest life. That she escaped a serial killer was unexpected. But through it all, she survived to bring us these stories and teach us about natural wines.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. The author shared some very intimate experiences in this memoir, which made it much more than a book about wine. But in the end, the book is totally about her love of wine and her desire to share that passion with others. The way she described the terroir, and how the roots of vines reach underground to share the flavor and scent of the terroir with the grapes and subsequently with the wine drinker........ is delicious. I found myself wanting to try all of the wines that she recommends throughout her book! A new goal. LOL

[Faith Nguyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this one up on sale in NYC

Fun, colorful, but sometimes heartbreaking vignettes with the only through narrative being the love of wine. I’m usually a bit daunted by the self-serving nature of memoirs, but Feiring is immediately endearing with her wisdom, light humor and almost superhuman ability to smell and taste. She knows her stuff and understands wine and its complexities in a way that blows my mind. This is a delicious read and I can almost taste each glass as she describes it.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved her language and experience of drinking wine to just be exposed to wine- not study it. A direct narrative that somehow felt unfinished by the end as her memoir vignettes jumped around and through some wine related connections. Wine writing taken less personally feels objective and this work of audio biography proves wine is very personal.

Inspired me to live more simply and drink more unspoilt wine.

[Suzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The jumping of the timeline was a bit confusing at times but she has some interesting stories. She came across as a bit pretentious when talking about the wines, but perhaps folks super into wine will feel otherwise.

Note on audiobook version: I thought this was read by the author as I prefer memoirs read by the author as their tone gives more insight into their writing. Turns out it is someone else so I wonder if the narrator's tone turned me off a bit.

[Darlene Acero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly, I think I enjoyed the parts not about wine the most? Mostly because despite my love for wine, I remain highly uneducated on it 🥸 The order of the stories got a bit confusing at times and I do wish it had been chronological. I think it still would have given the same effect?

Interesting memoir, likely wouldn’t have picked it up if it wasn’t for the coffee shop book club I read it for!

[Kristine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received from a Goodreads giveaway

I enjoyed reading this book not just the memories but also the description of the wines. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the author's stories and found myself wanting to get me a bottle of wine and enjoy a glass with the author as she told me her stories.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is a wine writer, considered a guru of “natural” wine— wine with little to no manipulation or additives. She tells stories about her life which are engaging. She is a good writer. She also talks about visits to vineyards all over the world and makes specific recommendations. I did not learn as much about natural wines as I had hoped.

[Alyssa Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really appreciated the little peeks we got into a wine writer's life, even if I do wish wine had been a greater focus of the memoir. Sometimes the connections from stories to wine were a bit rough for me. But all in all, I appreciated Feiring's voice more than I have that of other wine writers I've read.

[Karen Ruymann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. I liked the way she wove her anecdotes about her life into her encounter with some distinctive wines. I also appreciated that she highlighted some really interesting varietals, urging the wine lover to explore new tastes.

Definitely geared towards someone who already knows a fair amount about wine.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

All about many types of wine...more than I could ever question, wish to know or understand but gives a look into the depth of the wine growing, tasting, drinking world through the eyes of a Jewish girl who defies her parents wishes and becomes a wine connoisseur and famed writer, travels the world and finds love.