James Tanner

Vintage France: Adventures Along the French Wine Route James Tanner

It is heartwarming for an American expatriate who has lived in France for over thirty years to read a book which absolutely shines with love and appreciation for France. Tanner has discovered the most elusive yet lasting pleasure: a second home in a "foreign land". There are gentle tidbits of history in his story. He stands in a thousand year old cathedral and reflects on kings and bullet holes. He had an eye for landscape; his first sight of the famous hill of Corton Charlemagne moves him deeply. He has a diarist's sense of detail especially when describing the sumptuous meals he shares with his wife and friends in France's gastronomic and viticultural capitals. The major part of Vintage France occurs in Burgundy, an aristocratic yet fundamentally rural region that produces many of the world's best wines. It is here that Tanner hangs up his hat and becomes close to several families. He harvests grapes, visits vineyards and cellars, and weaves himself into the daily life of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen who have fully adopted this gregarious stranger. Required reading not only for first time visitors to France, but for all those who are gentle adventurers.-Becky Wasserman Hone