You Had Me at Pet-Nat: A Natural Wine-Soaked Memoir

"It was Rachel's dream to be that girl: the one smoking hand-rolled cigarettes out the French windows of her 19th-century Parisian studio apartment, wearing second-hand Isabel Marant jeans and sipping a glass of Beaujolais redolent of crushed roses with a touch of horse mane. Instead she was an under-appreciated freelance journalist and waitress in Brooklyn, frustrated at always being broke and completely miserable in love. When she tastes her first pétillant-naturel (pét nat), a type of natural wine made with no additives or chemicals, it set her on a journey of self-discovery, both deeply personal and professional, that led her to Paris and eventually deep into the wilds of south Australia, where she fell in love with someone completely different from what she thought she wanted-"Wildman." She is forced to ask herself the hard question: can she really handle the unconventional life she claims she truly wants? The discovery of natural wine became an introduction to a larger ethos and philosophy that Rachel had long craved: one rooted in egalitarianism, diversity, organics, environmental concerns, and ancient traditions. In You Had Me at Pét Nat, as Rachel begins to truly understand these revolutionary wine producers upending the industry, their deep commitment to making their wine with integrity and with as little intervention as possible, she is smacked with the realization that unless she faces, head-on, her own issues with commitment, she will not be able to live a life that is as freewheeling, unpredictable, and singular as the wine she loves"--