In Thomas Jefferson On Wine, John Hailman celebrates a founding father’s talents as a wine connoisseur and provides unprecedented insight into a seldom explored facet of this great man. In both his personal and public lives, Jefferson wielded his considerable expertise and influence to change the views of his friends, fellow founding fathers, and the American public on the pleasures and refinements of wine.
An international wine judge and former wine columnist for the Washington Post, Hailman discusses the particular wines Jefferson sought, the ways in which Jefferson’s tastes developed, and how Jefferson became one of the great wine connoisseurs of the early American republic. His recommendations governed the president’s table before and after his tenure there. Thomas Jefferson on Wine explores the third president’s fascination with scores of wines from his student days at Williamsburg to his lengthy retirement years at Monticello, using mainly Jefferson’s own vivid words from hundreds of immensely readable and surprisingly modern letters on the subject.
Hailman examines Jefferson’s five critical years in Paris, where he learned about fine wines at Europe’s salons and dinner tables. The book uses excerpts from Jefferson’s journals, as well as his letters to friends and wine merchants, whose descendants still produce the wines Jefferson enjoyed. Vivid contemporary accounts of dinners at the White House allow readers to vicariously experience the enjoyment of fine wine. The book concludes with an overview of the current restoration of the vineyards at Monticello and the new Monticello Wine Trail and its numerous world-class Virginia wineries. In Thomas Jefferson On Wine Hailman presents an absorbing and unique view of this towering historical figure....
