Drinking wine across America

my wine book is out in two weeks!

Hi friends! 

For folks I just added, welcome! This is Meg Bernhard. Don’t worry, I don’t email often. Usually, the emails are a little more lively, but today I just wanted to send a quick note to say that my wine book with Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series (simply called Wine) is out June 1! You can pre-order here. It’s a literary meditation on wine’s intersections with power — and pleasure and memory. I’m doing a small book tour on the U.S. East and West coasts this summer, and I’ll be visiting wine bars and shops. Some are reading events, others are just drinking and hanging. Everywhere, there will be wine and great conversation with people I love. I’d be so happy to see you and your friends! Below is a graphic with the dates.

You’ll notice a lot of TBDs with the hours… just wanted to get the dates down for you, and will update with specifics. The Somerville, Mass. event at Wild Child, an amazing bookstore/event space run by Lauren Friel and the great Rebel Rebel wine bar crew, requires an RSVP — you can buy tickets here, which gets you a glass of wine and admission to the event. 

(design courtesy of my pal Miguel Otárola, who has a wonderful music substack called loops! And interspersed are photos from Oregon and Nevada, where I finally picked up my canon ae1 program after a few years.)

The events:

June 6, Ten Bells, NYC: Time TBD, just hanging

June 7, Wild Child, Somerville, Mass. : 6-7.30 p.m., reading and q +a

June 10, Domestique, Washington, D.C.: Afternoon sometime!

June 24, Tabula Rasa, North Hollywood location: time TBD

June 29, Bar Norman, Portland, Ore.: 6-8 p.m., with a reading at 7

August 10 (subject to change**) Ordinaire, Oakland: Time TBD!

Do you know an editor or writer who might want to review the book? Let me know and I can tell the folks at Bloomsbury! 

In other book promo news, I was on City Cast Las Vegas to talk about natural wine here. TLDR: Despite some winemakers warning me that there is “nothing natural in Las Vegas,” there’s plenty of great natural wine to drink in the city. Nevada’s own wine industry isn’t exactly booming, however… even though there are grapevines in southern Nevada, and they’re relatively heat and drought resistant, the plants stop photosynthesizing at around 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Today, on May 15, it’s already 90.

I’ve published a lot of slow-burning projects lately. I spent ten months working on a New York Times Magazine story about a poor elementary school in Los Angeles that struggled to “return to normal” during the pandemic, given the loss and trauma the community suffered. For n+1, I wrote about one woman’s experience of joy and loneliness as a long-haul trucker (I hung out with her for three days in 2021 as we traveled from Georgia to Ohio). For the London Review of Books, I wrote about drought, and for the Paris Review, I wrote about how my tiny apartment last year taught me about intimacy. Stay tuned for one more big story soon, and lots of little essays eventually. I’m also the 2023 writer in residence for KNPR’s magazine The Desert Companion. So far I’ve written about wildfires and the Colorado River. Next up in June: Mojave wildflowers, which, if you hadn’t realized already, are delightful this year. 

Thanks to all of you for reading. Next time, I’ll send some photos from the wine events!

With love and gratitude, 

Meg