Waugh on Wine

[helenas]

Help, please: i'm trying to locate a copy of "Waugh on Wine" by Auberon Waugh.

Jay McInerney ("Bacchus & Me") devotes an article to him in House&Garden - "Full-bodied with bite". He offers some hilarious quotes from the book which i won't dare to post (one of the quoted remark got him fired from Tatler!).

From Waugh on Wine: "Wine writing should be camped up. The writer should never like a wine, he should be in love with it; never find a wine disappointing but identify it as a mortal enemy, an attempt to poison him; sulphuric acid should be discovered where there is the faintest hint of sharpness. Bizarre and improbable side tastes should be proclaimed: mushrooms, rotting wood, black treacle, burned pencils, condensed milk, sewage, the smell of French railway stations or ladies' underwear - anything to get away from the accepted list of fruit and flowers. As I say, I am not sure that it helps much, but it is more amusing to read."

Unfortunately the book is out of print and out of sight: it's not available anywhere online: bookfinder.com, abebooks.com, addall.com, amazon.ca/com/co.uk, you name it.

So maybe you know some obscure source where i can get the book (for example, it's available in Yale University library, but it won't help me), or you have it tucked somewhere in your home library not touched since 1986, please, let me know.

thank you very much.

or just read the article in the H&G Jan2003 issue, and you'll join me on the hunt!

Edited December 29, 2002 by helena sarin (log)

[laura]

Helena I too read that artic le and was intrigued by the book, I'm sorry that

you have been unab le to find it, I was going to try and I can see that you have already gone to so much effort to no avail. Interestingly while I was

reading a book by Emma Tennant "Burnt Diaries" and mention was made of Auberon Waugh , his attacks on Angus Wilson .described by Wilson as "spiteful babies" including Martin Amis in this description. At the same time I

was reading the article in House and Garden . A most fascinating man, I think. lIf you do find the book I would also be interested .

[Gavin Jones]

I think some of the same idea (but with more generosity of spirit) may be found in Kingsley Amis' "Amis on drink" (or somesuch).

The title is of course a crib from his dad's 'Waugh in Abyssinia'. An intriguing writer who spent much of his life epating (for he was fairly bald) anyone who would react.

Quotations from it are liable to interest any passing Plotnicki...

[helenas]

Gavin, have you read the book or your post is just a set of easy analogies?

[jaybee]

This book is apparently a collection of articles he wrote for a wine magazine. I looked on ABE Books, the largest site for out of print books I know of. There were 649 offerings of AW's books, but not one "One Wine." This would be tough one. Maybe ask Amazon to do a search for you?

I gather he died last week (at the age of 61). Young fellow. Must have lived a hard life.

Here's a dealer in the UK that lists it in his catalog.

http://freespace.virgin.net/wine.books/vir...inwebcata2.html

The price is 12 Pounds.

Edited December 30, 2002 by jaybee (log)

[helenas]

Maybe ask Amazon to do a search for you?

I gather he died last week (at the age of 61).  Young fellow.  Must have lived a hard life.

Thanks, The amazon buyers list is 32 people long: slim chance

He actually died two year ago, in Jan 2001:

"His master plan was to carry on writing until he had filled up all seven cellars at his Somerset home with wine and then grow simple food on the surrounding land. At the time he wrote his autobiography, Will This Do? , aged 50, he was halfway there.

It's unlikely that he managed to fill three and a half cellars during the 1990s given the run of bad vintages in Bordeaux and Burgundy. So Waugh died several cellars before his time. "

[jaybee]

Did you find it listed on the English book sellers site?

[helenas]

Nyet.

[jaybee]

Da, Da--It's there, between Alec and Harry. Just scroll down to the Ws.

Waugh, Alec. IN PRAISE OF WINE. Cassell, 1959, 1st ed., 8½ x 5½, 280pp, edges slightly darkened. £7.00

Waugh, Auberon. WAUGH ON WINE. Fourth Estate, 1986, 1st ed., 8¾ x 5½, 175pp, dust-jacket a trifle grubby. £12.00

Waugh, Harry. THE CHANGING FACE OF WINE. Wine & Spirit Pub., 1968, 1st ed., 8½ x 5½, 109pp. The second "Wine Diary". £9.00