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You Had Me at Pet-Nat
A Natural Wine-Soaked Memoir
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around October 19, 2021. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
Description
It was Rachel Signer's dream to be that girl: the one smoking hand-rolled cigarettes out the 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 New York City, frustrated at always being broke and completely miserable in love. When she tastes her first pétillant-naturel (pét-nat for short), a type of natural wine made with no additives or chemicals, it sets her on a journey of self-discovery, both deeply personal and professional, that leads her to Paris, Italy, Spain, Georgia, and finally deep into the wilds of South Australia and which forces her, in the face of her "Wildman," to ask herself the hard question: can she really handle the unconventional life she claims she wants?
Have you ever been sidetracked by something that turned into a career path? Did you ever think you were looking for a certain kind of romantic partner, but fell in love with someone wild, passionate and with a completely different life? For Signer, the discovery of natural wine became an introduction to a larger ethos and philosophy that she had long craved: one rooted in egalitarianism, diversity, organics, environmental concerns, and ancient traditions. In You Had Me at Pét-Nat, as Signer 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.
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Praise
—Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City and Bacchus and Me: Adventures in the Wine Cellar
—Natalie MacLean, author of Red, White, and Drunk All Over and Unquenchable!
"An inviting coming-of-age story that, though it takes place in a world of indigenous yeast and native grapes, crown caps and biodynamic, back-to-the-earth farming, speaks to the universal yearning of anybody trying to find herself, overcome insecurities and settle on her place in the world. Ms. Signer is an engaging writer whose story will certainly make you thirsty for a bottle of natural wine and maybe even compel you to re-examine the twists and turns of your own journey."
—New York Times