Saintly succor
Since you’ll likely be reading this with what Wallace Stevens called “a mind of winter” (needful “to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crusted with snow;... to behold the junipers shagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun”), I thought I would provide something warming to conjure with. I am eventually going to get to one of the world’s most spectacular wines, Château Cheval Blanc, a premier grand crus classé from St. Emilion, but first let’s indulge in a bit of lore. A friend introduced me to Michael Foley’s Drinking with the Saints: The Sinner’s Guide to a Holy Happy Hour (Regnery), a Catholic-heavy but light-hearted topper’s fasti.
