Politics and wine can make for clumsy pairings, as detailed by the lavishly illustrated and strictly bipartisan Wine and the White House: A History. Written by Frederick Ryan Jr., chairman of the White House Historical Association, the book delves widely, though not deeply, into how presidents have chosen to highlight ceremonies, foster diplomacy, and heavily promote the American wine industry long before the world viewed the U.S. as a serious producer.
It covers the full history of the presidency, from Madeira fan George Washington – though he didn’t live in the White House – to the present day. The biggest wine aficionado was Thomas Jefferson, who served bottles from France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
More than 100 menus from the past six decades are included. The lists from Harry Truman’s term from 1949 to 1953, for example, illustrate how the effects of Prohibition, exacerbated by World War II, had stunted American interest in and knowledge of wine. At a dinner for Winston Churchill, the White House paired Champagne with prime rib rather than the rich red we’d expect today. When it hosted Philippine President Elpidio Quirino, Champagne was poured with the salad course, something few contemporary sommeliers would recommend. (The high acidity in dressing makes dry sparkling wine taste flat.)
French wine was the norm for Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Nixon. Even as California wines garnered public attention in the early 1960s, Kennedy didn’t take any chances when he hosted Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna with 1953 Mouton Rothschild. Today it goes for $1800 a bottle.
Nixon, on the other hand, helped put California on the global wine map. The first president to visit China, he toasted peace with Premier Zhou Enlai with Napa’s 1969 Schramsberg blanc de blancs. He also continued Kennedy’s sparkling-wine-with-dessert tradition. The idea was to revive guests with bubbles, but pairing 1961 Dom Perignon with sweet, orangy Grand Marnier soufflé seems a waste of DP. Future presidents would choose sweeter sparklers, such as the demi-sec Schramsberg cremant the Reagans often picked to accompany fruit sorbets.
Matching specific bottles with guests for diplomatic purposes took off under President Clinton, who hired the White House’s first wine professional. The connections were sometimes a stretch: At a dinner in 1996 for Irish President Mary Robinson, the menu highlighted wineries whose owners’ ancestors had emigrated from Ireland.
The book doesn’t weigh in on controversies of more recent vintage, like when President Obama served a 2005 Quilceda Creek cabernet from Washington state at a dinner in 2011 for President Hu . At the time, the wine sold for $400, which some deemed extravagant during a recession. (The White House paid $125 for it.) More sober observers insisted that the executive branch should showcase America’s best, regardless of price.
Donald Trump is the only president to own a winery while in office. Given his penchant for promoting his various hotel and golf club properties, it’s notable that he has yet to serve any of his Virginia-produced wines at an official White House event. For a dinner in 2018 for French President Emmanuel Macron, he followed diplomatic norms and featured a 2014 Domaine Drouhin Laurene pinot noir from an Oregon winery founded by a famous Burgundian family.
Less interesting among its 456 pages are the book’s many photos of the White House glassware collection and transcripts of presidential toasts. But it’s redeemed by Ryan’s retelling of the role wine has played in our diplomatic history and the inevitable political calculations involved in presidents’ picks.
And that includes the choice to serve none at all. For their first dinner in 1877, President Hayes and his teetotaler wife, Lucy, eventually opened six wines from the stash of Ulysses S. Grant, the previous White House occupant. But those would be the last. From then on, “Lemonade Lucy,” as she was nicknamed, offered guests and heads of state fruit juice instead.
【社会科学-农业】The origins of agriculture（ WSY -603 字 长精读）
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4:Frederick Ryan Jr. wrote A History. It covers the full history of the presidency
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