2023-09-23 06:00:06
Alice Celebration. CAROLYN FONG/THE CELEBRATION LINE
At the end of summer, when she returns alone to her Downtown New York apartment after a few days of vacation, Alice Feiring is thirsty: “I need a chilled wine from Georgia!” “, she says to herself. Immediately, she opens her wine cabinet in which a Georgian bottle almost miraculously awaits her. It must be said that the wine merchants in her neighborhood have become a godsend in this area thanks to her. This woman with a slender figure, who seems to be able to make her wishes come true with the wave of a magic wand, has in fact distilled her love for natural wines throughout New York. And its influence extends far beyond.
This American with Jewish origins from Eastern Europe writes works on wine in which she is the heroine. It is justified: “In my life, it was not me who chose wine, it was he who chose me. » A vocation, then? No, it was rather in spite of herself that she became the high priestess of natural wines, as if this taste corresponded to her personal research. “When I choose my words to describe these wines that irresistibly attract me, it is my grandfather Pop that I feel », she analyzes.
By taking this chapel head on, it has become the reference to the point that, in March, the Ministry of Agriculture presented it with the medal of Agricultural Merit at the French Embassy, posted opposite Central Park , on Fifth Avenue. Crowned with her long red hair, hidden behind thin round glasses, Alice Feiring maintains the freshness of a student as she approaches her 70th birthday. Impossible to believe, as this unrepentant traveler sparkles with mischief and is eager for discoveries. Ultimately, it seems as natural as the wines it defends.
A question of philosophy
To her credit, the falsely fragile Alice Feiring enjoys an enormous feat of arms: she is the first person to have opposed head-on and in writing Robert Parker, the famous critic whose notes rebuilt the world of wine for more than thirty years. Published in the United States in 2008, his first book, The Battle of Wine and Love. How I saved the world from Parkerization, was received like a nuclear bomb. Translated into French in 2010 by Jean-Paul Rocher, this work had the effect of a revolution.
While Alice Feiring collaborated on New York Times, she had had the opportunity to interview Robert Parker several times. After her book was published, she never saw it again. But he has undoubtedly read the prose of his detractor, in any case he has formed a clear opinion of it: “When we talk about slogans like “natural wine”, I can tell you that people like Alice Feiring are charlatans, he confided to Sommelier Journal of April 15, 2012. I think they are no better than the snake oil salesmen of old. They sell a kind of micmacs. Most wines are natural. »
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