Review: Gabi Monteleone launches book and questions choices and responsibilities of wine drinkers

Talking about wine can be seen as something elitist and far from reality for most people. In her new book, “Conversas Sobre do Vinho”, sommelière Gabriela Monteleone seeks, however, precisely to humanize this relationship with wine, bringing the drink closer to all types of public and bringing to the surface issues that go far beyond drinking.

Sommelière for over 15 years, Gabriela works today with some of the main gastronomy professionals, such as Alex Atala and Bel Coelho. In her project “So Far So Close”, alongside entrepreneur Ariel Kogan, she started a series of conversations that created links between wine producers and end consumers.

This is how the project jumped from the meetings to the pages of this first book, to be released on Monday (20), from 4 pm, at the Futuro Refeitório restaurant, in São Paulo.

In just 300 pages, “Conversas About Wine” provokes reflections, questions and discussions about the second most consumed alcoholic beverage in the world.

Gabriela invites the reader to think about what is behind each glass —stories, people, places, traditions—, and constantly reminds us that, in each sip, there is sustainability, biodiversity, regeneration, culture, economy and politics.

“How to talk about wine and not talk about public policy, at a time of economic and environmental collapse all over the world?”, provokes the author.

There are five chapters that discuss ethics in wine production, not only aiming at innovative works, but questioning the choices of the final consumer in the face of the responsibility of what is ingested, what is consumed.

Through interviews with wine producers from different parts of the world, Gabriela exposes in a clear and accessible way a new moment of viticulture, which seeks not only tasty drinks, but also — and above all — ethical.

Among the names heard by the author, there is a consensus of the sector’s search for paradigm shifts. They demonstrate, in common, a desire for diversity and an ideal of the world, of agriculture and of the market.

As if there was a movement of new paths to be traced, in a search for different knowledge with each cork opening.

“Everything we eat or drink comes loaded with choices”, says Marina Santos, owner of Vinha Unna, in Rio Grande do Sul, reminding the reader that wine is also a food and, just as one is aware of what one eats, it is also necessary to develop this look at what is drunk.

This unprecedented and fresh compilation presents the millenary drink as a form of art, of pleasure and seduction. Wine, as the main character of the book, comes to provoke subjective sensations, memories, families, images, philosophy.

Gabriela proposes to the reader not to surrender to the hands of the industry, which is constantly trying to shape palates by dictating what is produced and what is consumed. The sommelière invites you to open your eyes to the various realities that surround each experience with a glass.

“Conversations About Wine” is about and for winegrowers, consumers, professionals, experts, enthusiasts. What remains, after reading, is the question: “Which wine will you choose from now on?”.

The flea behind the ear asks if we will look at each bottle taken or bought in the same way, or if new paths have been opened and demystified.