An examination of the systems of power—religion, class, language, colonialism, patriarchy—bound up in the process of moving wine from the vineyard to the glass.

While there was a time when wine was the humble beverage of the people, today the drink is a signifier of power, sophistication, and often wealth. Bottles can sell for half a million dollars. Point systems tell us which wines are considered the best. Wine professionals give us the language to describe what we taste.

Agricultural product and cultural commodity, drink of ritual and drink of addiction, purveyor of pleasure, pain, and memory—wine has never been contained in a single glass. Structured around the seasons, this book cuts through the jargon typical of wine tastings and provides a clear, sensory meditation on a drink that has captivated humanity for millennia. Drawing from science, religion, literature, and memoir, Meg Bernard meditates on the power structures bound up with making and drinking this ancient, intoxicating beverage.

This book is the latest in the Object Lessons series. Published in association with the Atlantic, it explores the hidden lives of ordinary things and what they can teach us about ourselves and the modern world.

Meg Bernhard is a freelance writer based in Las Vegas and California. Her essays have been featured in the Best American Travel Writing and Best American Essays anthologies, and her writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Harper’s, New York Times Magazine, Guernica, New Yorker, and Hazlitt, among others.