The Literary Wine List

Evelyn Waugh’s Sebastian Flyte serves a golden Sauternes with strawberries at an Oxford picnic, and it becomes a symbol of the lost Arcadia of his youth. The wine is still made in the same style today, and a half-bottle is a beautiful extravagance.

Edgar Allan Poe’s sinister short story turns on a pipe of amontillado sherry used to lure a rival into the catacombs. Amontillado is real and wonderful: an aged sherry that is dry, nutty and complex. Drink it lightly chilled, and in good company.

From Fitzgerald to Ian Fleming, Champagne is literature’s shorthand for glamour and celebration. Bond’s taste for prestige vintages made Champagne part of his character, but a good non-vintage Brut is all you need.

Red Bordeaux, which the English have called claret for centuries, flows through Dickens, Thackeray and Trollope. It signals a well-run household and a good dinner. A modest Médoc is the modern equivalent.

Pine-resin-flavored Greek retsina appears in many postwar travel books about Greece. It has an unfair reputation: modern versions are fresh and fragrant and delicious with Greek food.