The Wide
Worldof Wine PHOTOGRAPH JESSICA BELLINGER
Oenophile and class of ’69 alumnus Gordon Sullivan’s new book spotlights wine trivia, tips, and advice for savoring your next glass—BY KATE LAWLESS
ere’s how Gordon Sullivan ’69 wants you to think about your next glass of wine: It’s alive. It contains thousands of organic compounds, all in flux. So if you want your wine to be its best, says Sullivan, a wine expert and a devotee to the beverage, pour it out of the bottle and let it breathe. Swirl it around the glass. That will allow those compounds to create aromatic changes, enhancing your enjoyment in the process. Last November, Sullivan led a wine education session on Zoom for Williston alumni, demonstrating an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. Sullivan has spent nearly half a century in the wine business. But that world may not have opened up to him had he not taken a job on the four-man crew of a 50-foot sloop and sailed from Ogunquit, Maine, to Palm Beach, Florida, the summer after he graduated college. He arrived in 1973 “with only a sailor’s duffel bag to my name,” Sullivan writes in the introduction of his forthcoming book on wine trivia, as yet unnamed and due out this fall from Board and Bench Publishing. “I walked from the marina where
SPRING 2021!BULLETIN 25
