Bookworm, Issue 14

The Book: Horse by Geraldine Brooks

Horse tells the true story of antebellum America’s greatest racehorse and brings the majestic animal to life through the eyes of a fictional Black groom and trainer who cares for him. It’s a poignant tale of a human-animal bond between Jarret, an enslaved Black horseman, and Lexington, a champion thoroughbred, as well as a powerful story about the injustices of slavery and racism’s pervasiveness yet today.

Author Geraldine Brooks reconstructs Lexington’s life from news articles in the racing press, but Jarret is an imagined amalgamation of several successful Black grooms and trainers. The novel follows the two as they are sold across the South during Lexington’s 25 years as a racehorse and stud sire, from 1850 through the Civil War and beyond.

Lexington’s story captures our hearts because Brooks places Jarret by his side, and our wine pairing is inspired by this relationship. Just as Jarret and Lexington are inseparable, so too are the black and white grape varieties in this wine. It’s a “field blend” that is “co-fermented,” which means the grapes remain together from vineyard to bottle.

Interspersed throughout Jarret and Lexington’s narrative are several additional storylines that link the horse’s history to the present day. Characters from the New York City art scene in the 1950s and the academic halls of Washington, DC, in 2019, rediscover paintings of the horse and Lexington’s skeleton. While Brooks ambitiously covers a lot of ground here, her storytelling makes the connections feel effortless.

From the outset, compelling, authentic protagonists set the stage for how the past and present will collide. Theo, a Georgetown graduate student, finds a discarded painting on the curbside, of a horse; and Jess, a Smithsonian lab manager, locates a missing artifact in the museum’s collection, an articulated skeleton of a racehorse. Theo is Black, and Jess is white, and Brooks uses their relationship to examine racism in contemporary society.

As Theo investigates his painting’s provenance, he discovers other 19th century American paintings of thoroughbreds, some of which include Black grooms, trainers and jockeys. While the men are painted as “distinct personalities,” and not caricatures, Theo cannot help but “suspect some equivalence between the men and the horse: valued, no doubt, but living by the will of their enslaver, submitting to the whip.”

Jarret is one of these talented horsemen, and the soul of this novel lies in its sensitive portrayal of him and his powerful bond with Lexington. He’s a skinny 13-year-old, “half colt himself,” according to his master Dr. Warfield, when he witnesses Lexington’s birth in Kentucky. From that time, the two are nearly inseparable, and Jarret finds comfort from life’s setbacks and betrayals in his relationship with the horse. “Only horses (are) honest, in the end,” he thinks. Before a race in which the odds are against Lexington, Jarret asks the horse, “Can you do it?” In response, Lexington turns “his head sideways, regarding Jarret with an eye whose expression clearly (says), ‘Why ask? You know I can.’” Time and again, Jarret sacrifices his own well being for Lexington’s, and the horse seems to understand, reciprocating Jarret’s trust, devotion and love.

Horse weaves together together history, art and science, combining intellect with emotion. It’s a deeply moving portrait of a racehorse, and of race, spanning pre-Civil War America to the present day. Lexington’s history is impeccably researched, but Brooks’s fictional inventions elevate this novel beyond mere facts. The characters, especially Jarret, are vivid and inspiring, and most importantly, they compel readers to care – specifically about Jarret, Jess and Theo – but more broadly, about the overlooked contributions of Black horsemen and the uncomfortable reality of racism.

The Wine: Bodegas Viñas del Cenit, Field Blend Tradición, Tierra del Vino de Zamora, Spain, 2022 $20.99

The wine is pale garnet flecked with ruby red. It has medium (-) intensity on the nose with aromas of ripe red cherries and red currants, fresh strawberry, toasted almond, mint, blood orange, pink grapefruit, caramel and vanilla.

On the palate, the wine is dry and medium-bodied. It has medium (+) acidity, medium (-) tannin and high alcohol at 14.5% ABV. The flavor intensity is medium (+) and includes tart red cherry, red currant, strawberry, citrus pith, mint, baking spices and almond. The long finish is spicy with barely-detectable, pleasantly-bitter undertones.

This wine is unusual for several reasons, First, it’s a “field blend” of both black and white grape varieties. Unlike modern, single-variety vineyards, multiple grape varieties grow together in this organic, 100-year-old vineyard. The wine is made with 65% Tinto de Toro (Tempranillo), 20% Doña Blanca, 10% Verdejo, and 5% Godello.

Second, this wine is “co-fermented.” In this case, the black and white grapes are harvested together and whole bunches are added to a vat and tread for five days until fermentation begins. Then they’re pressed, and the juice is put into used French oak barrels for six months.

This process replicates the region’s traditional winemaking practices and embraces the diversity of its old vines. Serve the wine at cellar temperature, around 55 F. It’s a refreshing table wine with remarkable complexity.

Why the pairing works:

Horse’s scope is wide-ranging, but it succeeds because Brooks creates Jarret and develops his heartfelt bond with Lexington. It allows the author to recount Lexington’s triumphs on the racetrack; highlight the overlooked accomplishments of Black horsemen; and examine how racism persists in contemporary society.

Jarret and Lexington’s relationship binds all of these related, but distinct, elements together. And our wine pairing, a “field blend” and “co-fermentation,” achieves similar cohesion. What we perceive in our glasses is unlike the wines these grape varieties could produce on their own.

Co-fermentation is the process of fermenting two or more grape varieties together. They are “knit together” from the start in hopes of creating new flavor and aroma combinations and textural sensations. It’s more experimental and different than blending, a common practice that combines wines after fermentation. Co-fermenting is an “Old World” technique that is said to enhance color intensity, floral aromas and texture. It can be tricky because the different varieties do not always ripen simultaneously, although modern refrigeration helps solve this dilemma.

Just as Horse highlights a lesser-known piece of American history, Bodegas Viñas del Cenit’s field blend wines showcase uncommon, traditional winemaking methods. While Spain, including Tierra del Vino de Zamora, is famous for its wines made from the black grape Tempranillo, there’s far more grape-variety and wine-style diversity if one cares to seek it out.