Bookworm, Issue 25

The Book: On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer by Rick Steves

Glimpse inside the mind of a youthful Rick Steves as he travels “East,” beyond familiar Europe, On the Hippie Trail with his friend Gene Openshaw. It’s 1978, the final summer that the route between Istanbul and Kathmandu is safely accessible to western backpackers prior to the Iranian Revolution and Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. Steves is 23, a recent college graduate, and a piano teacher, and this experience will change his life.

While traveling, Steves writes a thousand words a day, but after returning home to Seattle, his journal is packed away, unread until the Covid-19 pandemic. On the Hippie Trail is a lightly-edited version of that journal. It’s printed on thick, glossy paper and includes many wonderful photographs, a fold-out map, and reproduced, handwritten journal pages. Steves’ voice is refreshingly informal, and this book is a quick, enjoyable, and engaging read.

Rick and Gene cover 3,000 miles overland, mostly by bus and train, across Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal. And our wine pairing channels this spirit of adventure. The wine is from an ancient growing region and grape variety, relatively unknown to American consumers until a recent renaissance.

If you are familiar with Rick Steves’ guidebooks, PBS programming, or European group tours, you will immediately recognize his nascent travel philosophy in this personal account. Then, as now, he prioritizes off-the-beaten path experiences and interaction with local people. These anecdotes and encounters make the book worthwhile. Rather than a dull travelogue, this journal displays fine storytelling.

In the preface, Steves says, “(W)e’ve been careful not to make me sound older, wiser, or more culturally sensitive than I was at the time.” On his European group tours today, “no grumps” are allowed. So it’s amusing to read his youthful, minor complaints from the road. (To be fair, I would complain, too, if faced with an overflowing toilet or Nepali leeches.) On a multi-day bus ride to Tehran, Rick and Gene find themselves with little leg room and seats that don’t recline, their reservations for better seats “meaningless.” Despite having “little to cheer about,” the journal entry is amusing as Steves describes befriending fellow travelers and eventually making peace with the “pirate” bus driver.

While I don’t journal regularly, I try to do so when I travel. My takeaway from this book is to write daily, while the experiences remain “vivid.” On the Hippie Trail is memorable because the people, places, and cultures emerge among the small, but remarkable, details. Steves does admit, however, that journaling is “the hardest work (he has) to do when traveling,” except for “hotel finding.”

Along the way, Steves notes his privilege, and these uncomfortable feelings will shape his travel ethos going forward. He shares a meal with an Afghan professor who says to him: “A third of the people on the planet eat with spoons and forks like you, a third of the people eat with chopsticks, and a third of the people eat with their fingers like me…and we’re all civilized just the same.” The conversation makes a lasting impression.

The Hippie Trail experience inspires a lifelong commitment to bridging divides through travel experiences for Steves. Recently on tour, promoting this book, he stopped in Minneapolis where my sister and I saw him speak. Here, he implored the audience to step bravely into the unknown. To cultivate curiosity and embrace discomfort when we travel, and in the process, replace our fears with understanding. He’s convinced we’ll make new friends, but as importantly, discover more of ourselves.

The Wine: Zulal, Areni Reserve, Vayots Dzor, Armenia, 2019 $32.99

A medley of red and black fruit, pepper, and spice floods the senses. Both on the nose and on the palate, a deepness alludes to the grape’s and region’s ancient history. Medium ruby in color and aromatically expressive of red cherry and black plum, whose condition oscillates between ripe, cooked, and dried. Layer this with abundant black pepper, cinnamon, anise, cardamom, and allspice – plus a hint of dried Mediterranean herbs, berry bramble, and black olive. Medium-bodied and structurally satisfying with fine-grained, enduring tannins and high alcohol at 15% ABV. Fruit characters that lean toward tart and fresh on the palate balance the pepper and spice, as does elevated acidity. The effect, in the glass, is a harmonious experience where both elegance and power, grace and grit, coexist.

These Areni (ah-REN-ee) grapes come from a single, south-facing vineyard plot near the Arpa River. They’re hand-harvested, fermented in stainless steel, and aged in neutral French and Caucasian oak barrels for 12 months.

Zulal’s founder, Armenian-American Aimee Keushguerian, highlights indigenous grapes in her single-variety wines. Zulal means pure in Armenian, and so she avoids excessive intervention to allow the grapes to shine. (The movie Somm: Cup of Salvation tells part of her story and that of her father Vahe.)

The mountainous Vayots Dzor, one of five growing regions in Armenia, is known for quality wines made from Areni and the white grape Voskehat. Located on a plateau in south central Armenia, the region boasts elevations of 3,000 to 5,900 feet, with volcanic soils and a continental climate. Sunny days help the grapes ripen while cold nights preserve acidity. Interestingly, due to its remote location, viticulture survived the Soviet occupation and the region remains phylloxera-free, resulting in many own-rooted, old vines.

If you can’t locate this wine (or if you’ve already tasted it), embrace Rick Steves’ sense of adventure, and select another wine from a region or grape variety that is unfamiliar to you.

Why the pairing works:

Guided by curiosity, just like author Rick Steves when he is On the Hippie Trail, this wine pairing helps us venture beyond the familiar. The world of wine is vast, and I love the seemingly endless variety of growing regions, vintages, styles, and producers; there is always more to taste and explore.

I was introduced to Armenian wines several years ago, at the time unaware that the country even produced wine. With Turkey to the west and Iran to the south, Armenia sits just north of the Hippie Trail. Some say the country has “the youngest oldest wine industry in the world,” and the reasons why are fascinating.

In 2007, in a cave called Areni-1 in Vayots Dzor (the growing region where our paired wine is made), archeologists discovered the world’s oldest winery dating back 6,100 years. Their excavations uncovered a wine press, tools, traces of domesticated grape seeds and stems, and pottery vessels for fermentation, storage, and drinking. Near the winery in the cave are ancient human graves, leading scientists to hypothesize that wine was used in funeral rituals.

Both the winery and the burial site are well-preserved due to the cave’s stable, cool temperature and low humidity. A very interesting, interactive 3D tour of Areni-1 is available online at CyArk.org.

Armenia adopted Christianity as its state religion in 301 CE (the first nation to do so), and the people used wine in religious rituals and medicine. This resulted in a “golden age” of winemaking for several hundred years. In the biblical story of Noah, the ark lands at Mount Ararat where Noah plants vines and produces wine in the Armenian highlands. (Ancient Armenia was once much larger, but today Mount Ararat is located in Turkey.) Wine production declines in the following 1,500 years, a result of political, religious, and cultural unrest and wars and invasions, but winemaking in Armenia never truly disappears.

In the twentieth century, from 1920-1991, Soviet rule shaped the country’s winemaking. The Soviets nationalized production, used Armenia’s grapes to make brandy, and farmed for volume not quality. But independence ushered in a “renaissance” as Armenians abroad returned home to re-establish their winemaking traditions, blending modern technology with ancient grape varieties like Areni.

Areni is Armenia’s “signature” grape and grows nowhere else in the world. With thick skins it thrives in high-elevation vineyards – a “rugged” survivor like the Armenian people. Wines made from Areni grapes have deep color, medium to full body, intense red-fruit flavors and structure, with potential to age and develop further complexity.

For those who are curious to learn more, importer Storica Wines has a nicely-designed website with information about their brands and Armenian wines in general.