Book Review — You Had Me at Pet-Nat: A Natural Wine-Soaked Memoir by Rachel Signer

Rating: 3/5

Genre: Memoir

A natural wine-soaked memoir about finding your passion — and falling in love — by the publisher of Pipette Magazine.

It was Rachel Signer’s dream to be that girl: the one smoking hand-rolled cigarettes out the French windows of her 19th-century Parisian studio apartment, wearing second-hand Isabel Marant jeans and sipping a glass of Beaujolais redolent of crushed roses with a touch of horse mane. Instead she was an under-appreciated freelance journalist and waitress in New York City, frustrated at always being broke and completely miserable in love. When she tastes her first pétillant-naturel (pét-nat for short), a type of natural wine made with no additives or chemicals, it sets her on a journey of self-discovery, both deeply personal and professional, that leads her to Paris, Italy, Spain, Georgia, and finally deep into the wilds of south Australia and which forces her, in the face of her “Wildman,” to ask herself the hard question: can she really handle the unconventional life she claims she truly wants?

Have you ever been sidetracked by something that turned into a career path? Did you ever think you were looking for a certain kind of romantic partner, but fell in love with someone wild, passionate and with a completely different life? For Signer, the discovery of natural wine became an introduction to a larger ethos and philosophy that she had long craved: one rooted in egalitarianism, diversity, organics, environmental concerns, and ancient traditions. In You Had Me at Pét-Nat, as Signer begins to truly understand these revolutionary wine producers upending the industry, their deep commitment to making their wine with integrity and with as little intervention as possible, she is smacked with the realization that unless she faces, head-on, her own issues with commitment, she will not be able to live a life that is as freewheeling, unpredictable, and singular as the wine she loves.

I received a copy of this book back in 2021 and it was when I first got into this style of wine called Pétillant Naturel or Pet-Nat for short. It’s a process for sparkling wine that was developed prior to the most used process for champagne and other sparkling wines where a second round of fermentation takes place in the bottle to create bubbles. It’s some times referred to as the ancestral method. My favorite thing about Pet-Nats are they are organic and the fizz is so delicate.

This book is equal parts a memoir of Rachel Signers life to become the wine maker and writer she is today and an abridged history of natural wine making around the world. I enjoyed following her journey to find herself in the world of wine. I even ended up buying a pet-nat, orange wine, and natural malbec. It’s so cool to see how the world of wine has changed even in the past few years. The wines I mentioned I was able to buy at Trader Joe’s!!! When in the past I struggled to find them in mainstream stores.

Read this book if you want to learn more about wines, want to commiserate with a woman looking for her purpose in life and love, and the wine-soaked stories along the way!