NEW YORK (Reuters Life!, By Leslie Gevirtz) - U.S. writer Jay McInerney, the quintessential chronicler of 1980s excess in New York, says he has mellowed with age, now preferring Bordeaux and Burgundy wines to the illegal drugs of his youth.

McInerney, 51, best-known as the author of "Bright Lights, Big City" in 1984 that triggered a rush of so-called cocaine culture novels, has for the past 10 years been writing a wine column for U.S. monthly magazine House & Garden.

He said he always made it clear in his earlier writing that he was participating in a decadent mode of life as he chronicled the abuses of his generation.

"That particular form of hedonism is kind of a dead end," McInerney told Reuters as he explained why he swapped cocaine for cabernet.

Wine is the subject of his latest book "A Hedonist in the Cellar," a collection of some of his wine columns.

"Actually I wanted to call it "An Idiot in the Cellar" just to indicate that I didn't claim to have expertise but my editor said that was too self-deprecating," he said.

"But I think it is important to acknowledge wine is a hedonistic pleasure. You can read hundreds and hundreds of wine journals and everybody leaves out the buzz factor. That's part of the pleasure of the beverage."

McInerney said his interest in wine has grown as he has matured.

"In the "Bright Lights" days, we were drinking a lot. Not wine particularly, but whatever did the job in a hurry. For me, I didn't want to give up the pleasures of mild intoxication and yet, I didn't want to go any further down the road of excess. Wine was my answer," he said.

McInerney never went to wine school or took a course.

"I didn't have any of the technical vocabulary, but eventually I picked it up. Most wine writing when I started was awful. It was so technical it would scare off anybody."

But he did know the right people after his early success to cultivate his palate and to get him a job writing about wine.

McInerney's columns came at the right time, with Americans starting to enthusiastically embrace wine.

Data from the U.S. Wine Market: Impact Databank Review and Forecast by Wine Spectator magazine says total wine consumption has grown from about 175 million nine-liter cases in 1990 to almost 300 million last year.

The upward trend is forecast to continue at least through until 2010 when the United States is expected to supplant Italy as the second-largest wine market. France remains the leader.

While McInerney confesses to missing the illicit pleasures of his youth a bit, the thrice-married writer with two children says he is still wants to have fun -- and wine is fun.

"It is an incredibly rich subject for study and contemplation and it leads you into a number of other subjects, meteorology or botany, or gastronomy. I find it kind of infinitely interesting," he said.

Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061201/people_nm/food_wine_mcinerney_dc