Bookworm, Issue 38

The Book: Eradication: A Fable by Jonathan Miles

Author Jonathan Miles introduces Eradication’s protagonist, Adi, at the start of a five-week-long assignment to “save the world.” Adi is setting sail for a remote and uninhabited Pacific island only visited, according to his boat captain, by scientists or by assassins. But Adi is neither. He is a fourth-grade teacher and a jazz clarinetist. He was a husband and a father.

We quickly learn that Adi’s job is more difficult, both emotionally and physically, than he had anticipated. He was hired to “eradicate” two- to four-thousand invasive and hungry goats from Isla Santa Flora in order to protect the island’s remaining native plants and animals from extinction. Saving the world equates to shooting all the goats.

The novel’s full title is Eradication: A Fable. And like fables from our childhoods, the story is short (159 pages) and memorable and shares lessons on human behavior and morality. However, Miles’ adaptation of the form is vastly more unsettling and philosophical.

Ancient Greek storyteller Aesop invented the most famous fables, often involving animals with human characteristics, and so my wine pairing comes from Greece. This lively red wine, made from indigenous Greek variety Xinomavro, forms a lasting impression that stays with you, just like Eradication.

Little about Adi’s backstory is revealed at first other than a desire for solitude drives him to Santa Flora. Once there, his actions suggest a gentle disposition at odds with killing goats, and he struggles to fulfill his duties. Gradually, details about Adi’s past in the “capital” city emerge and help us understand he has suffered a great loss.

Eradication delves into uncomfortable territory – grief, moral predicaments, violence, and killing – but the troubling moments are handled with care and conveyed using perceptive, sometimes humorous, often beautiful prose. Adi finds a goat horn that he turns into a musical instrument. Playing it on the beach beside a fire one night, a goat he calls Harmony bleats to join in. Adi concludes that “everything in nature…was more intricate and indecipherable than an outcast man on an obscure island could possibly fathom.”

In stark contrast to the beautiful passages are several violent ones. Reading this book even prompted a friend of mine to return to vegetarianism. For me, the most disturbing scene involves human cruelty toward animals. As upsetting as it is to read, the graphic violence serves the story and paves the way for the book’s conclusion.

A map of Santa Flora shows the island cleverly shaped like a comma, and while I don’t know the author’s intention, the shape feels meaningful. A comma signals a pause and allows for separation or for connection. Adi travels to Santa Flora to escape heartbreak, but instead discovers how everything is inescapably linked.

Alone, on a comma-shaped island overrun with goats, Adi faces some difficult choices. In the end, he doesn’t need to pause. But as readers, we do. To reflect on human behavior, and to consider our responsibilities to the planet and to each other and the choices we make in the face of them.

The Wine: Thymiopoulus, Young Vines, Xinomavro, Macedonia, Greece, 2023 $21.99

Joyful drinkability and cerebral reverie come together in this pale garnet beauty from northern Greece. Thymiopoulus boldly champions young vines, standing apart in a world that often exalts the old. The result is vibrant, fresh, and alive. Supremely satisfying in both intensity and complexity. On the nose and palate discover perfect harmony between fruity and savory characters. Ripe strawberry, jammy raspberry, fresh red cherry, cranberry, anise, leather, black olive, stewed tomato, and dried Mediterranean herbs. Light- to medium-bodied with bracing acidity and gentle tannic grip. 13% ABV. Drink now, slightly chilled.

100% Xinomavro from non-irrigated, young vines. Organic and biodynamic. Grapes are hand-harvested, 75% destemmed, and macerated for 12-15 days. Fermented with native yeast in stainless steel for three months, then aged eight months in concrete tanks.

Sustainable viticulture, biodiversity, and minimal intervention winemaking are at the heart of winemaker Apostolos Thymiopoulos’s philosophy. Though he comes from a grape-growing family, he was the first to study enology and make his own wine, releasing his first bottles in 2005.

Cool mountain air and sea breezes moderate the warm, continental growing region where the winery is located in northern Greece. Young Vines combines grapes from two villages in Naoussa; higher altitude Fytia and lower, warmer Trilofos. Soils are a combination of limestone, schist, and granite. Visit the Thymiopoulos website to see some beautiful photos of the region and the vineyards.

Thank you to South Lyndale Liquors and Lindsey Murrell at Athenee Importers, who hosted the Greek wine event where I first tasted this beguiling wine.

Why the pairing works:

Fables, those familiar moral lessons wrapped in a story with enduring appeal, can be traced to ancient cultures. Greek storyteller Aesop gets credit for creating some of my favorites, including The Tortoise and the Hare, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and The Ant and the Grasshopper; so it’s only fitting that we turn to Greece for a wine to pair with Jonathan Miles’ new book, Eradication: A Fable.

Greece has a long and rich winemaking history that was sadly suppressed due to centuries of political and economic instability, two World Wars, and civil war. But fine wine began emerging again in the 1980s, and consumers today appreciate Greek wine for its quality and distinctive character. Greek winemakers champion their country’s indigenous grape varieties, including the red grapes Xinomavro and Agiorgitiko and the white grapes Assyrtiko and Moschofilero, as well as their special mix of mountainous and island terrain.

Our paired wine, Thymiopoulos Young Vines Xinomavro 2023, epitomizes the timeless allure of a fable. It showcases a fresher, more approachable side of Xinomavro without sacrificing intensity and nuance. Light-bodied and playful, yet sensory and engaging, this wine is a delight to drink right now.

But Eradication is a dark and sophisticated modern-day fable quite unlike Aesop’s simple stories featuring animal characters. And so, the pairing becomes more adventurous; the wine delivers contrast in opposition to the story’s weight, and this tension enhances the combined experience.

In the novel, Adi is drawn to Santa Flora to be alone, but “saving one of the Pacific Ocean’s most unique and vibrant ecosystems from very certain destruction” appeals to him, as well. Grape growers and winemakers value biodiversity, too, and vines like Xinomavro are part of that conversation. Indigenous to northern Greece, tannic and acidic Xinomavro can produce age-worthy wines. While Xinomavro is sometimes compared to Nebbiolo or Pinot Noir, it is genetically distinct from both.

Native vines are often better adapted to their growing environments than international grape varieties. For example, some can be drought- and heat-tolerant and resistant to diseases and pests. Around the world, efforts to rescue near-extinct varieties help us preserve valuable expressions of terroir and cultural heritage.

Winemaker Apostolos Thymiopoulos, in an excerpt from an interview with Lindsey Murrell, Midwest Sales Manager at Athenee Importers, shares some related thoughts:

LM: At what age did you know you wanted to become a winemaker and what inspired you to follow that dream?

AT: I grew up among the vines in Trilofos, helping my father in the vineyard from a young age. By my teenage years, I realized that this was not just work – it was a way of life. The vineyard taught me patience and respect for nature. I studied enology to understand the science, but my true education came from the land and from observing how great wines are born from trust in nature rather than control.

LM: In your opinion, what is important for people to know about wines from Greece?

AT: Greek wines are an expression of diversity and history. Our vineyards are among the oldest in the world, cultivated by families for generations. Today, Greek winemakers combine their heritage with modern precision to craft wines of authenticity and identity. Each bottle tells a story of landscape, climate, and human perseverance. 

At the heart of this pairing lies a shared appreciation of the natural world. Though the wine offers lightness and refreshment, and the novel exhibits more disconcerting themes, together, they achieve balance – engaging our senses and emotions in ways that linger after the experience has ended.

P.S. While reading about Greece in Karen McNeil’s The Wine Bible, I came across this interesting animal fact: “(G)reece is smaller than the US state of Louisiana and a bit larger than Cuba. Much of the country is extremely mountainous and mostly devoted to grazing sheep and goats.”