Well I waited 30 years for the book and 10 years for the wine; neither disappointed.
After I waiting a chilly hour in Mid town Manhattan for two autographed copies of the new JRR Tolkien book "The Children of Hurin" I eagerly arrived home, opened this bottle and later locked myself in the library and started reading.
First the book:
For those who love The Lord Of The Rings and the Hobbit, you may want to skip this book the same way a francophile skips a zin. That being said, for purists like me (I have been collecting Tolkien editions since I was 16) and anyone who has read The Silmarillion the story is a delight. There have been other versions of the story, but this is the first comprehensive rendering which begins with Hurin and ends with Turin.
I really enjoyed Tolkien’s story of Turin, it is a work of art, but not a blockbuster or epic along the lines of the Lord of the Rings. It’s not a fantasy, its atragedy. Even though it follows a path like both the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, it’s characters are hard to like and more importantly so, harder to sympathize with.
The favourite part for me (and probably many Tolkien lovers) will be the depiction of Morgoth. (Morgoth was the bad guy in The Silmarillion that taught Sauron The Bad guy in the Lord of the Rings everything he knew.) Morgoth doesn’t toy with his victims. He is the devil, a Valar, and what he says goes. I can see how Tolkien tried to make Sauron as evil as Morgoth in The Lord of the Rings but after reading this, it was better to leave him as an enigma in the story. In the Children of Hurin, Morgoth makes it personal on alevel that Sauron never could. I also liked Alan Lee's illustrations. Alan also signed the book with Christopher Tolkien, he was the guy who did the illustrations for the movies and other Tolkien editions and he does a great job with this
Now the Wine:
Whats not to love, it is still a shining example of what a Barbaresco can be even when made in the simplest terms. Great nose of candied fruits , cinnamon and slight flowers. Palate was a bright surprise with the keynote strawberry essence of Farina's Barbarescos.
All in all, they were both worth the wait....