When I was first starting out as a cook—not that long ago—if you really wanted to drink great wine, you suffered the indignities of ingratiating yourself before a tuxedoed sommelier, and you wrestled with an encyclopedic tome. The experience was humbling, if not excruciating, to navigate. Fine dining has loosened up everywhere since then. Today we have dimly lit restaurants blaring rock music with sockless sommeliers, but the wine book hasn't really evolved. For serious cellars, the bulk is still there and so is the intimidating lack of direction. Unless you’re an oenophile, it’s not a cozy read. That’s unfortunate on a lot of levels, but the one that always gnawed at me is the lost opportunity. Chefs respect sommeliers more than just about anyone else—for their palates (you can’t hide mistakes with good somms), but also because they’re loaded with stories. It’s what sommeliers do best: tell stories. And while every chef wishes they could go to tables all night and talk about where their ingredients are from before diners taste a course, the truth is it takes a lot of expertise and passion to do it right. What if the wine list itself reflected that passion? Changing the culture of the wine book is easier said than done. Make it too radical and you won’t be taken seriously—a disaster for the sommelier, and not at all good for the restaurant. Remain conservative and you stay on ponderous message. There’s a third way, and it’s not the middle way. Enter Hannah Williams, whose expertise, dedication, and joie de vivre is unlike anyone in the wine world I’ve ever worked with. Instead of hedging, she started over. She and sommelier Daniel Congbalay compiled a collection of photographs, interviews, rants, drawings, handwritten annotations and artifacts from the vintners of the Blue Hill cellar. To elegantly rewrite the rules is no small task. But Hannah’s done it. So, what do you call it? “It’s a sketchbook, or a notebook, or a diary, or a book,” she said about the project. "But It’s Not a Wine List.” @hannzah @danielcongbalay Designed by Susi Lu. To get a copy, link in bio. @bluehillmarket