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Revolver (US)
Spring 2000



REVOLVER ASKS Tori Amos "Whatcha Drinkin'?"

by J.D. Considine

While a certain track on her latest album, To Venus and Back (Atlantic), may suggest otherwise, Tori Amos never was a "Cornflake Girl".

"I'm a Bordeaux girl," says Amos. "I love the seduction of good wine. I love it when I have to surrender to it."

"It is a relationship, Bordeaux."

The man responsible for Amos' affair with fine wines is none other than Al "Year of the Cat" Stewart, who she met as an aspiring rocker girl living in Los Angeles. "He looked at me, and said, 'You've never had good wine!' I said, 'Oh, my god! Is it that obvious?'" Stewart had the singer-pianist and her boyfriend over for dinner one evening, and Amos saw the light. "He brought a white Burgundy and a red Bordeaux up from his cellar, and they completely changed my life. I never thought of grapes in the same way again."

Being a slave to the vine can be costly. "I'd rather drink Evian than mediocre wine," says Amos, who generally spends $40-$45 a bottle, and maintains cellars (the underground kind) at her homes in Cornwall and Ireland. "Some people buy cars and jewelry," she says. "I don't do that. I buy wine -- and I love sharing it."

Amos is famous for sharing her beloved Bordeaux on the tour bus, but life on the road with Tori isn't exactly a roving bacchanalia. "There are nights when we'll go a few bottles deep," she says. "But you know you're going to pay for it the next day, and I don't enjoy the back end. It's about discipline."


original article



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