Rochelle Dowden-Lord’s debut novel Lush is like a well-aged wine itself—complex, layered, and leaving a lingering impression long after the last page. Set against the backdrop of a sun-drenched French vineyard, the novel brings together four wine experts for what should be the tasting experience of a lifetime. Instead, what unfolds is a heady exploration of ambition, desire, addiction, and the human tendency to project our deepest longings onto external objects—in this case, an impossibly rare bottle of wine.
The novel’s brilliance lies in Dowden-Lord’s ability to use wine as both setting and metaphor. Like a sommelier identifying subtle notes in a complex vintage, she dissects her characters’ motivations with precision while maintaining an intoxicating narrative flow. Her prose is sensuous and tactile, making readers feel the warmth of the French summer, taste the various wines, and experience the disorienting effects of overindulgence alongside her characters.
The Bouquet: Plot and Structure
Lush by Rochelle Dowden-Lord follows four wine professionals invited to a remote French château by the enigmatic Master Sommelier Jon Master and his husband Tao. The invitees—Avery, a struggling sommelier and social media influencer; Cosmo, a young Master Sommelier with a drinking problem; Sonny, a wealthy American with a popular but critically panned wine brand; and Maëlys, a French food and wine critic—are there to taste a legendary bottle, possibly the last of its kind.
Structured in two parts, the novel unfolds over several days of excessive drinking, professional posturing, and sexual tension, culminating in the tasting of the mythical bottle that has brought them together. Dowden-Lord cleverly titles each chapter after wine terminology (“Terroir,” “Brut,” “Angel’s Share”), emphasizing how deeply viniculture permeates both the narrative and the characters’ worldviews.
The story takes a shocking turn when Sonny loses a finger under mysterious circumstances, and the group’s relationships become increasingly complicated as they attempt to untangle what happened and who might be responsible. This incident serves as a pivot point, forcing each character to confront uncomfortable truths about themselves.
The Palate: Character Development
The true strength of Lush by Rochelle Dowden-Lord lies in its character portraits:
- Avery is perhaps the most fully realized—ambitious, beautiful, and aware of how to leverage her appearance to succeed in a male-dominated industry. Her complex relationship with Cosmo forms the emotional core of the novel, a push-pull dance of attraction and repulsion that mirrors their complicated relationship with alcohol itself.
- Cosmo, with his prestigious Master Sommelier title but crumbling personal life, embodies the dangers of expertise without self-knowledge. His alcoholism creates haunting gaps in his memory and judgment, making him simultaneously sympathetic and disturbing.
- Sonny, seemingly the most superficial character with his Hollywood connections and commercial success, reveals unexpected depths. His philosophical musings about cupbearers and biblical references provide some of the novel’s most poignant moments.
- Maëlys remains somewhat enigmatic, her sudden appearance with her young daughter providing a jarring counterpoint to the group’s hedonism. Her relationship with motherhood offers an interesting exploration of expectations versus reality.
Dowden-Lord excels at revealing character through action rather than exposition. Each character’s relationship with wine—how they taste it, talk about it, use it—reveals volumes about their personalities and insecurities.
The Finish: Themes and Motifs
Several powerful themes run through Lush by Rochelle Dowden-Lord:
- Professional ambition versus personal integrity: Each character has made compromises to succeed in the wine world, raising questions about what success truly means.
- Addiction and control: The line between appreciation and dependency is constantly blurred, with characters using wine terminology to intellectualize what is, at times, problematic drinking.
- Authenticity versus performance: From fake wines to Instagram personas, questions of what’s real permeate the narrative.
- Memory and unreliability: Cosmo’s alcoholic blackouts serve as a powerful metaphor for broader questions about truth and perspective.
The novel’s most interesting motif is the constant attention to taste—not just of wine but of experience itself. Characters are constantly trying to identify notes, categorize sensations, and verbalize the ineffable, reflecting our human desire to make sense of complex experiences.
Tasting Notes: Prose and Style
Dowden-Lord’s writing is sensuous and precise, equally adept at describing both the technical aspects of wine and the messy realities of human desire. Consider this passage describing Avery’s tasting technique:
“She sips again. she keeps the wine in her mouth for so long that when she spits and smiles at them, her teeth are a lesser shade of white. Tasting: the mutant love child of a drinking game and gambling. The better part of each and somehow more cunning than both.”
The prose shifts skillfully between lyricism and stark clarity, mirroring the characters’ oscillations between drunken euphoria and painful sobriety. Dialogue rings true throughout, capturing both the jargon-heavy discussions of wine professionals and the unguarded intimacy of people lowering their inhibitions.
Potential Flaws: The Bitter Notes
Despite its considerable strengths, Lush by Rochelle Dowden-Lord occasionally stumbles. The mystery of Sonny’s severed finger sometimes feels like a plot device rather than an organic development. Some readers might find the novel’s frequent digressions into wine terminology excessive, though wine enthusiasts will likely appreciate these details.
The novel’s pacing can be uneven, with the middle section occasionally bogging down in extended drinking scenes that, while thematically relevant, sometimes feel repetitive. Additionally, the resolution of certain storylines—particularly the aftermath of the wine tasting—might leave some readers wanting more definitive closure.
Pairing Suggestions: Comparable Works
Lush by Rochelle Dowden-Lord sits comfortably alongside other works exploring expertise, excess, and complicated desire:
- Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter, another novel about a young woman navigating the sensuous and cutthroat world of fine dining
- Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, which similarly explores self-destruction with unflinching honesty
- Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City and The Good Life, with their explorations of excess and redemption
For those fascinated by the wine elements, Lawrence Osborne’s non-fiction work The Accidental Connoisseur makes an excellent companion read.
Verdict: A Vintage Worth Savoring
Lush is an impressive debut that delivers both sensory pleasure and intellectual substance. Dowden-Lord has created a novel that functions simultaneously as a window into the rarefied world of wine expertise and a mirror reflecting universal human frailties.
The novel’s greatest achievement is how it captures the contradictory nature of wine itself—something that can facilitate both connection and isolation, celebration and despair, clarity and obfuscation. By the final page, readers will feel both satiated and hungry for more, much like after an exquisite meal paired with the perfect wine.
For a first-time novelist, Dowden-Lord displays remarkable confidence in her material and her voice. While Lush by Rochelle Dowden-Lord isn’t without its flaws, its ambition, sensuality, and psychological insight make it a memorable reading experience and announce the arrival of a significant new literary talent.
At times uncomfortable, frequently intoxicating, and ultimately profound, Lush is a novel that, like its title suggests, rewards indulgence while quietly warning against its excesses. This tension makes it not just a compelling read but a thought-provoking one that lingers in the mind long after the book is closed—like the best wines, leaving notes that develop and deepen with time.