One of the most urbane poets writing, [Hollander's] mercurial mind sparkles with the iridescence of an opal. In the notes to [Blue Wine], he engagingly explains the genesis of his title poem thus: "I visited Saul Steinberg one afternoon and found that he had pasted some mock (or rather visionary) wine labels on bottles, which were then filled with a substance I could not identify. This poem is an attempt to make sense of what was apparently in them." The 11 meditations on the subject attack the puzzle from a bewildering variety of angles…. In the end, Hollander decides that his "Blue wine in bold bottles" is for the poet to "take home with him / in the clear cup of his own eye, to see what he will see."

The poems that follow are seldom so full of fey humor. Melancholy plays a continuo throughout them. The themes are absence and loss. All roads lead inexorably into darkness, and this is often expressed through Hollander's obsession with dreams and journeys. "The Train," for example, is an extended stream of musings on the conventional associations between journeys and life….

I would guess from the evidence of Blue Wine that John Hollander is now at the crossroads of his own midlife journey, picking out a new direction to follow. (p. 22)