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Whites and Reds: A History of Wine in the Lands of Tsar and Commissar

By: Stephen Bittner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
Year of publication: 2021
ISBN: 978-0198784821
Price: $97.00
272 Pages
Reviewer: Paul Nugent
University of Edinburgh
E-Mail: Paul.Nugent@ed.ac.uk
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 4
JWE Pages: 360-362
Full Text PDF
Book Review

At one time, the Soviet Union was the fourth-largest wine producer in the world, but by the 1990s, production in the successor republics had dwindled. In this trajectory, there are some parallels with Algeria. But the crucial difference was that while Algerian wines were always oriented to the French market, Russian/Soviet wines were largely based on French varietals but were geared almost entirely to an undis- cerning domestic market. As Stephen Bittner demonstrates in this new book, this reality proved to be the Achilles heel for those who aspired to build an industry pre- mised on quality and some conception of terroir.

There has long been a need for a book (or article) that would properly address the history of Russian/Soviet wine and describe it in an international context. This study more than delivers. In an understated way, Bittner deftly guides the reader through a number of thematic issues while paying close attention to changing dynamics over time. The book devotes considerable space to viticulture and oenology, including a fascinating account of the Russian response to phylloxera. It also addresses the chang- ing face of production, distribution, and consumption in the decades after the Revolution.

Unsurprisingly, much of the text is concerned with moments of upheaval, most notably with regard to the Revolution and civil war, the catastrophic effects of two world wars, and the uncertainties unleashed by Stalin’s purges in the 1930s and 1940s. Examples are drawn from across Russia/the Soviet Union, but the greater part of the text is concerned with Bessarabia (mostly what is now Moldova), Georgia, and especially Crimea, which was where the best wine was reputedly pro- duced. The thread that holds much of the account together concerns the efforts of researchers and winemakers in two Crimean institutions, the Magarach Institute (founded in 1828) and the Massandra Wine Complex (a former crown estate) to keep the industry moving forward.

The book begins by observing a tension between the tendency at the Russian court (from the time of Peter the Great) to treat wine consumption as a marker of civili- zation and French wine as the epitome of refinement, on the one hand, and the rec- ognition that the colonized territories of the Black Sea and the Caucasus were the cradle of winemaking. The wines produced by peasants in Georgia or Tatars in Crimea were typically regarded with condescension, while conscious efforts were made to settle Germans, Swiss, Bulgarians, and Greeks in the lands that were of less interest to the tsar and wine-loving aristocrats. In Crimea, French cultivars were planted extensively on the great estates, and the expertise of French and Italians was actively solicited. Indeed, the degree of extraversion of the Russian wine industry in the nineteenth century is quite remarkable. Before the revolution, “Russian wine” was overwhelmingly produced in the non-Russian territories and was heavily influenced by European models, personnel, and knowledge. This, Bittner reveals, had significant consequences.

The end of the monarchy and the eventual triumph of the Bolsheviks brought the former estates and research facilities under state control, but Bittner points to some surprising continuities. Notably, many of those who had received French education or training often remained in place, because their expertise was needed to rebuild the industry. And under the New Economic Policy, state controls that dated to tsarist times were replaced by a somewhat less dirigiste system of distribution.

With the accession to power of Stalin, however, many of those who survived the revolutionary years were removed. Following WWII, when the Soviet Union recap- tured territories that had been under German control, many more were sent to penal camps—often never to be seen again. Given the pride that Stalin displayed in the products of his native Georgia, it would seem that the ax did not fall quite as heavily there. But being too wedded to particular ways of doing things still came at a risk. Bittner notes, for example, that the carrying out of public tastings to show- case the best wines came to be construed as evidence of misuse of state resources.

With the death of Stalin and the re-opening to the world, Bittner shows how Soviet wines began to re-appear in international competitions, albeit mostly in the Eastern Bloc. He also reveals the renewed interest in learning and updating wine technology derived from western Europe. This proceeded alongside a turn to the United States. There is a fascinating account of the visits of Maynard Amerine of the University of California, Davis to the Soviet Union in 1962, 1971, and 1973—on the last occasion (rather bizarrely) with a view to helping the Pepsi Cola Company select some wines for the American market.

The book’s final chapter addresses the reasons why the attempt to improve quality from the 1960s onwards proved to be a losing battle. Not surprisingly, Bittner iden- tifies some of the problems with the country’s productionist mindset, which meant that lower yields in the interest of higher quality caused administrative resistance, while the production of wine on an industrial scale, most notably in the vast Inter-Republic Wine Factory in Moscow, made it impossible to pay attention to the subtleties of terroir. But ultimately, Bittner brings it all back to the preferences of Russian consumers, located far away from the places where the wine was produced, for wines that were sweetened and had grain spirit added to them.

Moreover, the notion that attracting consumers to good quality wine would lure them away from vodka, and hence the perils of alcoholism, ultimately culminated in some unintended outcomes. The reality was that consumers gravitated to bormo- tukha, or souped-up factory products, rather than to the terroir-based wines that some would have preferred to produce. The nadir came with Gorbachev’s frontal attack on alcohol, which sought to increase the use of grapes for purposes other than winemaking. The book concludes by noting the return of connoisseurship and the politics of wine between Russia and its former imperial fringes of Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine—including, of course, the recent annexation of Crimea.

There is much to savor and reflect upon in this book, especially for those of a more comparative disposition. The chapter on phylloxera, which demonstrates that a blind adherence to chemical solutions (based on a particular reading of Darwin) had fateful consequences, enriches the larger literature on international responses to the threat. For a researcher on South African wine, there are some surprising resonances with respect to the turn to California and even with regard to consumption. If there is something one would want to know a little more about, it is how Georgian peasant producers related to indigenous cultivars and responded to directives from above. But maybe that is a research project all in itself. As things stand, this is a monograph that is to be highly recommended.

A Life in Wine

By: Steven Spurrier
Publisher: Académie du Vin Library, Ascot, Berkshire, UK
Year of publication: 2020
ISBN: 978-1913141073
Price: $45.00
288 Pages
Reviewer: Simon Raeside (1) & Philippe LeMay-Boucher (2)
1University of Edinburgh and 2Heriot-Watt University
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 4
JWE Pages: 356-360
Full Text PDF
Book Review

A second viewing of Mondovino (Lima and Schroder, 2009) and an obituary in the New York Times (Asimov, 2021) piqued our interest in the man behind the Judgement of Paris. That famous 1976 Paris wine tasting (which has been analyzed and reviewed in this Journal1) brought sudden, surprising attention to Californian wines, and for the first time demystified the French grandes maisons and their alleged superiority. Understandably, this single event is thoroughly unpacked in the longest and most absorbing chapter of the book. From its genesis and the difficulty of finding worthy American wines in 1970s Paris for an Independence Day tasting with some pomp, through to its aftermath, Spurrier insists that Patricia Gallagher take equal credit for the event.

This historic moment has been poured over many times, so what of the life that surrounds it? Three ingredients make this character an outlier: the inheritance early in his 20s of a large fortune, a love of wine developed by tasting la crème de la crème, and a generous curiosity towards any wine worthy of the name.

Spurrier does not trouble us much with his pre-wine life. One stroke is enough to brush in the necessary family circumstances, upbringing, and expectations. There’s just a hint of charmed existence and the suggestion of gleeful discontent in his pro- gression to fine wine’s doorstep. One part money, two parts eagerness and open- mindedness, and three parts charming self-belief.

Private school connections bring Spurrier to his first gig in London’s wine mer- chant arena, at Christopher’s. Entertaining snippets of work and his London social life convey at a brisk pace what it meant to be an importer and bottler in 1960s England, to enjoy an inheritance, start a wine collection, and acquire antiques. He was sent abroad for eight months in 1965 to work as the company’s principal in four European countries. He puts his fortune to good use, working for free—an astute move that leads him to be used in ways his fellow interns simply cannot match. Chapter 2 is rich in details about how the trade operated in the 60s, how merchants “ruled the roost” and chateaux “meekly accepted” their offers via the En Primeur system.

Spurrier then launches on a Tour de France with stops at a number of prestigious stations. His tribulations inside the bordelais commercants (Cruse) are entertaining and delectable to readers with an avid interest in period details. Tax departments in France have always been interested in scrutinizing lucrative sectors and big employers, such as the wine trade in Bordeaux and elsewhere. Spurrier takes us through the tricks being carried out to maximize volumes of certain appellations, while in the background, a significant share of that volume turned out to come from another (cheaper one)! The pace is breezy and enjoyable: Cognac, Jarnac, the Loire Valley, Burgundy (Chablis then Beaunes), finishing in fine fashion with the northern Cotes du Rhone.

There are only big names on this trail, no Jura, no vin de pays, no Bandol, nothing not meant for the English market and its upper class. For many current humble wine lovers, it all appears conventional and beyond means. It may well have been that only these limited wines were available for export and of sufficient quality. Many appella- tions, obscure at the time, have improved immensely in recent decades.

A few pages of further escapades in southern Europe follow, which serve to accen- tuate the sumptuous style in which Monsieur Spurrier traveled. A beguiling combi- nation of time and money makes for a unique aesthetic. However, the return to London is difficult. The wine trade is going through a transition that will lead to the Oddbins, Bottoms Up, and the Majestic Wines, which are now up and down the United Kingdom. But the opening of Christie’s wine auctions in 1966 was a sig- nificant event. From there, Spurrier becomes a regular (and successful) bidder and gets to know Michael Broadbent from whom he learns that tasting should be a struc- tured activity. It is a seminal moment that helps Spurrier in setting up his Wine School in Paris years later.

The ballet of tastings whirls on. His new job at Murray and Banbury offers more forays into France. Manifestations of Madame X, Monsieur Y, and Owner Z are met here and there in mesmeric milieux, which Spurrier brings to life with crisp anecdotes involving prestigious wines. Back in London, “life is marvellous” Spurrier buys more antiques and a four-story house in SW10. Renovations ensue and result in space for large wine racks. Despite a few poor investments, Spurrier buys a property in France. He marries Bella and they move to Provence, intending to enter the antique trade. The building work proves too much and too costly. He is forced to sell. The car is packed and they are headed north to Paris.

La ville Lumière appears at first to offer little in the wine trade for an Englishman with passable French. Only Spurrier would surmise from this that setting up on his own is the only option. With a generous dose of good luck, he finds the Cave de la Madelaine. Chapter 5 recounts the transformation of the shop away from vins ordi- naires to much better offerings. As Spurrier writes: at that time a petrol pump atten- dant and a cavist had similar social status. Inspired by Constant Bourquin’s book, Connaissance du Vin (1970), Spurrier refreshes his stock in two innovative ways: (1) selling non-dosé champagnes (dosage consists of adding a liqueur after dégorgement to mask acidity); and (2) avoiding wines (specifically Beaujolais), which have gone through chaptalization (adding sugar to the fermenting to bolster alcohol content). Spurrier now runs a small wine shop and has settled on a barge on the Seine. His father is unimpressed—calling him a hippy.

There is virtually nothing about the mundanity of running a wine shop to distract from Spurrier’s focus on creating a shimmering litany of acquaintances, ventures, and wines. When space becomes available next to de la Madelaine, he opens the Académie du Vin. As he writes, “It seems embarrassing to say it, but in terms of wine appreci- ation, promotion and communication it was the only game in town.” Spurrier would later say that he took more pride in l’Académie than in all his other commercial ven- tures in France.

The first decade of his adventures in Paris had been a success. Following the “Judgement” in 1976, Spurrier began to travel more extensively and surf his new- found American wave of fame. The Académie and the Cave were both doing well, but hardly making a profit. His second decade in Paris started badly. Poor invest- ments caught up with him, dragging him away from his core activities. Mitterand’s nationalization of the finance industry meant that many of his customers left for Frankfurt or London. The shop’s peak had passed and would not return. Following a few years of increasing frustration, Spurrier returns to London after a hiatus of 14 years. Cue a letter from Michael Broadbent with an irresistible offer to set up and run an academy of wine in conjunction with the Christie’s Fine Arts Course. He would remain involved for decades. Spurrier became a writer in the early 1980s with significant success. The Spurrier brand soon spanned the globe. Notably, the wine worlds of Australia and New Zealand leave a favorable impression.

In the late 1980s, Spurrier moves to the countryside in Dorset and maintains his London pied-à-terre. Meanwhile, in Paris, it is time to sell his local interests. The sub- sequent chapters, of less interest, describe a retinue of engagements, consultancies, and writing, globe-trotting either as a wine judge or speaker. In Chapter 15, the 2008–2009 ambitious planting of a little over two hectares of vines from a pépinière in Burgundy on his own Dorset estate completes the circle. In 2014, at Liberty Wines’ annual trade tasting, he finds himself on the selling side of the table for the first time.

In the latter part of his life, Spurrier had become a celebrity in the English- speaking world of wine. Feature films, such as Bottle Shock in 2008 (Valletta, 2008), and documentaries exploring the Judgement of Paris, such as Somm 3 in 2018 (Stavins, 2020), brought an additional aura to his prescience in promoting lesser-known wines. “Meet Steven Spurrier: The Man who changed Wine Forever” and other YouTube clips have drawn significant audiences, perhaps surprising given how unknown the Judgement of Paris is to many of today’s wine drinkers. For others, such as Robert Mondavi, Spurrier put California on the map. But his appeal to French-speaking audiences appears thin: YouTube has only the odd, old interview with him elaborating in French, and Le Monde did not offer an obituary.

To your reviewers—both British university faculty of relatively comfortable means —Spurrier’s grandiose vertical tastings of illustrious Champagnes or Clarets seem affected, somewhat vacuous, and the preserve of the few. But Spurrier was also a champion of lesser-known appellations and vin de pays, as his Guide des Vins Régionaux de France (Spurrier, 1985) attests.

Wine leaves its mark and lays down its challenges early on in Monsieur Spurrier’s life with a simple, bold appearance that evokes a first love. From that moment on, we are bounced along in his wine-glass elevator, skipping through a dizzying array of events, touching down on endless, highly prized invitations to dinners, engagements, tastings, or competitions. Regrettably, for a reader not part of the trade, at times it feels like a tiresome exhibition of name-dropping, and thereby loses some of its vitality.

This was clearly a heavily documented life, and the details are lifted with metic- ulous care: “We were to have Dom Perigon as an aperitif, probably the 1955, then Chassagne-Montrachet Marquis de Laguiche 1962 bottled by Brouhin, and com- pare Domaine Rousseau’s Gevrey-Chambertin and Chambertin Clos de Beze from 1952. The order was left to me and I suggested that the Lafite should be the first of the reds and that it should not be decanted, but poured directly into the glasses after opening” (p. 96). Despite these otherworldly nuggets of haute gas- tronomie, Spurrier retains a sense of his huge good fortune through recurrent touches of self-deprecation.

With products, places, and especially people front and center, recurring names weave a rich mise-en-scène that, in one way or another, is responsible for many of the plays of his life. He is unstintingly generous in crediting others and self-effacing to the point that you could believe it all happened by itself.

References

Ashton, R. H. (2012). Improving experts’ wine quality judgments: Two heads are better than one. Journal of Wine Economics, 6(2), 160–178.

Asimov, E. (2021). Steven Spurrier, 79, a merchant who upended the wine world with a taste test. New York Times, March 18, Section A, page 23.

Bourquin, C. (1970). Connaissance du Vin. Paris: Gérard.
Cicchetti, D. V. (2006). The Paris 1976 wine tastings revisited once more: Comparing ratings of consistent

and inconsistent tasters. Journal of Wine Economics, 1(2), 125–140.
Gergaud, O., Ginsburgh, V., and Moreno-Ternero, J. D. (2021). Wine ratings: Seeking a consensus among

tasters via normalization, approval, and aggregation. Journal of Wine Economics, 16(3), 321–342. Lima, T., and Schroder, N. (2009). Film review: Jonathan Nossiter (Director), Mondovino. Journal of Wine

Economics, 4(1), 119–121.
Spurrier, S. (1985). Guide des Vins Régionaux de France. Paris: Dursus.
Stavins, R. N. (2020). Film review: Jason Wise (Director), Somm 3. Journal of Wine Economics, 15(4),

423–426.
Valletta, R. (2008). Film review: Randall Miller (Director), Bottle Shock. Journal of Wine Economics, 3(2),

214–216.

Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book 2022

By: Hugh Johnson and Margaret Rand
Publisher: Mitchell Beazley and Octopus Publishing
Year of publication: 2022
ISBN: 978-178472796
Price: $14.99
356 Pages
Reviewer: Stephen M. Walt
Harvard Kennedy School
E-Mail: Stephen_Walt@hks.harvard.edu
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 4
JWE Pages: 355-356
Full Text PDF
Book Review

If you are a certifiable wine geek, with multiple volumes by Jancis Robinson and Robert Parker lining your bookshelves, back issues of The Wine Advocate filed chro- nologically in binders, and a cellar-tracking spreadsheet occupying space on your hard drive, you can probably do without the latest edition of the Pocket Wine Book. But if you are someone with a healthy interest in food and wine—either a neo- phyte beginning to discover the joys of the grape or a curious but less-than-fully obsessed oenophile—you will benefit from owning a copy.

First published in 1977, the 2022 version follows the same format as its predeces- sors. You will need a rather large pocket to accommodate the book at this point, as this once-slim volume has swelled to more than 300 pages of very small print. Its cre- ator, Hugh Johnson, has turned the editorial reins over to experienced wine writer Margaret Rand, and 2022 marks the first edition produced entirely under her direc- tion. The general approach and overall structure of the book remain unchanged, how- ever, and Johnson’s guiding philosophy—that wine should be enjoyed as much as studied—remains intact.

As in past years, the book begins with a quick recap of “The Year in Wine,” noting the chief events and characteristics of the most recent vintage (2020 in this edition). Rand and Johnson each contribute brief introductory essays and spotlight “Ten Wines to Try for 2022.” Next comes a succinct summary of the principal grape vari- eties and a section offering advice for pairing wine and food.

The bulk of the Pocket Wine Book is a survey of the world’s wines by country or region, containing brief entries on principal styles, varietals, and noteworthy produc- ers. No single volume could include every significant winemaker, of course, but the number of wines and wineries cataloged here is still impressive. A simple notation system gives the reader plenty of useful information about each wine, including which vintages were especially successful for a given property, which years are now deemed ready for drinking, and which wines provide good value within a given price range. Openly dismissing the 100-point rating system used by Robert Parker and others—a decision one can only applaud—the Pocket Wine Book rates each wine from 1 star (“plain, everyday quality”) to 4 stars (“outstanding, compelling”). The rankings reflect the contributors’ preference for balance, freshness, and unique- ness over power, extraction, or oak, in line with current wine-making trends.

France still receives the greatest attention in this edition, with 61 pages devoted to its wines (plus a separate 22 pages on Bordeaux). Italy ranks second (31 pages) and the United States comes in third (29). Even so, the book’s 32 far-flung contributors have made an admirable effort to keep track of what is happening nearly everywhere fine wine is grown. If you are ever dining in Malta and find yourself confronted by a cellar list of local producers, the Pocket Wine Book would be your friend. Rand ends the volume with a bracing essay on “the ten best things about wine right now,” and her upbeat assessment may encourage you to reach for your corkscrew and pour a glass in celebration.

For some readers, the most useful section of the book will be its recommendations for matching wine with a wide range of foods. Based on a lifetime of sipping and tast- ing, Johnson’s opinions are firm but not dogmatic (apart from a stern warning that “watercress makes every wine on earth taste revolting” (p. 34). Even if my own tastes occasionally diverge from his, I have found his advice to be sound across a wide range of main ingredients, cuisines, herbs, spices, and cheeses. Above all, Johnson wants the marriage of food and wine to be free from anxiety. As Johnson wrote in the 2021 edition:“Matching wine and food matters, but don’t get hung up on it.”

That pragmatic, hedonic philosophy neatly captures the book’s enduring appeal. Some writers make appreciating wine seem like hard work; Johnson and now Rand remind us that it is fundamentally about pleasure. Knowing more about the wines we drink, when to pull the cork, and how to pair them with food enhances our enjoy- ment, and being able to allocate one’s wine budget intelligently is a useful skill. The Pocket Wine Guide can help you do all of these things, which is why I have ordered a copy for my two millennial children. I cannot think of a better endorsement than that.

Reference

Johnson, H. (2021). Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book 2021. London: Mitchell Beazley and Octopus Publishing.

Natural Wine: An Introduction to Organic and Biodynamic Wines Made Naturally

By: Isabelle Legeron
Publisher: CICO Books, New York
Year of publication: 2020
ISBN: 978-1782498995
Price: $16.39
224 Pages
Reviewer: Kevin Visconti
Columbia University
E-Mail: kv2305@columbia.edu
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 4
JWE Pages: 352-354
Full Text PDF
Book Review

Nature is full of color, vibrancy, and biodiversity; and so, too, should it be with natural wine. In her newly expanded and updated third edition of Natural Wine: An Introduction to Organic and Biodynamic Wines Made Naturally (2020), Isabelle Legeron argues that natural wines are made with conviction and promote a philosophy of love for the land that can, and should, affect the entire wine industry. To make her case, Legeron acknowledges that natural wine is not new; in fact, she states, it is what wine has always been. And across the three distinct parts of her impressive work, she asserts the benefits, qualities, and authenticity of making wine just as nature intended.

In the Introduction, Legeron writes that her book is “a tribute to those wines that are not only farmed well, but also fly in the face of modern winemaking practices, remaining natural at all odds” (p. 6). Brimming with photographs and scientific studies throughout her writing, Legeron interlaces her well-researched perspective with vivid illustrations and rational evidence, pointing out that while the agriculture behind creating organic and biodynamic wines may look untamed and untidy, natural wines require careful attention and precision from those producing them. This native, wild approach to viti- culture is exactly how Legeron believes winemaking should be. After all, “We are not separate from our environment and even less so from what we eat and drink” (p. 11).

Following the Introduction, Part 1 of the book, “What is Natural Wine?,” is broken into five sections, each with their own sub-sections to explore the question: Is there such a thing as natural wine; and, if so, what is it? Legeron purports, “Natural wine is literally living wine from living soil” (p. 92); and from the vineyard to the cellar, she takes her reader on a nearly 100-page viticultural and vinicultural journey through the production of natural wine.

In the first segment of Part 1, “The Vineyard,” Legeron examines viticulture across three distinct areas: “Living Soils,” “Natural Farming,” and “Understanding Terroir.” In “Living Soils,” Legeron explains that because there is no worldwide legal certifica- tion, one of the challenges in discussing natural wine is in defining it to clarify the difference between natural and organic winemaking. Natural wine “is wine from vine- yards that are farmed organically, at the very least, and which is produced without add- ing or removing anything during vinification, apart from a dash of sulfites at most at bottling” (p. 23). And the first step in producing such a wine is found at the ground level—in the living soils of the vineyard, teeming with biodiversity and microorganisms that are essential for proper plant and vine nutrition that creates natural wines.

In “Natural Farming,” Legeron defines the distinction between organic, biody- namic, and permaculture approaches. Whereas organic viticulture aims to eschew man-made, synthetic chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers in the vineyard, biody- namic agriculture emphasizes a holistic, astronomical approach to farming that con- siders the moon’s gravity and ocean tides to inform when to prune vines and bottle wines. “Life on Earth,” Legeron notes, “is fundamentally affected by these large exter- nal factors – and biodynamics takes this into account” (p. 35). A third approach, known as permanent sustainable agriculture, or permaculture, incorporates self- sustaining and self-sufficient systems into farming. Permaculture, explains Legeron, encapsulates the idea that “we should farm in such a way that we enrich our environ- ments both for ourselves and for all life that depends on that place” (p. 37). Whether named organic, biodynamic, or permaculture, “clean” farming, says Legeron, will have a positive environmental impact now and for future generations to come.

In “Understanding Terroir,” Legeron notes that terroir is derived from the French word for earth and refers to a sense of place. She continues to say that terroir high- lights the unique combination of factors—for example, a distinct year and a specific location—that creates flavors that are irreproducible elsewhere. As an agricultural prod- uct, wine is “created by living organisms in a particular place at a particular moment. It is the product of life forms, the sum of which is terroir. And, without them, terroir can- not be expressed” (p. 43). Due to their more traditional production, natural wines, notes the author, are specially equipped to express the finer elements of terroir.

In the second segment of Part 1, “The Cellar,” Legeron examines viniculture across four subjects: “Living Wine,” “Processing and Additives,” “Fermentation,” and “Sulfites in Wine.” Citing numerous studies exploring the microbiology of wine, in “Living Wine,” Legeron relies upon science to support the notion that bacteria found in natural winemaking have a positive impact on the taste and longevity of natural wine. In both “Processing and Additives” and “Fermentation,” Legeron notes factors that set natural wine apart from its competitors. She states, “Wine is one of those rare drinks made from a primary material – grapes – that naturally con- tains everything the wine needs to exist … anything else should be regarded as an extra” (p. 55). And in “Sulfites in Wine,” Legeron writes that sulfites, a common winemaking additive, are a defining characteristic and perhaps even a hallmark of natural wine in that little to none are added during natural wine production.

In the third, fourth, and fifth segments of Part 1 of the book, Legeron briefly inves- tigates the reputation of natural wine across three topics: “Taste,” “Misconceptions,” and “Health.” Legeron believes the cultivation behind natural winemaking, described in detail throughout the previous pages of her book, results in a lighter, more ethereal final product. “The proximity to and link with the actual, physical earth means that natural wines have a far greater array of textures than conventional wines” (p. 75). And while natural wine is not immune to potential flaws, Legeron is clear to debunk misconceptions about so-called faults in the stability of natural wine. While few stud- ies have been conducted that investigate the effects of wine on health, Legeron states: “Simply put, natural wine contains far less artificial ‘stuff.’ For this reason, it’s hardly surprising that it might be better for you” (p. 84).

As the reader advances through the book, we learn from Legeron that natural wine is a continuum and may be defined as wine that is “farmed at least organically and made without any additives whatsoever in the cellar” (p. 95). In Part 2, “Who, Where, When?,” Legeron moves on to discuss those who produce natural wine and investigates the heritage and cultural aspects of natural winemakers. Legeron asserts that, above all, what unites natural winemakers is a love of the land and a legacy of traditional practices. This portion of her book reads more like a narrative of the author’s favorite subject, natural winemaking, and the storytelling approach reads like a well-researched historical novel. Legeron has seemingly traversed the globe to interview myriad winemakers and visit countless vineyards, and the robust and unparalleled insight into the production of natural wine makes it easy to keep reading.

In the “Who” section, Legeron recounts many personal stories and family histories from artisans to outsiders (even a Druid!) who were fundamental in the origins of the natural wine movement. “Natural growers,” Legeron claims, “don’t make wine to a formula or for a market. Instead, what they share is the pursuit of excellence” (p. 105). In the “Where and When” section, Legeron discusses grower associations and wine fairs, including her own festival, RAW WINE, which is the only artisan wine fair in the world that “requires full disclosure from growers regarding any addi- tives or interventions used during winemaking” (p. 122). She wraps up this part of her book with suggestions for trying and buying natural wine, which include loca- tions and merchants from her extended travels.

Finally, in Part 3, “The Natural Wine Cellar,” Legeron devotes over 70 pages to the creation of a rich index of global natural wine producers to help the reader discover natural wines. This mini-guide, replete with tasting notes on aroma, texture, and fla- vor across light-, medium-, and full-bodied wines, offers descriptions of the types of wine available in six different categories: sparkling, white, orange, rosé, red, and off- dry/sweet. Referred to by Legeron as a “do-it-yourself starter-kit” (p. 132), this wine selection adheres to her methodology for making natural wine: farms must use natural approaches and there must be no additives used during winemaking, with the possible exemption of minimal sulfites (which she is clear to detail in her tasting notes). While not exhaustive, this section of the book provides a rich background and vivid explanations of natural wine across varieties from across the globe and concludes with an international list of recommended wine growers.

In this well-executed, thoroughly researched, and beautifully photographed book, Legeron has compiled a necessary companion for any person with an interest in agri- culture and wine production. And while this informed work is certainly intriguing upon first read, with its litany of sources, including global case studies and numerous quotes from experts, it also serves the interested reader as a reference to return to again and again. Backed with scientific evidence, Natural Wine: An Introduction to Organic and Biodynamic Wines Made Naturally makes the case that natural wines can carry profound appeal to people across the globe. “For me,” asserts Legeron, “only natural wine can be truly great” (p. 6).

The Science of Wine from Vine to Glass, 3rd Edition

By: Jamie Goode
Publisher: University of California Press
Year of publication: 2021
ISBN: 978-0-520-37950-3
Price: $39.95
224 Pages
Reviewer: Neal D. Hulkower
Independent Scholar, McMinnville, OR, USA
E-Mail: nhulkower@yahoo.com
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 3
JWE Pages: 264-267
Full Text PDF
Book Review

As evidenced by I Taste Red: The Science of Tasting Wine (Goode, 2016), Flawless: Understanding Faults in Wine (Goode, 2018), and now the third edition of The Science of Wine from Vine to Glass, Jamie Goode is a master author of wine books that occupy the space between popular and technical expositions. “This is not meant to be a textbook, covering the whole of wine science in a methodical manner. … I have set out to tell wine science stories in a way that would engage people who are not overly scientifically literate” (p. 7), he assures us. While this is generally the case, he cannot help exposing his Ph.D. in plant biology along with his command of chemistry throughout this important volume. Nevertheless, the acclaimed blogger and wine writer successfully accommodates the less knowledgeable through his engaging style while offering insights and opinions that should appeal to the more informed reader.

The first and second editions of The Science of Wine appeared in 2005 and 2014. Regarding the latest edition, “Overall around half the book is new” (p. 7), Goode tells us. The material covered in his two books mentioned previously is included in an abridged form.

Section 1, In the Vineyard, contains seven chapters covering the biology of the grapevine, terroir, soils and vines, climate, and caring for vines. Section 2, In the Winery, comprises 12 chapters including such topics as microorganisms, flavor chemistry, phenolics, extraction and maceration, sulfur dioxide, wine faults, élevage, sweet wines, and differences among tasters. Color photographs are sprinkled through- out. A seven-page glossary defines many important terms, occasionally in more depth than in the main text. An otherwise helpful seven-page index suffers from inconsis- tent indentation due to entries being listed in four narrow columns, resulting in some confusion as to which subentry is associated with which main entry. Surprisingly, there is neither a bibliography nor a reference section.

In addition to displaying considerable proficiency himself, Goode incorporates quotations and examples gleaned during interviews with or from papers by an array of international experts, most of whom are on the frontlines of research or prac- tice, to illustrate and reinforce points. The lack of dates left me wondering about the currency of the information, particularly important since knowledge is rapidly advancing. The absence of citations in the literature leaves the reader without a way of delving deeper into a topic. In any case, I certainly learned a lot and appreciate Goode’s erudition, thoroughness, and readability. I also applaud him for taking posi- tions, even when I do not agree with them.

Chapter 2, “Terroir: how do soils and climate shape wines?” contrasts insights from Australian winemaker, Jeffrey Gosset (“I don’t see winemaking as part of terroir but rather that poor winemaking can interfere with its expression and good winemaking can allow pure expression.” (p. 27)) with anti-terroirist California winemaker Sean Thackery (“My objection is simply that [terroir is] so ruthlessly misused… It’s very true that fruit grown in different places taste different. In fact, it’s a banality, so why exactly all this excess insis- tence?” (p. 29)). Whether one can actually taste the soil in wine is one of the most fasci- nating issues tackled. Goode weighs in: “As a scientist who has a working knowledge of plant physiology, I find this notion, which I call the ‘literalist’ theory of terroir, implausi- ble” (p. 30). This perspective is reinforced by viticulturist Richard Smart and Professor Jean-Claude Davidian of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Agronomique, but a fuller con- sideration of the subject is given in the next chapter.

In Chapter 3, “Soils and vines,” Goode considers the question, “How is it that soils seem to be so important for the wine quality, when science indicates that they are only playing a limited role in influencing the flavor of grapes?” (p. 39). He mentions a 2011 paper, sans citation, by Claire Chenu et al. on the role of microorganisms, a hot topic that is bringing us closer to understanding what actually gets into the vine and grapes that affect the flavor of the wine. One wonders why more recent work is not discussed. Inevitably, the term “minerality” emerges. While calling it “a really useful descrip- tor” (p. 50), Goode acknowledges that “it’s also a term that means different things to different people” (p. 50), begging the question: what does he mean by useful? He quotes a couple of wine writers who claim that the term did not appear until some- time in the 1980s or later. As I have previously noted (Hulkower, 2019), I used “min- erally finish” in a tasting note in 1976, a term that I must have picked up from somewhere. The subsections on “How Experts Use the Term,” “Taking Minerality Literally,” “Reduction as Minerality,” and “The Taste of Terroir” offer additional insights to those that I gained from the work of Alex Maltman (Maltman, 2018) and Parr et al. (2018), neither of which are mentioned. In a victory of his right brain over his left, Goode admits, “I used to favor the more established scientific view- point, assuming that volatile sulfur compounds could explain much of minerality. But I’m increasingly drawn to the idea that minerals in wine, derived from soil, could be affecting wine flavor in interesting ways…” (p. 54). We will see.

Chapter 8, “Yeasts and bacteria,” contains the best overview of the role of these microbes I have seen. Topics include cultured and spontaneous fermentations, wild yeasts versus cultured yeasts, and seemingly oxymoronic cultured wild yeasts. The table on page 110 relates classes of compounds produced by yeasts with their impact on flavor. The subsection, “Malolactic Fermentation,” is especially good.
Goode largely maintains accessibility for nontechnical readers by defining terms and acronyms along the way and employing his well-honed conversational writing style. He does tend to repeat himself frequently, which on the surface might seem unnecessary, but on reflection can be helpful in keeping important points at the fore- front. But then there is this from Chapter 9, “Wine flavor chemistry” that will surely bring nods of recognition from chem-nerds of a feather: “…Marlborough Sauvignon shows quite high levels of methoxypyrazines. These are a group of compounds includ- ing 2-methoxy-3-isobutylpyrazine (MIBP; known widely as isobutyl methoxypyrazine [though not by me]), 2-methoxy-3-isopropylopyrazine (MIPP; known as isopropyl methoxypyrazine), and 2-methoxy-3-secbutylpyrazine (MSBP; known as sec-butyl methoxypyrazine)” (p. 134). Thankfully, these outbursts are few in number and can be scanned or skipped without losing the gist of the discussion. Goode shines in Chapter 10, “Phenolics,” in which he tackles the “fiendishly complicated topic [,] …one where our understanding is incomplete” (p. 140). His explana- tions of the various chemicals, including tannin and anthocyanins that are part of the group labeled phenolics, are essential reading for anyone regularly using those names.

I work in the tasting room of a small winery in Oregon that specializes in 100% whole cluster fermented Pinot noir and was impressed by a piece by Goode (2012) that is the best I have read on the subject. So I was pleased to see that Chapter 12, “Whole-cluster and carbonic maceration” incorporates parts of the article while elab- orating on the current thinking and practice of this still controversial but increasingly popular approach. After presenting the pros and cons, he concludes: “What was once regarded as an outmoded practice – including stems in red-wine ferments – is now becoming a fashionable winemaking tool for those seeking elegance over power”

(p. 160). I, too, have noticed that the technique has been increasingly embraced by winemakers in the Willamette Valley over the last decade, with delicious results.

Chapter 14, “Wine faults: where are we, and when is a fault a fault?” provides a valuable summary of the material in Flawless. Chapter 15, “The evolution of élevage: oak, concrete, and clay,” is an excellent comparison of the various vessels used to age wine. The table on page 181, “Flavors from oak,” is especially helpful. I was impressed that Goode mentions the Oregon winemaker and creator of terra- cotta amphora, Andrew Beckham, in the subsection “Clay Around the World,” since his work is not all that well known even in his own state.

Even though a lot of the material covered may be too detailed and nerdy for the novice, The Science of Wine is not suitable for those wanting to master viticulture or enology as a profession. Instead, its value lies in providing a less formal but still in-depth overview of the main areas in each of these two disciplines and serving as an excellent reference. As such, Goode’s book belongs on the shelves of everyone involved in any aspect of the wine industry, from producer to writer to consumer.

 

References

Goode, J. (2012). Stemming the tide. The World of Fine Wines, 37, 90–97.
Goode, J. (2016). I Taste Red: The Science of Tasting Wine. Oakland: University of California Press. Goode, J. (2018). Flawless: Understanding Faults in Wine. Oakland: University of California Press. Hulkower, N. (2019). Book review: Vineyards, rocks, & soils: The wine lover’s guide to geology by Alex

Maltman. Journal of Wine Economics, 14(2), 217–220, doi:10.1017/jwe.2019.19.
Maltman, A. (2018). Vineyards, Rocks, & Soils: The Wine Lover’s Guide to Geology. New York: Oxford

University Press.
Parr, W., Maltman, A., Easton, S., and Ballester, J. (2018). Minerality in wine: Towards the reality behind

the myths. Beverages, 4(4), 77, http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/beverages4040077.

 

 

Sparkling Wine Anytime: The Best Bottles to Pop for Every Occasion

By: Katherine Cole
Publisher: Abrams Image
Year of publication: 2021
ISBN: 978-1419747557
Price: $24.99
288 Pages
Reviewer: Neal D. Hulkower
Independent Scholar, McMinnville, OR, USA
E-Mail: nhulkower@yahoo.com
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 3
JWE Pages: 262-264
Full Text PDF
Book Review

I like books for grown-ups that are not only a pleasure to read and learn from but also have color pictures and a larger sans serif font. Here is one.

In her fifth book, Katherine Cole, the Portland, Oregon-based wine writer, author, and James Beard award-winning podcaster, asserts, “Sparkling wine’s greatest asset may be its image, but sparkling wine’s biggest liability is…its image. That image has been, until recently, one of danger and glamour, exclusivity and impossibility” (p. 5). Her response is this bright, multi-hued, amply illustrated, reader-friendly vol- ume that strives for inclusiveness while not dumbing down the material. “I have tried to keep the technical terminology to a minimum. But there are some words and phrases that just come up a lot in regard to sparkling wine” (p. 11), she concedes.

Cole’s exploration opens with an introduction, followed by nine chapters and a glossary. An online buying guide, a bibliography, and a four-page two-column index cap off the work. “Life, Bubbly, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” as the introduc- tion is titled, contains an overview of the world of sparkling wine, suggested, “Occasions and Food Matches,” which concludes with “Oh, forget all that and drink sparkling wine, anytime, with anything” (p. 8), and a legend that equates the number of dollar signs with a range of prices, all as insets. Cole acknowledges her lack of omniscience and her way of getting around it: “I know I have blind spots. That’s why I asked a group of the experts I admire most…to spill on some of their favorites in each chapter” (p. 10). This approach is one of the strengths of her exposition.

Chapter 1, “Instructions for Achieving Effervescence,” starts with: “You are not required to read this chapter” (p. 13). Well, maybe if you are just focused on finding new sources of well-priced sparkling wine. But you would be missing as good an explanation as I have read of the path grapes take from vineyard to flute and the var- ious types of bubbly wines there are.

“Frothing Plot Points in History,” the second chapter, intersperses a recipe for Champagne Cocktail, champagne1 expert Peter Liem’s recommendation of two pres- tige cuvées, a rant against canned bubbles, and instructions on sabering a bottle, with brief vignettes about sparkling wine from the earliest records to the end of WWII. Among the latter is the story of the invention of the champagne bottle in England and the real reason for its punt. Of course, Champagne merits its own chapter before any of the other regions. Chapter 3 starts with a recipe for Kir Royale and the story behind this mixture of crème de cassis and champagne then gets more serious as we tour the main subre- gions. For each, Cole provides recommendations of bottles to try. She also assigns producers to Team Submarine if the base wine was made in a steel tank, resulting in a crisper mouthfeel, or to Team Galleon for a mellower fermentation in wood. Think of this chapter as Liem (2017)-lite, but more than likely to satisfy all but the geekiest.

In my review of Liem’s masterwork, I noted one distraction that also pertains to Cole’s: “While Liem’s writing makes the reading comfortable, the layout of the book can be sidetracking with single and multi-page inserts covering special topics breaking up the flow of the text sometimes in mid-sentence” (Hulkower, 2018, p. 361). In both cases, this can be excused as an excess of virtue. The subject is so diverse and multidimensional that the authors want to get everything in as best they can.

Cole claims that “…it is impossible to find quality [champagne] for less than $35” (p. 61). This should have been qualified with “mostly” since Caveau Selections, a source she includes in her online shopping guide, featured a Caveau Extra-Brut for $32, sourced from the estate of noted grower champagne producer Sophie Cossy in a July 2021 offering.

Another exaggerated claim is that “More than any other French region (OK, other than Bordeaux), aficionados select Champagne based on the producer name first, and the village or vineyard name second…” (p. 63). I would contend that more so than Bordeaux or even champagne, the producer is the single most important criterion for selecting a Burgundy.

Chapter 4 covers “The Rest of France,” followed by “Italy” (Chapter 5), “Iberophone Nations” (Chapter 6), “Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East” (Chapter 7), “USA” (Chapter 8), and “More Anglophone Nations” (Chapter 9). Each contains contributions from regional specialists and recommendations for spe- cific bottlings, many of which are affordable and should be available in the United States, a criterion for inclusion. The chapters are liberally illustrated with maps and whimsical drawings by Mercedes Leon that strike me as suggestive of Guy Buffet, but leaner and more angular. Chapters 3 through 8 each conclude with what Cole calls “Bottle Shop” spreads: two pages of photographs of two dozen recommended bottles, captioned with the name of the producer, the region, and the dollar symbol.

There is so much that Cole shares about the sparkling wine produced outside of Champagne that I had not known. For example, I was aware that there are producers of Cava, the Spanish sparkling wine, in Catalonia that adopted an unofficial designa- tion, “Corpinnat,” for wines that are made from organically grown grapes that are mostly estate-grown indigenous varieties and that are aged in bottles for at least 18 months, twice as long as Cava. What I did not know was what bottles to look for with this designation. Cole includes two. Throughout the book, there are scores of recommendations for bottles at all price points, most of which I was not familiar with, making it a valuable reference when going shopping.

While the inclusion of a glossary is always appreciated, I found some holes that a future edition should plug. Admittedly, there are only so many descriptors available, making repetition unavoidable when reviewing scores of similar wines. By and large, Cole performs well above average in keeping things varied, interesting, and occasion- ally amusing. However, in keeping with the vinous verbal zeitgeist, Cole frequently uses “minerality” in her tasting notes. As there is no consensus on what exactly this means (Parr et al., 2018), an entry into the glossary giving her definition would be welcome. Another term that should be included in the glossary as well as the index is remuage (riddling in English), used on page 195 in notes on a sekt. It is described on page 20 of the chapter that Cole says is not required reading.

Cole “tasted hundreds upon hundreds [of sparkling wines] during [her] nine fran- tic months of research and writing” (p. 10). The result is part personal assessment with other experts’ opinions deftly infused and part reportage from a master of both. Cheeky, breezy, and fun to read, Cole’s latest is loaded with up-to-date infor- mation about the burgeoning world of wine bubbles that everyone can learn from. And Cole’s quips help the more arcane material go down in the most delightful way. Plus it has so many lovely pictures!

References

Hulkower, N. (2018). Review of champagne: The essential guide to the wines, producers, and terroirs of the iconic region by Peter Liem. Journal of Wine Economics, 13(3), 358–361, doi: 10.1017/jwe.2018.45. Liem, P. (2017). Champagne: The Essential Guide to the Wines, Producers, and Terroirs of the Iconic Region.

Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.
Parr, W., Maltman, A., Easton, S., and Ballester, J. (2018). Minerality in wine: Towards the reality behind the myths. Beverages, 4(4), 77, http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/beverages4040077.

 

John Cleese’s Wine for the Confused

By: David Kennard
Publisher: InCA Productions
Year of publication: 2004
Lenght: 42 min.
Reviewer: Ruobin Gong
Rutgers University
E-Mail: rg915@stat.rutgers.edu
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 3
JWE Pages: 259-261
Full Text PDF
Film Review

Written by David Kennard and John Cleese

The film on Youtube: John Cleese’s Wine for the Confused

Johnny Carson, the king of late-night, once said that the secret to good comedy is the audience’s empathy. “If [the audience] likes the performer, then you’ve got 80% of it made” (Carson, 2001). Such is the case with Wine for the Confused. A charming introduction to the favorite beverage of this Journal, this documentary is presented by John Cleese, known to many as the Comic Messiah himself. The film provides an extended overview of the essential elements of wine production and wine con- sumption, from the perspective of a viewer who is intrigued, but perhaps intimidated, by the wine world’s massive scale.

Note that the film was released in 2004, and so this is a belated review. Unlike fine wine, few films were made to survive extended aging. One cannot help but wonder whether a film production that is nearly two decades old would still hold up well in the light of today. Wine for the Confused proves to be a pleasant surprise. At its core, a well-rounded and scientifically sensible program supports the documentary, like a solid tannin structure carries a bottle through the years. Cleese’s understated and effortless comedic touch supplies the piercing acidity needed to maintain fresh- ness and a degree of light-heartedness. Some distinctively tertiary notes remind you of the film’s age: its warm and embracing ambient lighting and the retro digital tech- nologies depicted therein pin its bottling date to the turn of the century. So long as one is prepared to tolerate these few remnants from the past, they can be appreciated.

The film opens with Cleese narrating a flamboyant parody of Greek mythology, a segment that the viewer might mistake for a Monty Python sketch. A group of actors, enrobed in white and crowned with floral wreaths, succumb without resistance to the gluttonous indulgence of engorged grapes. After wine is declared the “nectar of the gods,” Cleese quickly puts a stop to it, throwing the DVD (note the tertiary note!) out the window and calling it “awful snobbery.” Then, Cleese turns to the audience and confesses that he, too, is frightened about the complicated wine world and seeks to better understand his preferences. “Don’t let anyone tell you what wine you should like,” Cleese says, a theme that the film repeatedly underscores.

The scientific content of the documentary is structured around six grape varietals, historically the French “noble” grapes: Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. These grape varieties serve as hooks, providing the threads of a systematic discussion of multiple aspects of viticulture and winemaking that are essential to defining a wine’s style. To showcase these varietals, Cleese visits three wineries located on the Central Coast of California and speaks to the vintners. Two grapes are presented at each winery through the tasting of (primarily) single vari- etal wines. Each grape varietal highlights a salient characteristic of the resulting wine. Piecing these characteristics together, a general and complete sketch of a wine emerges.

Our first stop is at the Gainey vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley for a tasting of their Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc. Here, Riesling becomes the cue to a discussion about residual sugar, whereas Sauvignon Blanc is about acidity. Acknowledging that the off-dry and sweet styles of Riesling are a thing of the past, the winemaker Kirby Anderson pours our host a glass of its dry, modern interpretation. Then, he takes us to the winery’s backstage, where we see the huge stainless steel vessel in which the bubbly yeasts carry out the fermentation.

After hearing Cleese marvel at the concentrated flavors of a few water-stressed Sauvignon Blanc grapes that he inconspicuously picked off the vine, we head to the Byron Winery in the Santa Maria Valley. Here, the two Burgundian varieties, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, take center stage. Through Chardonnay, we are introduced to oak and to malolactic fermentation, through which many Chardonnays, especially the quintessentially Californian ones, gain their toasty and buttery flavors. Winemaker Ken Brown professes his love of Pinot Noir, enumerating its complex aromatic profile coupled with its fragile nature to become a great challenge for the winemaker.

Our last stop is the Foxen Winery, where we are invited to a picnic chat with wine- makers Bill Wathen and Dick Doré to learn about tannin, climate, and terroir. Here, we understand that grapes need sufficient heat to ripen and to overcome the green flavors, while sitting next to a lush eucalyptus tree, itself an unmistakable staple of a new world terroir that from time to time betrays the origin of the bold red wine in our glass.

The documentary endorses a perspective that is firmly viewer-centered. The film is interlaced with a variety of social situations in which the viewer might encounter the subject of wine. Cleese picks the brains of two sommeliers on how to order wine at a fine dining restaurant, inquires with a wine shop owner on how to buy wine with the best quality-price ratio, and puts up a demonstration of wine service at a family din- ner. But most entertaining of all is a festive backyard tasting party, where Cleese’s main goal is to stimulate his guests to describe the pleasant sensory experiences they are having from the wines, with all the vocabulary they can mobilize. Cleese is seen conversing with his guests, encouraging them to use descriptors to define the aromatic and flavor profiles of the wine. He pleads that they convey these prefer- ences the next time the need arises for a wine purchase at a store or a restaurant.

But the fun does not end there. Surely, a host as mischievous as Cleese would attempt to humble his visitors with a few tricks. Indeed, his dozen or so guests are wholly confused about whether the same blind wine is red or white, otherwise known as the Davis test (Trillin, 2002). A few rank a cheap bottle ($5) as the most expensive showing of the day ($200). All this is meant to demonstrate that the wine world can be disorientating. Yet, one need not be afraid or ashamed. After all, the enjoyment of wine is a subjective and personal experience.

Between a crash course on oenology and a practical consumer guide, the film strikes a cheerful balance with its rich and approachable content. But if the goal is to inform as much as to entertain, for it to remain scientifically rigorous is perhaps too much to ask. We occasionally hear suggestions that could be misconstrued if one pauses to think. For example, when discussing the concept of residual sugar in Riesling, we are told that sweet wines can be produced by stopping the fermentation early. While that is true of wines of other grape varietals, it is not the most notable method through which sweet Rieslings are produced around the world. When intro- ducing Cabernet Sauvignon, Cleese associates it with Bordeaux but without recognition of Merlot, a varietal that appears earlier in the film and contributes 66% of Bordeaux’s red grape plantings, three times larger than Cabernet’s 22% share (CIVB, 2020).

Throughout the film, Cleese is just another confused wine consumer. But as our host, he is daring. He asks the questions that we want answered but are afraid to ask the sommelier or the shop owner. Double role-playing with a straight face, he acts out the inner anxiety that many viewers have experienced, such as when pre- sented with a nearly incomprehensible wine list at an expensive restaurant. But per- haps Cleese is not really confused. This is revealed by his professed passion for white burgundy, which he discovered while filming The Holy Grail in cold, wet Scotland, and by the story of his sharing an off-dry Riesling with the Queen over lunch at Buckingham Palace. Nevertheless, with a performance as endearing and relatable as Cleese’s, one could hardly sense deceit.

Wine for the Confused was filmed in one of the prized wine regions in the United States. It was aired to U.S. audiences through the Food Network. Over the past 18 years, wine consumption in the United States has seen a steady increase, from 24.75 million hectolitres (mhl) in 2004 to 33 mhl in 2020 (OIV, 2021). During this time, the United States surpassed France and Italy to become the country with the largest annual wine consumption (OIV, 2022).

While nearly two decades have passed, audiences today can benefit from a solid introductory documentary such as this one. Before the era of smartphones, the scores and notes of wine critics swayed consumers’ purchases. Today, the myriad of crowd- sourced wine rating apps, such as Vivino, CellarTracker, and others, have democra- tized wine scoring but, in the process, have exerted an arguably greater influence on our decision-making. Cleese’s message, which he emphasizes forcefully in the film, that “don’t let anyone tell you what wine you should like,” stands true and clear. The better alternative, suggested by Cleese, is to recognize one’s preferences by pin- pointing them and voicing them without fear or shame. It takes a bit of learning, plus a lot of practice.

 

References

Carson, J. (2001). Likeability. In Johnny Carson on Comedy, Laugh.com Comedy Recording Series.
CIVB (2020). Vins de bordeaux press kit: 2019 report and 2020 strategy. Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin

de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.
OIV (2021). State of the world vitivinicultural sector in 2020. Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du

Vin (International Organization of Vine and Wine), Paris, France. Available at https://www.oiv.int/public/medias/7909/oiv-state-of-the-world-vitivinicultural-sector-in-2020.pdf (accessed January 1, 2022). OIV (2022). Database. Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin (International Organization of Vine and Wine), Paris, France. Available at https://www.oiv.int/en/statistiques/recherche (accessed January 1, 2022). Trillin, C. (2002). The red and the white. The New Yorker, August 11. Available at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/08/19/the-red-and-the-white (accessed January 1, 2022).

 

Uncorked

By: Prentice Penny
Publisher: Netflix
Year of publication: 2020
Lenght: 44 min.
Reviewer: Liberty Vittert
Washington University in St. Louis
E-Mail: liberty.vittert@gmail.com
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 3
JWE Pages: 257–258
Full Text PDF
Film Review

Written by Penny Prentice. Produced by Penny Prentice, Jill Ahrens, Ryan Ahrens, Ben Renzo, Datari Turner, Chris Pollack, and Jason Michael Berman

As a statistician and wine lover, I sat down to write my first review for this Journal with my horn-rimmed glasses, a notepad, the wine almanac, my laptop, and my iPad. I was ready for a serious review of a documentary and the intense googling that would accompany it.

(Yes, I did dip into my brother’s wine cellar—he has the more expensive…eh hem…more sophisticated palate—I mean you must taste the product!)

But little did I know that the iPad for googling was not necessary, and that I was about to dive into a hip hop pumping, spell-binding, drama … for which I was woe- fully unprepared.

Frankly, I am not sure whether this movie made me more hungry or thirsty, but it certainly made me want to go to sommelier classes in Paris. What did it not do? Teach me anything about wine. But to its credit, it is an awesome drama (to this unsophisticated movie watcher) and provided a very enjoyable evening.

The absolute focus of the movie is the unflappable love and support of a mother, the push and pull between father and son, from following in the family business to paving his own path. I will refrain from discussing the age-old adage of father and son, but should you decide to search through Netflix for this movie, you should understand that while intertwined, wine has a distant second place in the storyline.

Commenting that red meat pairs well with Pinot Noir was about the highest level of wine discrimination, along with how to read the five main parts of a wine label (name, region, varietal, vintage, and alcohol percentage). But there is some discussion about sommelier school.

But let me go back to the beginning. The movie begins with quite a juxtaposition —images of centuries-old wineries in the French countryside, beer laboratories that any academic professor would kill for, the stirring of tomato sauce in a back kitchen for some baby back ribs, and tub-thumping hip hop.

As the music rolls to a stop, we are brought into the quiet trance of what looks like an everyday wine store, with the main character meticulously placing the bottles, label front and center, down to the millimeter, where he then launches into a sales pitch to a customer with an analogy of white wine to hip hop. From Chardonnay, being the granddaddy of wine, versatile and smooth like Jay-Z; to a Pinot Grigio, a wine with a bit of spice likened to Kanye West; and finally a Riesling, crisp, clean, and sweet, the Drake of white wine. The customer took the Drake (Riesling may not be my favorite, but I appreciated the choice).

Following that, we get an inkling of our protagonist’s dreams and the plot line while he stares at a sommelier diploma from the Southeastern Academy of Sommeliers on the wall before having to rush to his job as a short-order cook at his family’s BBQ joint.

Now, the only part of the movie that was wine-intense was—to some degree—the sommelier aspect. Having attended Le Cordon Bleu Paris for a year before delving into the world of statistics, I had many friends attending the sommelier and wine management programs both at Le Cordon Bleu Paris and at other institutions around the city. While there was dramatization in this movie (and yes, I realize this is a drama, so by definition, a dramatization), the cutthroat culture, the late nights study- ing foreign terms, the outrageous amount of financial capital necessary, and the intensity of the instruction all rang true.

And to be fair to what I see as the art, science, and dedication necessary to make a great wine, we see scenes of our protagonist with his father, picking wood from a wood distribution center, carefully choosing the mixture of cherry and hickory, with the apple not quite seasoned well enough for the father’s taste for his small family BBQ joint.

While the father is berating his son for thinking about sommelier school when he is clearly being groomed to head the restaurant, we are made to understand the dedication, attention, and palate that are necessary—whether you are cooking sauce ingredients or blending grape varietals. Father and son both have magnificent palates but very diver- gent interests. This comes up many times, from the father at the butcher discussing the thickness level of fat, to his son discussing the tannin levels of his own wine.

There were some fabulous moments. Those of us that enjoy wine probably know them all too well. Some love the idea of a blind tasting, but for others, it promotes hives. The use of the girlfriend’s favorite special mug as a spit cup was a good moment (although this reviewer has never used a spit cup—who would waste a good product?).

There are many moments when the film explains wine to someone who is less than a beginner, or indeed, to someone who knows absolutely nothing. Still, compar- ing wine to BBQ is beautifully done: as Memphis is to ribs or Texas is to brisket, so Argentina is to Malbec and Provence to Rose. This could be the first time my own father (a teetotaler but BBQ connoisseur) might have some understanding of what regional wine means. While this may not be news and perhaps too simplistic for read- ers of this Journal, I will recommend that if you have a friend or loved one who has not been interested in wine, they might gain a tidbit or two from this movie.

A father’s pride in his son is a beautiful thing, which you will witness in this movie, but perhaps in a way that is not quite how one would expect. The twist at the end had me yelling at the screen, but the final ending had me crying. In summary, I would not call this a wine lover’s movie, but if you have someone new to wine, it could be a very nice way to enjoy a glass together.

99 Bottles: A Black Sheep’s Guide to Life-Changing Wines

By: André Hueston Mack
Publisher: Abrams Image, New York
Year of publication: 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3457-1
Price: $24,99
255 Pages
Reviewer: Roger Noll
Stanford University
E-Mail: rnoll@stanford.edu
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 2
JWE Pages: 174-176
Full Text PDF
Book Review

André Mack’s career path is highly unusual: a Black child born into a military family who became a waiter/wine server/sommelier at two good restaurants in San Antonio, a sommelier at two of the best restaurants in the world—the French Laundry in Yountville, California, and Per Se in New York City—and then the founding owner/winemaker of Maison Noir, an Oregon winery.

The cover of 99 Bottles advertises it as an “entertaining, unconventional wine guide,” but the book really is more of an autobiography—the author’s account of his unique career path told through 99 vignettes of two to four pages each about events along this journey. The book is a wine guide only in the sense that each vignette involves some beverage—usually wine, but sometimes bottled water, juice, beer/ale/malt liquor, or distilled spirits. Most vignettes describe the beverage associ- ated with the event, but often this description is brief and not an important part of the story. In many cases, the beverage is simply a member of the vignette’s supporting cast.

The book is organized into an introduction and six chapters. Each chapter corre- sponds to a stage of the author’s career. The first covers Mack’s college years (finding a career). Then one chapter is devoted to each of the four restaurants in which the author worked as a waiter and/or sommelier. The last chapter recounts his life as a winery owner.

The introduction sets the stage by first harshly criticizing other wine guides for being pretentious and pedantic, then explaining the author’s belief that appreciation for wine (as well as other beverages) is strongly affected by personal experiences, both good and bad, that are associated with encountering it. This belief explains why the chapters are organized around stops along the author’s career path and why each vignette integrates a story about an event in the author’s life with the characteristics of a beverage that was part of the event.

Each vignette is infused with information about the beverage associated with the event. Each vignette also includes a “flash card” with a few words that describe the taste of the associated beverage and a recommended pairing. The taste descriptions are simple and sometimes are jokes. In nearly all cases, the “pairing” in the flash card is not with food but with an event: watching a specific movie or TV show, lis- tening to a particular recording, or attending a type of gathering. Some (but not nearly all) vignettes include a paragraph set aside in a box entitled “What Is X” (where X is the beverage in the vignette). While these boxes contain a bit more infor- mation about the featured wines, in most cases, the additional information in the text and boxes is disjointed and incomplete.

For example, the second vignette is about the author’s first job, selling cheap cologne in a parking lot. After his first sale, Mack treated himself to Boone’s Farm Apple Wine. The taste is described as Kool-Aid, and the pairing as “joyriding in a 1992 Ford Mustang GT 5.0 listening to Houston’s own Geto Boys” (p. 2). The text of the vignette states that “Boone’s Farm wasn’t good” but was better than “other kinds of cheap malt liquor” because “its primary attribute is sweetness” which “works for a lot of people…” (p. 17)—that is, Boone’s Farm is in the book because it is pleasantly associated with his first successful stab at holding a job.

At the other end of the quality scale is 1983 Chateau Margaux, which the author describes as “the best wine I have ever had” (p. 162). The taste description is “Sandalwood, wet dirt, and crème de cassis,” and the recommended pairing is “Meeting your girlfriend’s parents for the first time” (p. 163). The “What Is” insert states that Margaux is a commune in Haut-Médoc, that the area is known for its great terroir, that the wines from the commune are known for being “elegant and sen- suous” (p. 163), that Chateau Margaux is the best winery in the commune, and that Chateau Margaux is made primarily from cabernet sauvignon and merlot. The text in the rest of the vignette explains that 1982 is regarded as a better year in Bordeaux but that at Chateau Margaux, 1983 was the best vintage ever. The author concludes from this anomaly that classifying a wine as great is subjective so that “your favorite wine does not need to match the general consensus” (p. 163).

Some vignettes discuss the challenges of assembling a wine list for a high-end res- taurant, which separates a sommelier from a good wine server. For example, the entry for Chablis from Domaine François Raveneau reveals how the author built a wine list at Bohannon’s in San Antonio. Mack began by examining wine lists at great restau- rants around the nation. This exercise revealed that every list included a Raveneau Chablis. Further research revealed that Raveneau was the benchmark against which all Chablis wines were evaluated. When Mack first tastes a Raveneau, he finds “unpar- allelled minerality – flinty notes that bring you to your knees….” (p. 52). He then discovers that Raveneau wines are difficult to obtain. To receive an allocation, he is forced to buy other wines from the same distributor. Thus, Raveneau is included in the book in part because it is a great winery but also because it taught him an important lesson about the wholesale wine market. And, to accommodate the length restriction for a vignette, the fact that Raveneau makes wines from several vineyards of differing attributes and status is never mentioned but implied only by the fact that the wine that is pictured is from Montée de Tonnerre.

My overall assessment of the book is that the vignettes are often interesting and occasionally humorous, but unfortunately do not add up to a coherent book. The author’s total commitment to the proposition that wine preferences are derived from the circumstances in which a wine is consumed leads to a disjointed, haphazard overview of wines. 99 Bottles is not a wine guide if you have not had the same life experiences as the author, which, of course, nobody has. For the same reason, the book is also not an account of the travails of being a sommelier at two of the world’s best restaurants. That is, 99 Bottles is not the counterpart for sommeliers to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential (2000) for chefs, because it is not organized around the tasks of managing an extensive wine list and the skills and education that are required to become a master sommelier. For someone knowledgeable about wines, the value of the book is that many of the vignettes are entertaining to read, even if they convey no useful information about the wines that they discuss.

Reference

Bourdain, A. (2000). Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. London: Bloomsbury.

The World Atlas of Wine, 8th edition

By: Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson
Publisher: Mitchell Beazley, London
Year of publication: 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78472-403-1
Price: $35,37
416 Pages
Reviewer: Kym Anderson
University of Adelaide and Australian National University
E-Mail: kym.anderson@adelaide.edu.au
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 2
JWE Pages: 173-174
Full Text PDF
Book Review

This classic reference book, first published by Hugh Johnson in 1971, is now available in 16 languages, with 4.7 million copies of previous editions having been sold. In tell- ing us where wine grapes are grown, it is an essential and unrivaled part of every wine lover’s library. It is also a natural companion to Robinson, Harding, and Vouillamoz’s (2012) seminal book on which varieties are grown commercially (Wine Grapes, reviewed in JWE, Vol. 8(2), 2013), as well as to Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine (the fifth edition of which will appear in 2022).

A better understanding of the geography and terroir of each region helps the con- sumer identify where tonight’s bottle came from. For newcomers to wine, the first 40 pages of the book cover wine’s history, how vines are grown, how wine is made, and how it is consumed. Just as important, the Atlas helps vignerons assess their place in the ever-evolving wine world. This book is thus also for them, as well as others just wishing to keep up to date with where the world’s vignerons are located.

The Atlas has been revised every six or so years since it first appeared, with Jancis Robinson joining the project beginning in 2001. If you already have an earlier edition, should you indulge in this new one? For anyone who refers at least occasionally to it, the answer is almost certainly “yes.” It is worth its modest price for the new set of spectacular photos and unique colored topographical maps alone. As well, much has changed since the 7th edition came out in 2013, including a greater focus on soils, climate change, and more-sustainable methods of production, a greater interest in less-familiar varieties better suited to a warming, drier climate, and a broader range of wine styles. While diversification away from the best-known international wine- grape varieties does not show up in the world’s bearing area statistics yet, the increas- ing export focus of many producers in many countries ensures wine consumers—for whom this Atlas is produced—have never had such a wide range of wines to choose from in terms of region or sub-region of origin, grape variety, wine style, quality, and price (Anderson and Nelgen, 2021).

The text and many of the maps have been revised for this edition, and the maps are color-coded to identify sub-regions or various qualities within each region. For major regions, their maps are accompanied by small boxes of basic information on the latitude, elevation, two climate variables, and the top two or three varieties grown. Those readers looking for more-detailed varietal and climate information on any of more than 700 of the world’s wine regions can turn to a freely available compendium (Anderson and Nelgen, 2020). For the convenience of Atlas readers, that compendium includes a concordance table linking its regional names with those used in the Atlas.

Unsurprisingly, France still fills the first 100 pages. It is followed by Italy (35 pages), Germany (25), Spain (20), Portugal (15), and the rest of Europe (40). Thus, the so-called Old World comprises two-thirds of the map pages—which is almost exactly their share of global wine production and exports. The New World (North America, South America, Australia/New Zealand, and South Africa) make up the next 100 pages, and Asia (Japan and China) is given 6 pages and 5 maps. The final 25 pages contain a very detailed index and a Gazetteer to help the reader find, for example, the map with their favorite chateau.

References

Anderson, K., and Nelgen, S. (2020). Which Winegrape Varieties are Grown Where? A Global Empirical Picture (Revised Edition). Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. Freely available as an e-book at www.adelaide.edu.au/press/titles/winegrapes.

Anderson, K., and Nelgen, S. (2021). Internationalization, premiumization, and diversity of the world’s winegrape varieties. Journal of Wine Research, 32(4), 247–261.

Robinson, J., Harding, J., and Vouillamoz, J. (2012). Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, Including Their Origins and Flavours. London: Allen Lane.

Big Macs & Burgundy: Wine Pairings for the Real World

By: Vanessa Price
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, New York
Year of publication: 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4491-4
Price: $24,99
239 Pages
Reviewer: Richard L. Schmalensee
MIT Sloan School of Management
E-Mail: rschmal@mit.edu
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 2
JWE Pages: 170-172
Full Text PDF
Book Review

My wife and I were dining out with another couple last summer before the Delta var- iant reared its ugly head. The other couple ordered steak; I chose chicken, and my wife went for pork. As the designated wine person, I was searching through the light reds on the wine list for a suitable compromise when the waiter poured me a taste of a very full-bodied white Burgundy, and suggested that it would go well with everything we had ordered that warm evening. A taste made his claim plausible. I gambled, and he was right!

I agreed to review Big Macs and Burgundy because it promised more such sur- prises, and it does deliver surprises aplenty, of various sorts. This book is an upbeat, approachable collection of basic and not-so-basic information about wine and about the interaction of food and wine, bits of the author’s history, and numerous interest- ing, often thought-provoking recommendations for wine pairings that involve foods ranging from caviar to Cheez-Its. I often found myself trying to imagine (there must be a taste/smell analog to “visualize”!) how this would really taste with that. The style is breezy (more on this to come) but authoritative, and the abundant photographs and illustrations add appreciably to what I found to be a very enjoyable read.

The author, Vanessa Price, starts at the beginning for beginners and those, like me, whose knowledge of wine is based more on accumulated anecdotes than on system- atic study: how grapes ripen, the relationship between acidity and alcohol, and the roles of tannin and sugar. She discusses the influence of climate and terroir and describes the 12 main styles of wine. Turning to food, she explains the relationship between smell and taste and discusses the main elements of taste, adding spicy and fatty to the classic sweet, salty, bitter, savory, and sour.

She then discusses congruent pairings, between foods and wines that share similar characteristics, and contrasting pairings, which involve sensory elements that oppose each other in a way that yields pleasing complexity. Her illustrative congruent exam- ple is Meursault and fried chicken, while Champagne and fried chicken are an exem- plary contrasting pairing. She ends the pairings section with general guidance for developing pairings: think about the dominant components of the food; consider its intensity and heaviness; and then consider the spices, sauces, and preparation involved. And, of course, she reminds the reader that things that grow together geo- graphically generally go together.

What follows and constitutes the bulk of the text is an amiable mixture of auto- biographical anecdotes, bits of wine information, and, mainly, lots of short discussions of recommended wine pairings. The autobiographical anecdotes reveal that the author was raised in a fairly devout Southern Baptist home, took a shot at acting, and fell in love with wine more or less by accident. The wine information includes discussions of methods of making sparkling wine, Burgundy rankings, the origins of Super Tuscans, swirling and decanting, styles of Sherry, storing wine, Pinot Grigio versus Pinot Gris, the Judgement of Paris, and more. I will bet that even readers of this Journal will learn something from all this.

As the book’s title suggests, many of the pairings it presents involve inexpensive foods for which (I think) almost nobody carefully selects a wine. Examples from each of the book’s 16 chapters may give some sense of the wide range of sometimes very quirky pairings the author recommends and the usually sensible rationales she gives for them:

  • Subsistence Pairings: We are advised to pair cheap pizza, one of the cheap eats considered, with Montepulciano D’Abruzzo, for its acid and tannin.
  • Southern Comforts: Cote Rótie’s robustness is said to make it a good match for BBQ Brisket & Ribs, a Southern staple.
  • Extra Value Meals: Red Burgundy is paired with MacDonald’s Big Macs, per the book’s title, but the author argues that the more intense meatiness of a Quarter Pounder calls for a bigger Super Tuscan.
  • Roadside Attractions: Among the snack-rack options considered, Smartfood, that cheddary popcorn, is paired with a light Bourgogne Blanc.
  • Fast-Food Fixes: The author argues that the tannin and acidity in an Italian Rosato perfectly cut the fat in hot dogs. She also recommends wines to drink while binging particular TV series, for example, Côtes du Rhône with This is Us to match the show’s diversity and because it’s “as cockles-warming as the Pearsons, without all the tears.”
  • Wine with Breakfast: The bubbles in a demi-sec Champagne are said to cut the heaviness of French toast while its sweetness harmonizes with the sweetness of this “debauched” dish. (My wife points out that a mimosa made with a cheap sparkler does the same trick.)
  • Trader Joe’s, A Love Story: I confess to a weakness for Trader Joe’s Mandarin Orange Chicken, which is paired with Clare Valley Riesling from Australia because of that wine’s fresh citrus, minerality, and abundant acid.
  • Secrets of the Bargain Basement: This chapter suggests cheaper wines that can substitute for more expensive wines in a few pairings, like substituting Minervois Rouge because of its “serious firepower” for Châteauneuf-du-Pape with Pad Thai.
  • Crave the Date: Among foods served on special occasions, Thanksgiving left- overs are paired with Chinon for its acidity, fruit, structure, and soft tannins.
  • Dinner Party Duets: The focus here is on appetizers like Jalapeño Poppers for which the author recommends Spätlese Riesling for its sugar to soften the Poppers’ spice and its acidity to counter their grease.
  • Boring but Beautiful: Among the healthy foods discussed, the Sweetgreen Harvest Bowl is paired with Bordeaux Blanc because both are blends of “com- peting forces.”
  • What to Pair with Greens: Italian Pinot Grigio is paired with Tuna Niçoise, for example, because its saltiness can “manage the cooked eggs,” while its freshness can “slice through sensitive tuna like a laser.”
  • The Standard Bearers: This chapter is devoted to classic pairings, including one of my all-time favorites: grilled salmon and Oregon Pinot Noir. No explanation necessary.
  • Frightful Delights: One of the foods that some find frightful is steak tartare, which is paired with Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc (or, perhaps, a Côtes du Rhône White) for its big body, low acidity, and arresting aroma.
  • Expense-Account Prep Course: Among the high-end dishes discussed is pressed duck at Daniel’s, paired with Cornas, the “biggest, baddest, roughest, and tough- est” Northern Rhône appellation.
  • Surf and Turf: Lobster rolls, a beach classic, are paired with Bandol Rosés for their strength, delicacy, “cool spiciness and lean, tropical-fruit spine.”As some of these examples may suggest, the writing style, described by one Amazon critic as having a “millennial-chic vibe” may strike some readers as a bit too breezy and over the top. For instance, Barolo is described as “the Tony Soprano of Italian wine,” and on steak au poivre, the author enthuses, “Together with Pomerol, this, my friends, is the Immaculate Conception of wine parings, the Orgasmatron of meat and grapes, the ‘You complete me’ of pampered mouth holes.”This really is a serious, clearly written book, so it can be jarring when the author seems to be trying hard to be cute.

    I have two bones to pick with the pairings themselves. First, while the author makes a nice general point about congruent versus contrasting pairings, for most foods she recommends only one wine—most commonly (I think) a congruent pair- ing. It would be good sometimes to have a suggested pairing of the other sort. Second, while most of the pairings sound attractive, I expect many readers will never try many of them—either because they are simply not going to buy a wine to go with Cheetos or Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia or Honey-Nut Cheerios, or because they cannot find the recommended wine, like the Tedeschi Vineyards Sparking Pineapple from Hawaii that’s paired with the honey dipping sauce for Chicken McNuggets or Clare Valley Riesling. I would rather have had pairings for a few lamb dishes than for Cheetos, and a few more “if you can’t find or afford that, try this” suggestions for wines would have been welcome.

    But to be clear, I do highly recommend this book to experienced oenophiles and wine newbies alike. It is a light, entertaining read that conveys a great deal of useful information, and most of the suggested pairings are fun to imagine trying.

Red & White: An Unquenchable Thirst for Wine

By: Oz Clarke
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Year of publication: 2018
ISBN: 13 978-1408710173
Price: $35
656 Pages
Reviewer: Andrew J. Plantinga
University of California, Santa Barbara
E-Mail: plantinga@bren.ucsb.edu
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 2
JWE Pages: 167–169
Full Text PDF
Book Review

There’s a scene in the film “Sideways” in which the four main characters go to an author’s talk at a winery. After five seconds of high-flown blather about the origins of the Pinot Noir grape and an eye roll by Stephanie, the group sneaks off to the winery’s barrel room. The author in the movie is apparently modeled on Oz Clarke, the prolific British wine writer.

If so, Mr. Clarke’s portrayal in “Sideways” seems unfair. Although his descriptions of wine are elaborate and at times overblown, he has been a major force behind the “democratization” of wine. In his latest book, Red & White: An Unquenchable Thirst for Wine, Mr. Clarke describes his introduction to wine as a student at Oxford in the 1980s, and how he became convinced that consumers needed options besides the top wines from France and the sea of mediocre wine that was most of everything else pro- duced in Europe at the time.

He would find his accessible, affordable, and delicious wines in the New World. After graduating from college, Mr. Clarke would land on the BBC program “Food and Drink.” As co-host of this long-running and popular show, he helped to create a generation of British wine-drinkers by introducing them to “exuberant, juicy, fruity wine” from Australia, California, New Zealand, and elsewhere. With the rise of New World wines, European producers would soon follow suit: the New World “showed that France’s domination of great wine could be challenged. California started it. Australia continued it. Now Europe could do it, Italy leading, with Spain, Portugal, and others following behind.”

Red & White is part memoir and part travelogue. Mr. Clarke recounts his first sur- reptitious drink of wine at the age of three, joining the Oxford wine tasting club in an unsuccessful attempt to impress women, and learning the hard way not to store wine at friends’ houses (cases of Lafite ’61 and Pétrus ’64 were among the wines never recovered). Mr. Clarke started as a stage actor, but wine took the place of acting when the wine taster for “Food and Drink” dropped out at the last minute, with the producer of the program reportedly saying, “Get me that actor who knows about wine.”

The bulk of Red & White is a tour through the wine regions of the world. The trip begins, predictably enough, in France. The reader is guided through the French appellations, with sincere attention given to small (the Jura) and less renowned (the Languedoc) areas. Mr. Clarke has an unsurpassed curiosity about and passion for wine, delighting especially in rare varietals and wines whose quality is not yet reflected in prices. His writing combines wine history and science, personal anec- dotes, and descriptions of individual wine-makers. The style is light and refreshing, not unlike a glass of rosé on a hot summer day.

Unlike most books about the wines of the world, France is not the primary desti- nation. I found a 2001 edition of Hugh Johnson’s Wine Companion on my book shelf and calculated that 40% of its pages on wine regions are devoted to France, with only 20% given to non-European countries. Red & White quickly moves from France to Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada, and from there to places expected (e.g., Italy, Spain) and not (e.g., India, Uruguay). Mr. Clarke brings his enthusiasm for wine wherever he goes, but that is not to say his views on wine are uncritical. For example, he thinks that there is too much Tempranillo produced in Spain, yielding much “unconvincing” wine, and that Merlot is overplanted in France, where “loads of the early-ripening Merlot is broiling away in the unsuitable suntraps of the south.” Japanese wine? Drink their beer instead.

Red & White does not have a central thesis, but it does have recurring themes. One is that New World winemakers, and some European producers, have gone too far in their pursuit of ripeness. Mr. Clarke has played a central role in promoting accessible, fruit-forward wines from the New World, but laments the trend toward massive, high-alcohol reds. In his chapter on Australia, he describes the abuse of Barossa grapes “at the hands of the over-ripening brigade crazy for a 100-point wine.” He cel- ebrates wine-makers around the world who are trying to produce wines that make a “statement about the vineyards they came from,” even if that means a break from the traditional European varietals. His view is that the “world doesn’t want any more big, oaky clunkers, but it does want tasty, fresh reds at lower alcohol levels.”

Another theme, which for me is the book’s highlight, is the effect of climate change on wine. Mr. Clarke was an early voice of warning. His keynote address at the 1993 New York Wine Experience, a high-profile event featuring top wine-makers from around the world, focused on the adjustments the wine industry would inevita- bly have to make in a warming world. He spoke of how wine-makers were going to have to change the style of their wines and adopt new grape varieties. He predicted the French system of appellation contrôlée would become obsolete as Spanish varie- ties like Tempranillo made their way into Bordeaux and Syrah was planted in Burgundy. The French producers made a noisy exit from the auditorium, and the Wine Spectator, the host of the event, departed from tradition by not publishing the address in the next issue.

Of course, Mr. Clarke has been proven correct, and Red & White is filled with fas- cinating examples of climate change impacts on wine and the adaptive responses by wine-makers. The Yarra region in Australia has become too warm for Pinot Noir and vineyards are being replanted with Shiraz. Mr. Clarke sees the same change coming to the Marlborough region in New Zealand as well. Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are being planted in southern Germany, and, in Lebanon, harvest dates have moved back by a month over the past 50 years. The highly-regarded 1982 Bordeaux vintage ushered in a more fruit-forward style of wine in the region, which Mr. Clarke declares to be “the first marked by what we now know is the relentless charge of climate change.”

And then there’s the second French invasion of England (the first being the Norman Conquest of 1066). As Mr. Clarke explains, part of the allure of sparkling wine from Champagne comes from the use of barely ripe grapes, which have been difficult to produce in the region in recent decades. Since 1990, the ripening season temperature in Champagne has risen by more than 2° C. French producers have been buying land in southern England, which is cooler than Champagne and has the same chalk soils. Taittinger was the first producer to establish a vineyard in southern England, with Pommery following soon after. Five million bottles of wine, most of it sparkling, are now being produced each year in Britain.

I enjoyed Red & White. Mr. Clarke’s writing is lively and humorous and clearly conveys his unabating excitement about wine. He explains that he has always been able to put his experiences with wine into words. Thus, we get this description of Amarone from Italy:

In the best examples, this gives a wild, slightly unnerving personality to the wine, which often starts almost sweet with fruit that could be anything from plum and blackberry to baked apple, sweet cherry flesh, sour cherry skins and figs and rai- sins baked halfway to paste. But the bitterness – the Amarone (amaro means bit- ter in Italian) – always comes back as black chocolate, as wood-smoke, as the burnt bits on the bottom of a roasting pan, and ideally there will be a splash of meat stock and balsamic vinegar sourness to season the final bitterness, which should be as grippy yet affectionate as the lick of a cat’s tongue.

Maybe not entirely believable, but fun to read.

My main complaint about the book is that it goes on for too long. After the tour of all of the places in the world that make wine, Mr. Clarke turns to a description of each of the major grape varietals, often returning to locations the reader has already been to. By this point, I was ready for the trip to be over and yet, sections with names like “Cabernet Sauvignon and Canada” stretched out before me. Despite the excessive length, I still recommend the book. It’s highly entertaining and full of absorbing information from one of the world’s experts on wine. This is the perfect book for a hot summer day, accompanied by a chilled glass of rosé.

The Truffle Hunters

By: Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw
Publisher: Sony Pictures Classics,
Year of publication: 2021
Lenght: 84 min.
Reviewer: Kenneth Shepsle
Harvard University
E-Mail: kshepsle@iq.harvard.edu
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 1
JWE Pages: 89-91
Full Text PDF
Film Review

Nominally, The Truffle Hunters is a film about the search for an elusive, bulbous fungus for which foodie connoisseurs are prepared to pay astronomical prices. The highly prized white truffle, or Alba truffle, is found in the forests of Piedmont. (The black, or Périgord, truffle is found, and increasingly cultivated, in southwestern France and is less highly prized, but not exactly chopped liver.)1 The truffle, itself, might qualify as a best-supporting actor nominee, but the real stars of this beautiful film are the wiry old men (some well into their 80s) and their faithful dogs who trudge through dark forests at night in search of these heavenly delights. In fact, this film is really a love story between the men and their dogs.

The narrative focuses on four men, ranging in age from 60s to mid-80s, their well- trained dogs, and their closely guarded territories in the forest outside their Piedmont village.

The men. They are old but enviably vigorous. (This reviewer is old but not so vig- orous!) They care for their dogs, treating them as family members. One of the men, seriously contemplating his mortality at age 87, worries about who will care for his dog once he is gone. He has nightly conversations with his dog on the subject.

The dogs. Amazing! Historically, pigs were used for hunting truffles. The problem was that they ate most of the product. So, truffle hunters turned to specially trained dogs who were more easily encouraged to locate, but not eat, the truffles.

The territory. The forests of Piedmont are commonly held; there are no enclosures or property rights to tracts of forest land. Given the high value of harvested wild truffles,2 and the inability of truffle hunters to claim territorial property rights, truffle hunting is a very secretive affair. The old men and their dogs head for their favorite hunting grounds at night, alone and unwilling to reveal their locations. This has a labor market implication as well. The men are so secretive that they are loath to take on younger apprentices. While it is unclear how the old men orig- inally learned their vocation, their unwillingness to pass along their skills to younger men threatens to force younger men to reinvent the wheel.

The film itself is cinematographically absorbing—picturesque Piedmont land- scapes lusciously portrayed; interior shots of modest homes of wood stoves, rough plastered walls decorated with religious icons, windows open to village and forest; and the dogs tramping through the dampness with their owners. The music by Ed Cortes reminds us that these are not ordinary villages and forests, but Italian ones. There is a certain sadness conveyed in the fact that old men, not long for this world, will take their secrets to the grave. Indeed, in one scene, a priest reassures one of the men that there is truffle hunting in heaven.

There is another sense of sorrow in this film. As in so many other industries, traditional ways of doing things are vanishing. The skills associated with hunting itself are not being learned by a younger generation. The old ways of marketing the truffles—individual hunters taking their product direct to local consumers in village farmers’ markets—are giving way to deals with middlemen who market the product worldwide. The high price of the product is inducing cutthroat competition—the poisoning of dogs by outsiders is not uncommon. Thus, the beauty of the cinematography and music is touched by melancholy.

I recommend this film, therefore, not only for its splendor but also because it con- stitutes a historical record of how life once was in Piedmont villages. It is something to contemplate as you enjoy a glass of Barolo along with pasta with shaved truffles.

1 According to Danilo Alfara, in a highly informative article, the truffle botanically is a species of mush- room. See https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-are-truffles-5179896.

2 They commanded roughly $1,600/pound in 2021; the price of unusually large, fist-sized bulbs can rise to more than $4,000/pound.

Windows on the World Complete Wine Course: Revised & Updated

By: Kevin Zraly
Publisher: Sterling Epicure,
Year of publication: 2021
ISBN: 978-1454942177
Price: $35
464 Pages
Reviewer: Roman L. Weil
University of Chicago
E-Mail: Roman.Weil@chicagobooth.edu
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 1
JWE Pages: 87-89
Full Text PDF
Book Review

My first draft of this review elicited a colleague’s comment that I should not go to the corner occupied by the Grumpy Economist, which is already covered, so I will take on the mantle of the Honest Oenonomist. While this book is neither “complete” nor solely a “course,” it has merit as a reference book and a coffee table showpiece.

Here, the book does well. It has a first-rate index, contains an entertaining 43-page personal history of the author’s involvement with wine, includes a first-course lesson/ chapter, which provides 28 well-done pages about grapes, weather, fermentation, wine chemistry, aging, bottles,1 glasses, and wine labels. Three of those pages show striking photographs. This recurring theme—pages devoted to photographs, not to teaching nor to reference material—contributes to coffee table status. In my opinion, the best teaching material in the book is the 19.5 pages devoted to the phys- iology and biology of taste and smell.

After its introduction, the book provides more course lessons: Prelude, America, France, Spain, Italy, Australia/New Zealand, South America, Germany, Sparkling, Fortified, Other Countries, and Quiz questions on the preceding chapters.

In the classroom, many of us “teach to the test.” So, a sample of Mr. Zraly’s quiz questions gives a flavor of what the course teaches. Name the ten top states in wine consumption per capita [in the U.S.]. Name one chateau from each of the five growths [of Bordeaux]. What are the three most important white wine villages in the Cote de Beaune? Name the four different quality levels of Chianti. What were the first grapes planted in Argentina? What are the three major types of Champagne?

Why do I find that the book functions best as a reference/coffee table book rather than a text to accompany a course? As one example, the 24 pages of the chapter on French red wines and Bordeaux includes 6 pages of attractive photographs. Another two pages list the names of the 1855 classified growths. All in all, I found that 40% of the material in the chapter is reference material. Where does this leave me? With 55% of the overall book allocated to pictures and reference, only 45% provides course teaching. Even as a reference book, it sometimes behaves strangely. Suppose you want to know what foods go well with chardonnay. The index directs you to pages: 96, 245, 334, and 347. Page 96 recommends oysters, crab, trout, and salmon, while the last of these favors sirloin steak.

Let’s look at another chapter. The one on Sparkling wines caught my eye. This chapter does a good job teaching about the locales in Champagne, the Méthode Champenoise, and different styles of Champagne while providing a taxonomy of twenty-five well-known houses classified from light-delicate to full and rich.

How many Champagne labels can you name? I cannot get to 10. Did you know there are thousands? I first read about Champagne in Michael Broadbent’s (1980) Great Vintage Wine Book in the 1980s and decided that if Winston Churchill liked Pol Roger, that was good enough for me. I could not tell the taste difference, but I bought it and liked it. It was only years later that I learned from Gary Westby of K&L Wine Merchants that no-name labels could taste as good as famous ones. The book says that there are “more than 260 Champagne houses,” and the pie chart on the same page implies that those houses comprise 80% of the total number, so there must be about 325. Where are the thousands of other labels? I assume that Champagne labels and growers differ, but the course does not offer an explanation.

Horizontal and vertical comparisons of wines are familiar to readers of this Journal. The book recommends at least three such comparisons of two or more wines in each chapter, but not one suggests a “triangle test,” which has become standard in the testing/tasting world (Weil, 2007). Mr. Zraly may not prefer such tests, but should not a complete course alert readers to their existence and merits (or demerits)?

Readers of this Journal will be interested to know that the course omits oenometric research findings from its teachings. There is a discussion of the effects of weather on wine, but there is no mention of the now-classic work of Ashenfelter and others using auction prices to identify the relationship between weather and wine quality (Ashenfelter, 2010). Elsewhere, the course discusses wine words and descriptors but does not question whether anyone can reliably describe, then replicate, wine tastes and smells (Lehrer, 2009). The book also describes and illustrates the steepness of the growing hills in Germany, but unfortunately does not mention the analysis, which has estimated the degree days hitting the grapes on those hillsides as a function of the steepness and orientation of the hillsides, and then has related the degree days to the higher prices the wines fetch, and hence the higher quality of the wine (Ashenfelter and Storchmann, 2010). I do not know whether Mr. Zraly is unaware of oenometric research or whether he finds it irrelevant. I will not speculate, as I am trying not to be grumpy.

Based upon many discussions over the years with oenophiles and with those who have relatively little interest in wine, here are just a few questions I believe ought to be addressed in a course about wine (but are not in this book). How do I deal with wine in a restaurant? What should I do when the waiter hands me the cork?2 What do I do if I do not like the wine? Should I buy and lay down wine? Or buy later at auction?

What should I know about cost-effective home wine storage?

An advantage of this book’s being revised annually is that you can buy recent edi- tions on the used book market (e.g., at www.abebooks.com) for about half the cost of the latest edition. You will still get most of the good stuff the 35th edition offers. On the other hand, if you want a solid, inexpensive reference book, I recommend early editions of Jancis Robinson’s (2006) Oxford Companion to Wine.

1 I did not go looking for errors, but I spotted some anyway. Mr. Zraly tells us (pp. 24–25) that a Jeroboam contains four regular-sized (.750 liter) bottles of wine. It fails to note that, while that is true for Burgundy, often in Bordeaux, it holds six. Michael Broadbent, cited as a contributor to Decanter magazine (p. 349), died six months before the publication date of the book, which is noted on page 344.

2 In the past, because unscrupulous restauranteurs were putting fake labels on cheap wines, reputable wine- makers began to brand their corks to cut down on such counterfeiting. Hence, the server would open the bottle in front of the customer and hand over the cork for inspection. Where the mythology around sniffing

Gerard Basset: Tasting Victory: The Life and Wines of the World’s Favourite Sommelier

By: Gerard Basset
Publisher: Unbound
Year of publication: 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78352-861-5
Price: $17.99
256 Pages
Reviewer: Nick Vink
University of Stellenbosch
E-Mail: nv@sun.ac.za
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 1
JWE Pages: 83-86
Full Text PDF
Book Review

The publisher of this book is the first crowdfunded publisher in existence.1 How this works is that they place books they believe are worthy on their website and invite people to pledge funding in return for small rewards—free and/or signed copies of the book, your name printed in the book as a supporter, etc. At the time of writing this review, the publisher was celebrating 10 years of existence, with 476 pub- lished books and about half that number of active projects.

According to the publication Drinks International, crowdfunding for Gerard Basset’s memoirs was spearheaded by Jancis Robinson, and the target was to raise some £14,000.2 The exercise was obviously successful because it raised more than twice this amount before the book was published in early 2020. It is now out of print, so prospective readers must access the ebook version,3 which, it turns out, is well worth reading, even for those of us who prefer to hold a real book in our hands. Why do people write autobiographies or memoirs? Arthur Koestler (2019, pp. 37–39) asked himself this question in the first volume of his own autobiography:

“I believe that people write autobiographies for two main reasons. The first may be called the ‘Chronicler’s urge.’ The second may be called the ‘Ecce Homo motive.’ Both impulses spring from the same source…: the desire to share one’s experiences with others… The Chronicler’s urge expresses the need for the sharing of experience related to external events. The Ecce Homo motive expresses the same need with regard to internal events…

Thus the business of writing autobiography is full of pitfalls. On the one hand, we have the starchy chronicle of the stuffed shirt; on the other, the embarrassing nakedness of the exhi- bitionist …Apart from these two extremes there are various other snares which even compe- tent craftsmen are rarely able to avoid. The most common of these is what one might call the ‘Nostalgic Fallacy.’…

Next among the snares is the ‘Dull Dog Fallacy’… [which] requires that the first person sin- gular… should always appear as a shy, restrained, reserved, colourless individual…”

Of course, none of these faults need much explanation to anyone who has read even the best of autobiographies! So how do the memoirs of Gerard Basset (1957–2019), the world’s favourite sommelier, stack up against these criteria?

I first turn to some facts about his life.

Gerard’s mother was a good cook, and in his early career, it seemed more probable that he would end up being a food expert than a wine expert—especially because his parents knew little about wine and he grew up without ever drinking any—quite an achievement for someone who grew up in la France profonde! Gerard left school at the age of 16 but ended up as a Master of Wine and a Master Sommelier, with an MBA and an MSc degree, and was a recipient of the OBE—more letters behind his name than most, as Jancis Robinson pointed out in her tribute.4 In the process of getting there, he held down a very wide range of jobs, all of them part of a search for whom he wanted to become. These included a shop assistant, factory worker, candy maker, delivery assistant and waiter in a restaurant. Some of these were short-lived, others lasted for a few years, but all seem to have contributed to his future success in one way or another.

For example, his early passions were cycling, watching, and playing football, and it was the latter that took him to the United Kingdom (Glasgow) for the first time. His second soccer trip was to Liverpool. His view of the English before the Liverpool trip:

“Liverpool itself didn’t excite me much and nor did the English – my impression was that they were all strange. They drove on the wrong side of the road, had a boring cuisine, loved tea instead of coffee, drank beer at room temperature and had policemen known as ‘Bobby’ who wore funny hats. And they still had royalty, whereas in France we had been a republic for a long time. To top off the list of peculiarities, it always rained in England, or so I believed.

I wasn’t totally anti-English, as I liked watching The Avengers and The Prisoner, and some of their pop music artists were OK, but overall, I thought they were eccentric.” (p. 14)

Back in France and without much direction in life, he realized that he liked Britain, so saved up to buy a one-way ticket to the United Kingdom (in August 1979, i.e., at the very start of the Thatcher era). Down on his luck in London, he realized that the reason he liked the English was that he had had such good experiences in Liverpool. As a result, he headed north to a summer job as a kitchen porter in an Isle of Man hotel. In his words, “Being a kitchen porter meant getting intimate with the dish- washer.” His culinary experience was summed up as follows:

“The food was extremely basic. The dinner menu had a choice of three starters, one of which was orange juice, which I found surprising. The main course was even simpler, because there was only one, which changed every day for a week and then came around again. The desserts were also very restricted.

The break in routine came on Thursday nights – curry nights. On my first Thursday, the head chef served the curry on rice that he’d coloured bright red. The next Thursday, he’d chosen bright yellow. After I told him that my football team, Saint-Etienne, played in green, he made green rice the following week, in my honour.” (p. 21)

Before this UK trip, he took a three-day excursion to New York. He has this to say about New York’s cuisine:

“But what I particularly remember was the New York-style breakfast: bacon and eggs in a style called ‘over easy’, meaning cooked lightly on both sides, with grits, made from corn maize. And lashings of coffee.” (p. 19)

He had saved up more than enough for four months in England, so apart from the short trip to New York, he also did a week-long excursion to Leningrad and Moscow (this was the late 1970s). He had nothing to say about Russian cuisine!

After eight months in the United Kingdom, he returned to France and treated himself to a meal at Paul Bocuse’s restaurant outside Lyon to experience what a customer experienced in a Michelin three-star restaurant. This was followed by a state-sponsored cooking course, a job at a one-star Michelin restaurant, an unsuccessful excursion to Paris, and then back to the same hotel in the south of England (the Crown Hotel in Lyndhurst, in the New Forest area of the south of England). The hotel had changed owners during that time, and the new owners appointed a restaurant manager, who in turn wanted a sommelier—and that is how he ended up in the profession that was to become his passion of the rest of his career. This also marks the first substantive mention of wine in his memoirs —almost 50 pages into the book.

The New Forest area is also where he met his wife, Nina, and where he spent most

of the rest of his life when not traveling, something he did extensively.

After the Crown Hotel, Gerard moved to Chewton Glen Hotel in nearby Hampshire, and this became the launching pad for the two marks of his success: his fame and fortune. The former came from his willingness to subject himself to the rigors of a whole host of wine tasting and sommelier competitions, and the latter from the joint venture that he and the Chewton Glen restaurant manager, Robin Hutson, launched: in 1994, the two of them started a chain of luxury boutique hotels with other shareholders, with the first Hotel Du Vin opening in Winchester, culminating in a chain of seven hotels, which they sold a decade later. In the process, he turned an initial investment of £25,000 into £2.5 million!

There are three aspects to his subsequent career: another hotel venture, more compe- titions and prizes, and extensive travel all over the world on different aspects of the wine business. A year after the sale of the hotel group, he and his wife opened the TerraVina Hotel in Lyndhurst, a venture that lasted 10 years and started and ended less success- fully than expected. It would be fair to summarize the darker side of this venture as con- sisting of problems with staff, builders, bankers, accountants, lawyers, and Brexit, roughly in that order. No real surprise there! After a decade of this, he and his wife rein- vented and renamed the hotel, turning it into a boutique B&B called Spot in the Woods. At the same time, he was busy collecting initials to add to his name, a process that cul- minated in the title “Best Sommelier in the World” in 2010 after being runner up on three occasions, as well as in his MW, MS, MBA, and MSc qualifications.

Unfortunately, this is where the one weakness of this book is most visible: too much detailed description of one business venture after another and of one compe- tition after another and too little about his work in the world of wine writ large. One wonders if these rather pedestrian passages would not have benefited from the firm hand of a competent editor.

Yet this is a minor quibble. The book ends as it began, putting the author’s wonderful optimism, obvious penchant for hard work, and deep appreciation of friends and family at the forefront of a story that is well worth telling.

Wine Folly: The Master Guide

By: Madeline Puckette and Justin Hammack
Publisher: Avery
Year of publication: 2018
ISBN: 978- 0525533894
Price: $35
320 Pages
Reviewer: Joseph P. Newhouse
Harvard University
E-Mail: joseph_newhouse@harvard.edu
JWE Volume: 17 | 2022 | No. 1
JWE Pages: 81-83
Full Text PDF
Book Review

This lavishly produced book, which won the 2019 James Beard Award in the bever- age category, assumes no prior knowledge about wine and thus is aimed at persons who do not regard themselves as wine experts. Its language is clear and readable, and its graphics are numerous, impressive, and informative. Even those who, like the readers of this journal, regard themselves as having a good deal of expertise will likely find things they did not know.

The book is organized into four main sections plus a short glossary and a list of references. The first section entitled “Wine Basics” covers how wine is made, as well as how to taste it, serve it, and store it. A short second section covers pairing with food, although the third section, which describes 86 grapes and 14 wines, also has a considerable amount of information on pairing. The final substantive section covers the geography of wine in 14 major producing countries.

The first section covers five traits of wine, beginning with body. It ranks 47 red wine grapes, from Brachetto as the lightest to Zinfandel as the richest. Similarly, it ranks body among 39 white wine grapes from Melon to Chardonnay, five sparkling wines, and nine dessert wines. It also notes the interactions of the other four traits with body.

The second trait is sweetness, where the authors distinguish five levels of sweetness for still wines and seven for sparkling wines, noting that although sweetness is mea- sured as grams of residual sugar per liter, that measure is not well correlated with one’s perception of sweetness because of the interaction of the other traits with how sweet a wine tastes.

The third trait is tannin, or the polyphenols, found in the grape skins and seeds and in wooden barrels. The authors point out that the health benefits of wine come from tannin, but that wines higher in tannin will taste more bitter; they also rank 44 grapes in their tannin level.

Fourth, they consider acidity, ranking types of wine on a pH scale, with whites generally having higher acidity (lower pH) than reds. Higher acidity wines are lighter bodied and taste less sweet.

The final trait is alcohol or the ethanol level, which is typically 12–15% but can range from 5 to 22%.

Included in the first section’s advice on how to taste wine is a detailed chart on aromas, which lists nine primary aromas, such as black fruit, red fruit, dried fruit, etc., with each of the nine primary aromas subdivided into more specific aromas. For example, the “black fruit” category lists within it seven fruit aromas such as black cherry, blueberry, and boysenberry. In addition to the nine primary aromas, the chart lists 14 secondary and 13 tertiary aromas. Readers are encouraged to write which of these aromas they detect when tasting wine. The first section also includes brief notes about serving and storing wine as well as how wine is made.

In addition to its information on pairings of food and wine, the second section contains brief notes on cooking with wine.

The long third section contains descriptions of 100 common wines, grapes, and blends, including tasting notes and food pairing suggestions. It uses the five traits described in the first section, ranking each of the 100 wines or grapes on a one-to-five scale for each trait. It also gives information on aromas of each of the 100 wines and grapes; my favorite was cat pee for sauvignon blanc. It offers advice on the type of glass to use to serve the wine, the temperature at which to serve it, and whether it should be decanted. There is a circular bar chart for each wine showing where it is grown and the worldwide acreage devoted to it, as well as similar varietals that one might wish to try. In several places, the book help- fully includes suggested pronunciations.

The final section—on the major wine-producing countries—has a map for each of 14 countries, showing its various grape-growing regions and the type of grape grown in each region. For each country, it has notes on several of its wines. The notes are more extensive for some of the countries than for others. They are espe- cially extensive for France, giving as much space to each of its wine regions as several of the other countries; there are also extensive notes for Italy, Spain, and the United States.

My only criticism of the book, which is picky, is its title. If one just came across the book while browsing and looked at its title, one might think the book was an effort to dissuade people from drinking wine. The subtitle—“A Master Guide”—belies that interpretation but could easily go unnoticed since it is in a much smaller font. The authors operate an online website and store with the same name, so perhaps naming the book after the website is an effort to publicize the store. Not surprisingly, one can buy the book at the store.

Readers of this journal may want this book for themselves, particularly for its material on less well-known wines and grapes, or as a gift for a friend or colleague who is less knowledgeable about wine but interested in learning more.

In Vino Veritas: A Collection of Fine Wine Writing Past and Present

By: Susan Keevil (ed.)
Publisher: Académie du Vin Library Ltd.
Year of publication: 2019
ISBN: 978-1-913141-03-5
Price: $45.00
224 Pages
Reviewer: Neal D. Hulkower
E-Mail: nhulkower@yahoo.com
JWE Volume: 16 | 2021 | No. 3
JWE Pages: 350-353
Full Text PDF
Book Review

OK, I’ll warn you up front, I’m enamored with British wine writing. The dry wit, the masterful yet effortless use of language, and the confident command of the subject remain inspirational models for this wine writer.

In Vino Veritas assembles 36 pieces, dating from 1833 through 2019 by 34 writers, many of whom are English, including Michael Broadbent, Hugh Johnson, and Steven Spurrier. The latter two, along with Simon McMurtrie, founded the Académie du Vin Library, the publisher of this volume. A brief introduction by Hugh Johnson highlighting the origins of wine writing is followed by 10 chapters, each covering a single theme and each containing 3 to 5 stories covering 2 to 11 pages.

Charles Walter Berry’s In Search of Bordeaux is a highlight of Chapter 1, “Good Vintage, Bad Vintage.” This excerpt from In Search of Wine, A Tour of the Vineyards of France published in 1935 by “one of the first British wine merchants to venture abroad and taste wines on their own terroir” (p. 18) chronicles his visits to the chateaux the year before. It contains descriptions of wines, both good and not so good, and accompanying dishes. Included as an insert, Michael Broadbent’s tasting notes of several of the wines supplement Berry’s pithier ones. In addition, Fiona Morrison MW contributes Le Pin: the First Day of the Harvest written in 2019 and H. Warner Allen describes My Best Claret (1951).

A 1981 extract from Christie’s Wine Companion by Broadbent, My Wife and Hard Wines, concludes the chapter. It is a charming recollection of visiting old wine cellars whose bottles ended up on the block at the famous auction house. Contrasting “map-bedecked modern American air-conditioned cellars” with “the ‘feel’, smell, chill and content of an old cellar,” he wonders: “How can a room com- fortable enough to sit in for several hours…possibly be the right temperature for storing fine vintage wines?” (p. 25)

“Bordeaux, Burgundy…or Napa Cabernet?” is the focus of Chapter 2. It starts with a debate of sorts: Burgundy is Better (1940) by Maurice Healy versus Ian Maxwell Campbell’s Burgundy, The Cannibal Wine (1945). Spurrier’s, The ‘Judgment of Paris’ Revisited, written in 2018, details the results of subsequent rematches of the 1976 tasting he organized, as well as the original event. He quotes Ashenfelter and Quandt (1999) who “concluded that: ‘It was no mistake for Steven Spurrier to declare the California Cabernet the winner” (p. 41). This is true based on the inclusion of the rankings of Spurrier and Patricia Gallagher in their analysis. But there is strong evidence that their ratings were not included (Taber 2006; Hulkower 2009). As I demonstrated, without Gallagher’s and Spurrier’s points, top honors went to the 1970 Château Haut-Brion. Nevertheless, this article is a valuable record of a tasting that “gave to the world of wine…a tem- plate whereby little-known wines of quality could be tasted blind against known wines of quality…” (p. 45). I can drink to that.

“Power to the Underdogs,” Chapter 3, includes Notes on a Barbaric Auslese (1920) by George Saintsbury, The Debut of Dom Pérignon by Henry Vizetelly (1879), and a 2019 philosophical musing on an obscure variant of Syrah called Sérine, “Ah, the Sérinity…” by one of the original American Rhone Rangers, Randall Grahm. Also from 2019 is a credible analysis of the future of British sparkling wine, The English Wine Bubble by Justin Howard-Sneyd MW. He cautions:

“When there is not enough wine to go round, no producer ever needs to price-promote, and no retailer wants to create a price war…This rather artificial environment trains the customer to pay the full price and buy the wine…immediately…But this state of the market can quickly unravel as soon as supply exceeds demand, even by a small amount…it looks as if this is where English Sparkling wine may be headed next.” (p. 73)

Kathleen Burk’s 2013 contribution, Cyril Ray and The Rise of The ‘Compleat Imbiber,’ is a delightful short history of the publication that inspired this volume.

Chapter 4, “Wine Travels,” comprises four accounts, either first- or second-hand, of visits to regions around the world. Hugh Johnson goes to The Wilder Shores of Wine (2019), Peter Vinding-Diers is A Viking in the Vineyard (2019), Simon Loftus spends time with Guiseppe Poggio: Home Winemaking in Piedmont (1986), and Jason Tesauro extols the progress made in winemaking in Virginia in Out of California’s Shadow (2019).

Three-piece Chapter 5, “The Mischief of Tea,” follows, offering quirky views of the English staple, especially vis-à-vis alcohol from George Orwell (1946), Cecil Torr (1918), and PG Wodehouse (1964).

Chapter 6 is a four-way discussion across 186 years over the question “Should Port be Fortified?” The title, A Call to Ban Port’s Fortification (1833) by Cyrus Redding, unambiguously stakes out one position. Dirk Niepoort’s The Best of Both Worlds? (2019) defends the middle ground, which in fact is put into practice at the company bearing the family name. An excerpt from A Contemplation of Wine by H. Warner Allen (1951) examines “The Scandal of Elderberries,” involving adding the juice of this fruit to darken port. The final word, which I leave to the reader to discover, is given to Ben Howkins in The Port Trials (2019).

“To the Table at Last,” Chapter 7, is a quartet of essays by three Brits and one of the most distinguished American wine writers of the last century. Jane MacQuitty ponders To Decant or Not to Decant? (2019). Hugh Johnson’s Beyond the Banyan Tree (1980) is a remembrance of a dinner organized by the Zinfandel Club, during which a selection of notable California vintages was served. Californian Gerald Asher recounts the challenges of serving the best from our collections at a multicourse dinner in Wine on Wine (1996). As in Berry’s story, Broadbent’s tasting notes of some of the clarets and California cabernets are included. Spurrier’s Memorable Menus (2019) will leave the reader both envious and incredu- lous as to how anyone could consume that much and still live to write about it.

Chapter 8, “Something a Little Different,” is the shortest, with just two very brief essays. Sting Like a Bee (2019) by Dan Keeling considers high alcohol wines. Jonathan Miles offers Mint Julep, A Cocktail to Crave (2008), as his complete depar- ture from the subject of the book.

Chapter 9 looks at “Wine and Art” from four perspectives. Australian Andrew Caillard MW, who is also a painter, explores Art, Wine and Me (2019). The editor’s introduction, of course, includes the inevitable wordplay: “The palate and the palette have been tools of his trade for over 40 years” (p. 166). American wine writer Elin McCoy contemplates Is Wine Art? (2018) and reveals a third side to this coin. The backstory of the decision to put art on the labels of Château Mouton Rothschild is disclosed in Best Dressed and Bottled at Home (1984) extracted from Milady Vine, the Autobiography of Phillippe de Rothschild by Joan Littlewood. Canadian Tony Aspler writes about one Mouton label in For a Piece of the Glamour (1997) with an ending that could come straight from O. Henry.

A trio of essays comprises the final chapter, “Wine and the Poets.” Baudelaire is the focus of Wine and the Outcast Poet (2009) by Giles MacDonogh. Colette and Wine (1983) by Alice Wooledge Salmon offers vinously-inflected highlights of the life of a talented but controversial character. We are cautioned that “just as one’s pleasure in rare wine can be blunted by undue dissection, so various critics have taken Colette to absurdities in their haste after ‘psychoanalysis’ of both woman and achievement” (p. 211). In any case, one can certainly lust after some of the bottles she encountered. Harry Eyres discusses Roman poet Horace in In Vino Veritas (2014).

In Vino Veritas is a gorgeous package, stunningly illustrated with exquisite color and historic black and white photographs and handsomely bound with a blue ribbon marker. I did find a few minor editing issues, however. On p. 46, “vineyard” has a typo, on p. 66 “to this” is repeated, and a caption refers to its illustration in the wrong direction (p. 85). Nits to be sure but unexpected given how carefully the book was otherwise compiled.

This assemblage of small sips, tantalizing tastes, and gratifying gulps of some of the best wine writing of the last two centuries is a joy to read. It is as much a verbal crazy quilt as an anthology that is clearly self-aware, with footnotes referenc- ing other essays and an occasional piece responding to another in the collection. I reveled in the precision of the jewel box of $50 words (€42.80 or ₤36.25 on October 28, 2021) like “cacographists” and “omnibibulosity” (p. 17), “etiolated” (p. 67), “adventitious” (p. 124), “flagitious” (p. 127), and “topos” (p. 221) as well as the French “maquillage” (p. 62), all of which I had to look up. I really did not want the book to end. Good news, signaled by the date 2020 on the spine and front cover, was found on p. 224 buried in the Acknowledgment: “With luck and a following readership, perhaps our book [will] see a run of annual editions…” Sign me up.

Neal D. Hulkower
McMinnville, OR
nhulkower@yahoo.com
doi:10.1017/jwe.2021.30

The Story of Wine: From Noah to Now

By: Hugh Johnson
Publisher: Académie du Vin Library Ltd
Year of publication: 2020
ISBN: 978-1-913141-06-6
Price: $45.00
496 Pages
Reviewer: Neal D. Hulkower
E-Mail: nhulkower@yahoo.com
JWE Volume: 16 | 2021 | No. 3
JWE Pages: 347-350
Full Text PDF
Book Review

Rule Britannia! Britannia ruled the wine world in Europe, at least between the 18th century and well into the 20th century. This is all the more remarkable since only until recently has the United Kingdom produced anything vinous worth mentioning, and not all that much at that. Even more ironically, as an example of always hurting the one you love, a vine disease, oidium tuckeri, passed from England to France via Belgium in 1851 and wreaked havoc for a decade until it was found that dusting with sulfur would stop its spread. England’s more enduring positive impact was as a thirsty market for French, Spanish, German, and Portuguese wines. Hence it was the most important stimulus for elevating their quality. As Hugh Johnson affirms: “Great wines are made by their markets” (p. 245).

Alongside the growing wine trade, wine writing began to flourish in Britain start- ing in 1775 with the publication of Observations, Historical, Critical and Medieval, on the Wines of the Ancients and the Analogy between them and Modern Wines by Sir Edward Barry. “Writing about wine from the consumer’s point of view had in the past been almost a branch of medicine…” (p. 317) explains Johnson. “Such writing was to become the specialty of the English, for the simple reason that English wealth, at the top of the social ladder, had accumulated the most varied cellars of top-quality wines on earth” (p. 317). Building on this tradition, Johnson presents his masterful overview of the evolution of the world’s most cherished bev- erage, not surprisingly in an unabashedly Anglocentric way.

Following the Foreword by Andrew Roberts (more on this later), Johnson’s Preface addresses his wariness of the word “history” and the limited degree to which he updated the story after 30 years. On the former, he recognizes that “scholars have made [the word history] their own and will challenge any unqualified pretender” (p. 11). His reluctance to go on with the story stems from his belief that it would be “as much about money as it is about wine, or taste or pleasure” (p. 14). Moreover, he asks: “It would further our knowledge – but does it further our understanding? In any case…I have limited myself to the story of wine at the time when it took over a large part of my life, and became my enduring pleasure” (p. 15).

Gustave Flaubert declared that “Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.” Having eschewed the “h” word, Johnson instead, after consuming thousands of wines, including one that was 421 years old, and digesting dozens of references, penned his tale that unfolds across 43 chapters organized into five parts. The nine chapters of Part One cover the period from “Man’s First Experience of Alcohol” to when “Mohammed Condemns Wine.” (I’m using chapter subtitles which are more descriptive of the content than the titles.) Part Two, with ten chapters, begins with “Charlemagne and the Rebirth of Europe’s Vineyards” and ends with “Great Steps in the Technology of Glassmaking.” The 11 chapters of Part Three cover the period from the end of the 17th century into the 19th century. Part Four comprises ten chapters, which dwell on the turbulence caused by revolution and wars. They address their impact on the maturation of the wine industry primarily in Europe but with excursions to the New World and take us to the dawn of the 20th century. The first of three chapters of Part Five is an overview of the first half of the 20th century featuring “War, Slump, Poor Weather and Prohibition” and is followed by two containing updates since the first release of the book. Up-to-date information is also spliced into the text throughout, for example: “…the oldest pips of cultivated vines…were found in Soviet [as it was then] Georgia…” (p. 24). Mercifully, an index of 19 pages each containing three columns of smaller text is included to facilitate refreshing the reader’s memory. A bibliography lists references by chapter. Unfortunately, there are no maps or illustrations.

Freed from the strictures of historians, Johnson takes a totally relaxed and occa- sionally personal approach to his subject, covering many topics superficially while going down the rabbit hole on others. He infuses the text with opinions, wit, and amusing digressions but not at the expense of a serious message. This story shows how much wine permeates and influences various cultures and so must include some of their histories. Wine is overlaid on this chronicle with names and places, empires and raiders poking through the tales requiring the most curious to look else- where for details.

Although I am well-read on the subject of wine, I learned quite a lot. In particular, insets were especially helpful to break up the formidable blocks of text and further illuminate a topic. Some offer quirky insights. For example, one named “Tent” intro- duces a term no longer used for a dark red wine and “is the directly comparable with, and complementary to, ‘claret’” (p. 167). Johnson muses “It would be pleasant to see it introduced for that general class of wine such as Australian Shiraz, California Zinfandel, and indeed such dark Spanish reds as Duero (as opposed to paler Rioja)” (p. 167).

Another example of the myriad topics touched on, Johnson tells us that “Plato’s views on the minimum drinking age are remarkably severe. ‘Boys under 18 shall not taste wine at all for one should not conduct fire to fire. Wine in moderation may be tasted until one is 30…But when a man is entering his fortieth year…he may summon the other gods and particularly call upon Dionysius to join the old men’s holy rite…wine…is the cure of crabbiness of old age…’ It is a sobering thought that to Plato old age began at 40” (p. 50).

Johnson’s remembrance of the oldest wine he tasted opens Chapter 29, “Cabinet Wine.” In 1961, he sampled an 1857 Rüdesheimer and an 1820 Scholl Johannisberger: “Both had completely perished…But the Steinwein of 1540 was still alive. Nothing has ever demonstrated to me…that wine is indeed a living organ- ism…It even hinted…of its German origins” (p. 288). The exposure to air quickly turned the ancient liquid into vinegar. “It was a moving event in any case to drink history like this,” Johnson concludes (p. 289).

Johnson is not only one of the most prolific wine writers, but he is also one of the most literary. Chapter 33, “Methode Champenoise,” begins with this description of a scene shortly after the abdication of Napoleon: “The sun rising over Champagne on the September 10th 1815 found something more stirring to illuminate than the usual placid dewy vines, their leaves yellowing and their grapes turning old for the approaching harvest…where the first light had touched the little hill…, a seemingly endless army was assembling…The light of dawn flashed on the cuirasses of hussars and glowed on the bearskins of great-coated grenadiers” (p. 332). Passages like this are not only a pleasure to read but help the reader conjure up mental images that might partially offset the lack of illustrations.

At the same time, while impressed at the sheer scope and depth of the coverage, I feel that more could have been added in the update despite Johnson’s reasoning. There are only three references to China listed in the index. The first reduces the early events in that country to a single page inset entitled “Far Cathay” (p. 28). The second is a reference to tea, not wine, and the third, to the number of bottles packed in a hamper sent to China. Surely room could have been made in Chapter 42, “New World Challenges,” for an overview of the burgeoning wine industry in one of the world’s largest wine markets.

In the Foreword, Roberts acknowledges that “No one could be better qualified to write the story of wine than Hugh Johnson whose name is synonymous with wine writing” (p. 7). True enough. “There is tremendous scholarship to be found in these pages, but the immense learning is never ponderous. It is erudite, but never pompous,” he maintains (p. 7). Also true, but it is not light reading. Readers should have at least an intermediate level of wine knowledge as well as more than a passing knowledge of the world and especially European history and geography. Without the slightest hesitation, Johnson casually references wines and wineries as well as major events throughout history, assuming that they are common knowledge. Admittedly, it is on the reader to fill in the blanks, but doing so while engaging with the dense text can be distracting and break the flow of the story.

Nevertheless, armed with a rare depth of knowledge and understanding, Johnson admirably, skillfully, and literarily undertook the formidable task of summarizing the development and expansion of viticulture and enology since biblical times. Particularly in the insets, he larded and leavened his saga with enough trivia, facts, and factoids to make the reader, depending on the guests, either a genius or a bore at the next dinner party. But despite its title, this is only one story of wine, obvi- ously limited to the interests and perspectives of the author, as he admits, and one that is distinctly Eurocentric. Johnson’s rationale: “I was drawing a line between regions where wine had evolved through history and regions where it was an import based on what was being done elsewhere – almost all in Europe” (p. 14). While that continent is where a lot of the action has been happening, it is certainly not the only one, especially since the original publication date. Perhaps there is a non-European counterpart to Johnson who will pick up the story someday and celebrate the contributions of those in less obvious but equally important places.

Neal D. Hulkower
McMinnville, OR
nhulkower@yahoo.com
doi:10.1017/jwe.2021.29

On Bordeaux: Tales of the Unexpected from the World’s Greatest Wine Region

By: Susan Keevil (ed.)
Publisher: Académie du Vin Library
Year of publication: 2021
ISBN: 978- 1913141059
Price: $45.00
228 Pages
Reviewer: Debraj Ray
New York University and the University of Warwick
E-Mail: debraj.ray@nyu.edu
JWE Volume: 16 | 2021 | No. 3
JWE Pages: 343-346
Full Text PDF
Book Review

On Bordeaux is a rambling collection of extracts and articles on “the world’s greatest wine region,” that poetic patch of southwestern France that straddles the Gironde as it nears journey’s end. We are reminded of the special, distinct nature of this terroir from the get-go: the book begins with four testaments to Bordeaux’s delicate yet proud dependence on the “power of the vintage.” The compendium then winds through a litany of interlaced themes: topography, individual châteaux, the aristoc- racy, Bordeaux personalities, the ravages wrought by Phylloxera, the serendipitous benedictions of Botrytis cinerea, and the uncertainties of global warming. There are the inevitable comparisons: across vintages and individual wines, across the structured formalism of the Left Bank and the softer seductions of the Right, and —dare we even say it?—between the offerings of Bordeaux and Burgundy. (The lands beyond are barely visible, like one of those New Yorker’s maps of the world.)

Everything about this richly-produced volume is designed to catch the reader’s eye: the austere definitiveness of its main title (in happy contrast to the zany hyper- bole of its subtitle), the pleasant texture of the pages that fall open with a satisfactory weight, the colorful photographs throughout, and last but certainly not the least, the profusion and variety of the essays contained therein. Oh yes, this tome will draw you in with hours of pleasurable reading, and better still, it will make you want to break out the claret.

As is only to be expected, parts of the book are given over to wine porn at its finest —memories of unforgettable oenophilic encounters, sometimes with personalities deeply associated with Bordeaux. “The Bordeaux Club,” a lovely piece near the end of the book, is both a tribute to Michael Broadbent (writer, critic, and doyen of Christie’s wine auctions, and to whom the entire book is dedicated, in fact) and also a veritably in-your-face account of some epic tastings. See also Gerald Asher’s chapter for a memorable 26-vintage white Haut-Brion tasting, David Peppercorn’s reminiscences of a particularly vertiginous Ausone vertical going back to 1831, not to mention Michael Schuster’s delicious tasting notes on younger first-growth Bordeaux (1986–2010).

But this is the Journal of Wine Economics, so special mention must be reluctantly made of the banal business of buying and selling. Bordeaux’s system of futures trades goes back many centuries, with large négociants buying up the wine en primeur while was still in the barrel. The négociant—via a courtier or broker to seal the deal— would take it from there: from aging and bottling to final distribution and sales. The intimate relationship also provided dependable funding for production and maintenance, a putting-out system of sorts. It is not surprising that the name of the négociant would get top billing on the label, rather than the chateau where the wine came from. Margaret Rand’s fascinating essay on “La Place de Bordeaux” describes the evolution of this wholesaling process up to 2007. As Bordeaux grew in reputation, so did the incentives for particular châteaux to build their own brand names—with Margaux, Lafite, Haut-Brion, and the other first growths leading the way, and the second growths not far behind. Château bottling became near-universal by the start of the 1970s. As that happened, the economic domain of the négociant correspondingly became more circumscribed but—interestingly— remained important. They bought the wine and sold it on: an oddly delicate system balanced in mid-air, as it were. Why might the châteaux not sell directly to the retailers? Why would they leave a fat margin for the courtier and the négociant?

The answers lie partly in the culture of it all, and partly in the economics. A top château would not need to muddy its hands in dealing with the clamorous masses— the latter could rush about all they pleased at the annual tastings, feverishly assessing the vintage and desperately calculating what the market would bear, but in the end, they would have to deal with the négociants, who already owned the wine. (That’s unless a merger effectively occurs; for instance, when the négociant DIVA Bordeaux sold 70% of its stake to Shanghai Sugar Cigarette and Wine in 2012.) And what is the role being played by the négociant? They have absorbed the fluctua- tions and wholesale risks for the year, having paid out an assured sum to the châteaux. Furthermore, they maintain a vast network of dealings with buyers. This double service provided by courtier and négociant—insurance from the markets and insulation from the masses—is of immense value to a risk-averse pro- duction entity that also seeks to build a reputation on a culture of aloofness.

How La Place will evolve in the future would appear to hang on a number of factors, such as the evolving bargaining power of specific châteaux vis-a-vis the négociants, the effect of climate change on the variance of production and quality, the willingness of individual châteaux to muddy their hands by dealing directly with the retailer or (heaven forbid!) the final consumer, and significantly, the arrival of new producers. La Place no longer sells just Bordeaux. Bordeaux-like blends such as Opus One were among the first entrants, but now wines from Argentina, California, Chile, and Italy are common. The economics of information and distribution matters just as much as culture.

With that in mind, I went back and re-read Joe Fattorini in the first section on Vintages. Now here’s someone with a very different style from the likes of Cyril Ray, Hugh Johnson, Edmund Penning-Rowsell, or Michael Broadbent himself, all of whom make appearances in the volume (some several), not always with unwaver- ing claims on my literary attention span. Fattorini, self-described as Obi Wine Kenobi, declares in a second essay elsewhere in the book that he interviewed Anthony Barton of Chateau Léoville-Barton in blue Lycra shorts (Fattorini in the shorts, not Barton, I hasten to clarify), just before running the Medoc marathon. In passing, that’s an essay I read with great delight, and I know you will too—you can try and pair it, as I did, with protagonist Shizuku Tanzaki’s mad Médoc run in Vol. 24 of that cult manga classic, The Drops of God, and will come away rewarded, if somewhat breathless.

But I digress. The first of Fattorini’s two contributions, which is somewhat mis- placed in the section on “The Power of the Vintage,” is an equally breathless account of the economics of Bordeaux’s futures. The curtain is drawn back on the vintage of 2008, one of moderate respectability, although of course, this is not to be divined at the time. All through 2008, the ups and downs of the weather (not to mention the financial crisis) kept speculation on edge. We are introduced to Joe Fattorini’s friend, David, who has just acquired 100 cases of Château Lafite Rothschild 2008 en primeur in the spring of 2009—not for personal consumption, we are assured. He is about to see what happens to the price. I get to learn why wine speculation is so attractive: it turns out that the U.K.’s Inland Revenue allows capital gains on a “wasting asset” like wine to run off scot-free. (To be fair, you cannot write off losses either against your tax bill.) Mouth agape, I just googled Inland Revenue to confirm that a “wasting asset” is one “with a predictable life of 50 years or less,” which places us in an interesting position with respect to red wine, but we shall not concern ourselves with such fiscal niceties here.

Back to David, then, who has just shelled out the original release price of £2,100 per case for his Château Lafite. A year later, the price was at £14,250 per case, a gain of 700%. David had walked away by then at some unrevealed anterior date. This monstrous gain was driven by the Chinese market. Indeed, China plays a central role in the modern history of Bordeaux. With China’s rise in the world economy came an immense international demand for fine red wine, and Bordeaux was at the heart of this demand shift, reaching a crescendo in the early 2010s. With that

crescendo came accounts of widespread adulteration, not to mention the announce- ment of austerity measures in mid-2013 by President Xi Jinping. Once luxury goods were no longer buyable with State funds, sales and prices fell dramatically. Bordeaux is not any more the “thing” that it was in China—now, perhaps, it is Burgundy (a word that I fearfully mention only for the second and last time in this review). Andrew Caillard’s chapter, “Red Obsession,” is a captivating account of this roller-coaster ride.

And what of the perfectly respectable but unglamorous 2008 vintage that David acquired? Alas, for those who got in at the top, the gain was not to last, with prices dropping to half the peak levels over the next few years. These are large moves, both up and down. Both are likely to happen precisely for middling vintages where the dust settles years hence, and where price-overshooting is consequently most likely. Little wonder, then, that La Place is set up as it is, with the price fluctua- tions absorbed way downstream—even though well-informed courtiers probably do an excellent job in predicting the expected market price of vintage, and so arrange (on average) well-insulated deals between château and négociant.

Befitting the journal where this review appears, I have focused more on the eco- nomics of Bordeaux than the book warrants. As I’ve already said, it is a sprawling read, an entertaining mix of styles and accounts, some admittedly more entertaining than others. There are topics that I’ve not touched on. Apart from the personalities, the descriptions of individual châteaux, the buying frenzies, and the epic tastings, there are instructive discussions of climate change and the generally unwelcome rise in alcohol content, historical essays of Bordeaux during the war (including Joan Littlewood’s enthralling account of Philippe de Rothschild’s “Escape Across the Pyrenees”), the intimate relationship with England that initially drove the for- tunes of the region, a rewriting of the reaction to phylloxera (far slower than com- monly supposed), and the serendipitous discovery of the noble rot that created the great Sauternes as we know them today.

When I was asked to write this review, I anticipated that I would selectively read some of the chapters and quickly skim the rest, as reviewers are wont to do, especially when confronted by a volume of diverse essays. I am happy to disclose that I read the book cover to cover. With few exceptions, I found all the essays informative. I found a smaller but still sizable set of essays attractive to read as well. And some, such as the utterly delightful and irreverent account by the sisters Edith Somerville and Martin Ross on “Mouton vs Lafite,” were quite irresistible in their charm. All in all, this compendium of essays is a fitting tribute to Bordeaux.

Debraj Ray
New York University and the University of Warwick
debraj.ray@nyu.edu
doi:10.1017/jwe.2021.28

Wine and the White House: A History

By: Frederick J. Ryan, Jr.
Publisher: White House Historical Association, Washington DC
Year of publication: 2020
ISBN: 978-1950273072
Price: $55.00
456 Pages
Reviewer: Knut Bergmann
German Economic Institute
E-Mail: bergmann@iwkoeln.de
JWE Volume: 16 | 2021 | No. 2
JWE Pages: 236-238
Full Text PDF
Book Review

It starts with the good old days: In a cartoon from 1953, the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey are peacefully toasting each other. The next illustration

does not impress politically, but personally: a bottle of Mouton Rothschild 1955 with a handwritten dedication by Ronald Reagan. He gave it to the author for his birth- day. Of course, the bottle is from the year of Frederick J. Ryan’s birth—and the cartoon mentioned is from the Washington Post, of which he is now publisher and CEO. Before going into media, Ryan served in the immediate entourage of the 40th U.S. President for 13 years—first in various capacities in the White House and from 1989 to 1995 as Chief of Staff to former President Ronald Reagan. On the one hand, this guarantees a wealth of first-hand insights. On the other hand, such proximity can be problematic if it comes at the expense of critical distance— especially since Ryan has held leading positions at the White House Historical Association for almost two decades. The organization is also the publisher of this visually impressive book. Imposing in its format (24×29×4 cm), weight (2.6 kg), and page count (456).

The book opens with an 80-page chapter on “The Presidents and their Wines,” preferences as well as abstinences ranging from George Washington (sub headline: “A Madeira Man”) to Diet Coke drinker Donald Trump. Most presidencies are covered in two pages, with many pertinent pictures and rather scant text devoted pri- marily to the tastes of the officeholder. The cultural imprint of some of these heads of state on the oenophile inclinations of their compatriots is little discussed. Under champagne lover James Madison, for example, Champagne began to rise to become the drink of the American upper class—even before French red wine. As a result, the United States became the sparkling wine’s most important export market after Great Britain. Champagne could become a problem—Martin van Buren, the eighth president, was criticized by his opponents for his allegedly lavish lifestyle. A caricature of him was titled: “A beautiful goblet of White House Champagne.”

A few decades later, the temperance movement cast its shadow. In 1881, a news- paper article discussed whether wine should be banned from the White House. After all, the United States at the time was an “Alcoholic Republic” (Rorabaugh, 1981), with an annual per capita consumption of nearly 30 liters of pure alcohol, three times that of the present. The drinking habits of the three presidents during Prohibition are covered on only a single page. Here the reader would have liked to learn more about the relationship between the head of state and everyday culture. Also interesting would have been a deeper dive into Woodrow Wilson’s unique per- spective as the last pre-Prohibition president. His veto of the Volstead Act was rejected by Congress, which did not have much of an impact on him personally. When Wilson moved out of the White House, he was able to move “a substantial wine collection” (p. 59) into his post-presidential residence. Since transporting alcohol was a crime, he needed a special permit from the Prohibition commissioner. This opening chapter mainly reports anecdotes, many of which may already be known to the interested reader: That Richard Nixon (sub-headline: “High taste for fine wine”) sometimes secretly had his favorite top-class Bordeaux poured for him, while regular attendees were served simpler wines—this practice became

known as “Pulling a Nixon” (p. 77). On the other hand, he still officially offered high-

class German Rieslings, premier crus from Bordeaux, and vintage champagnes.

Exclusively domestic wines have only been offered in the White House since the tenure of Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford. This appears in the 100-page sixth chapter, which contains pictures of presidential menus from 1877 to the present day. The few exceptions can be interpreted as a respectful gesture to the guest; the Obamas, for example, had a Shaoxing Wine served to Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015 as an accompaniment to the soup. Stocks of older French wines were otherwise occasionally served for smaller private dinners, as evidenced by some Reagan-era menu cards.

Despite his preference for these wines, Nixon (“his own counsel in many ways,” p. 103) did much to promote American state wine culture. Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs owes its worldwide fame to Nixon’s “toast to peace” with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1972, and it has been served at the White House to the present day, as can be easily determined from the extensive statistical appendix. Speaking of toasts, there is a richly illustrated fifth chapter with “Presidential Toasts.” In the photos with European state guests, a transatlantic difference in etiquette becomes visible, the cultural-historical explanation of which is missing: In Europe, the wine glass is (mostly) touched by the stem, in the United States by the bowl.

A short chapter in which the influence of other wine-producing countries is explained is informative. Three officeholders stand out: the still legendary wine collector and winery owner Thomas Jefferson, who as ambassador to France had made extensive trips through European wine regions; John F. Kennedy, who had been accustomed to the life of the upper class since his childhood; and Richard Nixon. All three shared a preference for prestigious French wines. Together with Ronald Reagan, who recognizably had the same taste, they rightly occupy a large space in the book.

The statements of various top vintners whose wines were served in the White House come across more as thinly veiled advertisements. Far more insightful is the introduc- tion of a number of the staff responsible for the wine there. A true gem in the book is the four pages contributed by longtime “First Food and Beverage Usher” Daniel Shanks. Here the reader learns about the motivations behind the selection of the wines and details, for example, that the White House always pays for its wines. Another highlight is the very beautiful 60 pages of the fourth chapter, on which chronologically “The White House Collection” of wine glasses and decanters are illustrated.

The fact that wine can be a means of state representation becomes clear on almost every page. In wine-loving France, the philosopher Roland Barthes even counted it as a “raison d’état” (Barthes, 1957). When state guests in Washington are served bottles from wineries founded by immigrants from their country of origin, this is more than just courtesy. Rather, it is an oenophile proof of identity.

During the 45th presidency, only state banquets seemed to involve traditional diplo- macy. To the first of his few official state visitors—French President Emmanuel

Macron—Trump had Chardonnay and Pinot Noir served following the concept “French soul – Oregon soil.” The wines were chosen “to embody the historic friendship between the United States and France,” according to a White House statement. However, a picture of the two presidents shows them toasting each other with different glasses and different contents—one of the details where some diplomatic background would have been desirable. In general, how does protocol deal with presidents who do not drink alcohol? How to deal with abstemious guests, such as observant Muslims?

The concrete influence of the respective incumbents is largely omitted. An excep- tion is a document from 1961: With a stroke of a pen, JFK ignores the written advice of White House Social Secretary Letitia Baldrige to have under all circumstances a red wine served with the cheese. The president insisted on a single wine, a California Pinot Blanc—if not culinarily, this wine was at least patriotically correct.

Many books already exist on various aspects of state representation around the White House, its architecture and garden, interior design, art. There have also been some on gastrosophical issues, on menus and recipes, but not specifically on wine. This void is now filled, though Ryan’s book extends beyond wine; the drinks serve more as the common thread. However, the reader is in danger of getting lost in the multitude of chronologically presented individual cases. Because of this abun- dance of detail, which remains mostly on the surface, the book misses a broader view. A large historical arc is spanned but remains without the political depth of focus. Still, the many pictures offer further access, which is not so much a criticism of the work as a complement to photo editing. Ryan has delivered a great coffee table book—or rather: a wine cellar book—that makes you want to consume more than a single bottle with it.

Knut Bergmann
German Economic Institute
bergmann@iwkoeln.de
doi:10.1017/jwe.2021.18

From Vines to Wines in Classical Rome: A Handbook of Viticulture and Oenology in Rome and the Roman West

By: David L. Thurmond
Publisher: Brill, Leiden & London
Year of publication: 2017
ISBN: 978-90-04-33458-8
Price: $132/€120
288 Pages
Reviewer: Paul Nugent
University of Edinburgh
E-Mail: paul.nugent@ed.ac.uk
JWE Volume: 16 | 2021 | No. 2
JWE Pages: 233-235
Full Text PDF
Book Review

The esteemed French oenologist Emile Peynaud wrote that before Louis Pasteur’s work on fermentation, “good wine was merely the result of a succession of lucky acci- dents.” The reality is more complex. While it is customary to credit the ancient Romans and those they colonized for the wider dissemination of the vine and

wine itself, skepticism abounds about the quality of what was produced, given the absence of fundamental scientific knowledge. Thurmond’s treatise is refreshing because it eschews the condescension of the present and seeks to credit ancient knowledge about all the stages of the wine-making process. This is less a history of wine in the ancient world than a dialogue between what ancient commentators wrote and the author’s distillation of what we know now. The bottom line is that those who planted/tended vines and made wine actively experimented were keen observers of cause and effect and actively shared their accumulated wisdom. Lucky accidents happened, to be sure, but Thurmond also reveals that there was a great deal of design and active learning.

The book begins with an overview of the early origins of viticulture and winemak- ing based on the current archaeological and botanical evidence. This covers some familiar ground about the domestication of vitis vinifera vinifera in trans-Caucasia and its subsequent dissemination southwards and westwards along both shores of the Mediterranean. The overview covers the dissemination of wine under Roman rule, typically along the contours of the principal river systems in western Europe. As the vine entered more northerly climes, the author suggests that the vines were deliberately crossed with those that could cope better with the climatic conditions. At this point, Thurmond turns to a detailed discussion of viticulture, which was evi- dently a subject very close to the heart of the ancient Romans. He engages in a back- and-forth dialogue with Roman authors—notably Columella, Cato, Pliny the Elder, Virgil, and Varro. The bottom line is that while the advice was occasionally mis- placed, imperial Romans understood the foibles of the vine very well, and much of the distilled wisdom remains with us today. Thurmond indicates that while the ancients may have lacked the basic science, they were close observers of what we would now call terroir. Columella was, for example, clear about the need to match particular vines to soil types. Thurmond notes that the Romans had names for around 200 cultivars, although the same vine evidently bore more than one name. For historians of wine, the challenge has been to link these to the varietals we know today. Although he leaves the door open in terms of the ancient origins of Cabernet franc, DNA evidence would seem to suggest a large gap between what was planted and the cultivars we are familiar with. Thurmond provides a detailed account of approaches to the planting of vineyards, typically through digging trenches or holes; the propagation of planting material through the selection of cut- tings or “layering” in the vineyard; the training of vines to trees and stakes; the art of grafting; the practice of seasonal pruning; the use of cover crops and manure; and careful water management. Many of these practices persist to this day. This discus- sion establishes without any doubt that Roman viticulture was highly sophisticated.

One might anticipate a greater gap between vinification and storage practices of ancient times and those of the present, given that the winemakers had no knowledge of the microbes that can turn wine into vinegar. Again, Thurmond holds ancient prac- tices up to the light of modern wine science and finds that, by and large, it was based on sound knowledge. There is a detailed discussion (among other things) of wine

presses, yeasts, racking, fining, and storage. Ancient winemakers understood that while oxygen was often their friend, it could also lead to spoilage. Although they did not use bottles—though they did use glass for drinking vessels—the various earth- enware vessels were effectively sealed. The ancients also distinguished between wine that was made for immediate consumption and that which could be cellared.

The concluding chapter of the book deals with how wine was marketed and con- sumed. Much of the discussion concerns the receptacles that were perfected to store, age, transport, and dispense the wine. Thurmond is alert to the range of practices that distinguished the wine-drinking experience of the masses from those of the elite. At the top end, he notes that close attention was paid to vintage and provenance. Many of the details were inscribed on the necks of the amphorae. He also indicates that something like a ranking of regions (and associated varietals) emerged, linked to some conception of varying quality. There is also evidence that both resinated and appassimento wines were highly prized. The adding of wine to hot water might strike the modern consumer as odd, but some of the methods used to chill wine do not strike the contemporary wine drinker as unusual. Ancient Rome no doubt has its fair share of wine snobs, but what we do not have is a clear sense of whether there was anything like arbiters of taste, whose opinion might have influenced the choices made by others—except, of course, through ostentation and emulation.

For anybody interested in wine today, this book provides an invaluable service. It reveals how modern viticulture has built on millennia of active experimentation and good old-fashioned trial and error. It also demonstrates that while tastes certainly change, and wine drinkers look out for different things when they raise a drinking vessel to their lips, there are some constants in terms of practices that have been con- sidered conducive to quality. On Thurmond’s reading, the ancients were much closer to us than much conventional wisdom would have us believe. At a more basic level, the book underlines how integral wine has been to the shaping of western European and Mediterranean culture and society. The only shame is that the cost of this book will set the reader back to the cost of a third-growth Bordeaux.

Paul Nugent
University of Edinburgh
paul.nugent@ed.ac.uk
doi:10.1017/jwe.2021.17

The Blood of the Colony: Wine and the Rise and Fall of French Algeria

By: Owen White
Publisher: Harvard University Press, Cambridge and London
Year of publication: 2021
ISBN: 978-0674248441
Price: $39.95
336 Pages
Reviewer: Paul Nugent
University of Edinburgh
E-Mail: paul.nugent@ed.ac.uk
JWE Volume: 16 | 2021 | No. 2
JWE Pages: 231-233
Full Text PDF
Book Review

As colonies go, Algeria was singular. It lay just across the Mediterranean Sea from France, and it came to focus on the one commodity that the metropole produced in abundance, namely wine. None of this was supposed to happen. White observes that the initial emphasis lay squarely upon promoting complementarity in which Algeria would deliver up its bounties in the shape of commodities that France needed—like grain, tobacco, and cotton. But efforts to develop alternatives stalled, and Algeria ended up producing prodigious quantities of wine that threatened to compound France’s systemic problem of overproduction. This is a book that handily brings together a history of wine—from unpromising beginnings, through phylloxera and the subsequent surge in production, to the travails of the interwar years and the eventual demise of viniculture—with a history of settler colonialism and all its contradictions.

The book shuttles between two running themes. The first is the relationship between Algeria and France, as it played out in relation to wine. The second is the impact of the wine industry upon Algerians, who provided cheap labor but never a market for the fruit of the vine. As with South America, it was Catholic mission- aries who provided the initial impetus, in the shape of the Trappists and Cardinal Lavigerie’s White Fathers. Their success with the vine close to Algiers led to growing numbers of settlers planting their own vineyards—notably in the western

department of Oran and the Mitidja plain south of the capital, but to some extent

also in the department of Constantine in the east.

In the interwar years, Algeria became famous (or notorious) for its large wineries, owned both by wealthy individuals and co-operative cellars, which typically concen- trated on volume rather than quality. Because Algeria belonged to a customs union with France from 1884, the bulk of this wine was shipped to France through the port of Rouen. Producers and politicians in the Midi, who initially shared common con- cerns, blamed overproduction on the Algerian colonists and demanded quotas on imports in the troubled 1930s. White demonstrates, however, that Algerian produc- ers had their supporters in France, including those who supplied the colony with manufactured goods, wine merchants, and consumers in parts of the north. Hence, various plans to clip their wings came to nought.

Turning to the second theme, White demonstrates that the vine only found its feet on Algerian soil after a brutal campaign of conquest, followed by the expropriation of lands. The industry initially depended upon migrant workers from across the Mediterranean, but over time it was Algerians who provided the labor—with migrants from Morocco providing additional seasonal workers. Some of the most compelling parts of the book deal with labor struggles in the 1930s in which urban workers (including barrel makers) in and around Algiers, and their counterparts in France, joined forces to combat the efforts of French importers to ship wine in tankers.

These urban labor struggles were separate from those of farmworkers, although efforts to organize rural labor gained traction as well. White indicates that wide- spread sabotage, which involved the destruction of vines under cover of darkness, was a sign of the growing restiveness of vineyard workers during the mid-1930s. He judges that these actions were driven more by economic grievances rather than anti-colonial nationalism. However, following the acute hardships of the war years, the struggle for the countryside assumed a more overtly political form during the 1950s. Algerians who sought to advance the cause of independence tar- geted wine estates, which included physical attacks on their owners. As the latter retreated to the safety of the cities, the vine—once the symbol of conquest— seemed to symbolize colonialism in retreat.

White covers the end of colonialism relatively briefly and avoids repeating a story that has already been told in detail. His primary focus is on what happened to the enterprises that were abandoned and what became of the “Euro-Algerians”—his term for a community that was composed of immigrants from across the Mediterranean—who left for France. In a fascinating account, which leaves one wanting more, White notes that abandoned enterprises were turned over to workers in an avowedly socialist experiment with autogestion. Other enterprises were nationalized. Given that the vine had such a close association with French colo- nialism, it is hardly surprising that the newly independent government should be less than enthusiastic about continuing along the same path. But White notes that most vineyards were already very old by the 1960s and would have required reinvestment.

With the loss of the protected market in France itself, replanting vineyards in a thor- oughly Muslim country did not make a lot of sense. Indeed, the demise of wine solved a problem both for the French and the Algerians. White notes that even before inde- pendence was on the cards, some had already begun shifting their assets to France. Subsequently, some of the wealthiest families acquired prime wine estates in France, such as Chateau Giscours in Bordeaux. The less prosperous ones sought to make a go of production in the south of France and on Corsica. Here they became distinctly unpopular, and in the latter case, bore the brunt of another form of nationalism that drives them from the island. White closes with a brief account of the ambivalence with which the golden age of the vine is viewed in Algeria today.

One strength of the book is the focus on particular families and estates and how they rode the various storms over more than half a century—a story both of bank- ruptcies and technical innovation. The text is also enlivened by a good number of photographs and illustrations. White avoids the temptation to delve deeply into the technicalities of viniculture and winemaking and does not bombard the reader with statistical details—although an appendix would have been helpful. There are passing references to particular cultivars, and again, it might have been a good idea to have presented whatever data exists in a tabular form. Despite the fact that Algeria was once the world’s fourth-largest producer and the largest exporter (Meloni and Swinnen, 2014), it is remarkable that nobody has attempted to write such a book before. White has performed an admirable job and has served up a monograph that is scholarly in the best sense but also a real pleasure to read.

 

Paul Nugent
University of Edinburgh
Paul.Nugent@ed.ac.uk
doi:10.1017/jwe.2021.16

Amazon Link

Wine Economics

By: Stefano Castriota
Publisher: MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Year of publication: 2020
ISBN: 978-0262044677
Price: $55.00
320 Pages
Reviewer: Kevin M. Visconti
Columbia University
E-Mail: kv2305@columbia.edu
JWE Volume: 16 | 2021 | No. 1
JWE Pages: 112-114
Full Text PDF
Book Review

When it comes to the study of the economics of wine, Stefano Castriota has compiled a comprehensive and interdisciplinary exploration of the world wine market and its social implications in his newly revised Wine Economics. Originally published in Italian, this recently released edition by The MIT Press investigates the production, distribution, and consumption of wine and the growing subfield of wine economics with a focus on English-speaking countries of the New World, particularly that found in the United States.

While academic in methodology, Castriota’s manuscript should find an extended readership across a wider and willing public as a heuristic for an increasingly com- plicated subject and crowded field. Drawing on an extensive review of literature from economic policy, management, finance, medicine and law, Wine Economics offers essential insights into the global wine market supported by extensive data sets and Castriota’s thorough research and analyses.

As mentioned in the Foreword by American Association of Wine Economists’ president Orley Ashenfelter, “Castriota has provided the reader with a look at the general nature of the subject of wine economics but with an eye to its applicability in matters of public policy.” To be sure, over the course of eight exploratory chapters, Castriota closely examines governmental regulation across world wine markets to unveil how industry directives impact trade associations, business organizations, and even influence the experiences and perceptions of wine consumers across social and international borders.

Starting with a historical perspective of world wine markets and concluding with a strategy to grow effective winemaking sectors and cultures across the globe, the book is divided into two segments: part one looks at mechanisms involved in the operation of the global wine arena while part two examines market regulation by public authorities.

In the initial chapter, Castriota explores production, consumption, and export in world wine markets, followed by a detailed explanation of the so-called “wine war” between New and Old World countries beginning with the “Paris judgment” of 1976 through the present day. With a litany of graphs, charts and statistics, and an exhaus- tive overview of the global wine market, this critical background could easily func- tion as a stand-alone article and serves as an important foundation for the remainder of the book and the promotion of his forthcoming policy arguments. Chapter Two exhibits an overview of wine consumption with an interesting and perhaps unex- pected concentration on alcohol abuse and negative health and social consequences that affect the quality and price of wine.

Chapters Three, Four, and Five turn to firm profitability, types of wine companies, and finance, respectively. Castriota fairly argues that wine market structure

determines competition and influences profitability by recruiting Porter’s Five Forces Model to evidence his assessment. He continues with an in-depth analysis of the many varied companies and strata that apprise the wine business and discusses organizational and institutional objectives that drive people in their work and con- tribute to local economies. Finally, to conclude part one of his book focusing on world wine market functioning, Castriota proffers detailed financial information and strategic guidance to hedge risk for expected return on investment of individual wine bottles and shares of wine companies listed on the stock exchange.

Chapter Six ushers in segment two of the book, measures taken by public author- ities to regulate the market and correct failures, by illustrating the concept of asym- metric information, which Castriota defines as “when traders do not have all the same (complete) information in a transaction that can give rise to two different sit- uations: adverse selection and moral hazard” (p. 163). Here, Castriota highlights possible solutions for these market failures and emphasizes the fundamental differ- ences between Old and New World wine sectors.

The penultimate chapter revisits the earlier theme of alcohol abuse and its conse- quences on drinkers and society at large. Drawing on medical literature, this section discusses economic and social externalities and subsequent policies and prevention campaigns adopted across countries due to the production and consumption of wine, including an international exploration of the prohibition of alcohol over the past century. Finally, Chapter Eight investigates the socioeconomic context and political and public intervention to shape the regulation of agricultural supply and market control by examining laws in Europe and the United States.

Ultimately, six economic policy conclusions are identified to survive the “wine war” outlined in Chapter One and discussed throughout the book: (1) quality of products, (2) changes to the tax system, (3) marketing and a clear wine classification system, (4) competition and support to small wineries, (5) economies of scale and competitive prices, and (6) promotion of the wine culture among consumers. Through acknowledgment and deliberate recognition of these variables, Castriota posits both Old World and New World wine companies can leverage their compet- itiveness to ensure the promotion of open and efficient wine markets that emphasize the protection of public health.

It takes frank determination and diligence to craft a tome such as Stefano Castriota’s 309-page Wine Economics; the level of research and advanced expertise that Castriota demonstrates through his substantial scholarship mark him as a leading authority in the field. Already a success with home audiences when published as Economie del Vino in his native Italy, this iteration of his work is an essential and immediate resource for any wine economics professional, scholar, or student. Rich in concrete qualitative detail and abundant quantitative evidence, Wine Economics aims to encourage the spread and study of the economics of wine. Indeed, through this meticulous and impressive offering, Stefano Castriota has provided the necessary material and knowledge for established members of the discipline as

well as newcomers to advance the subject, the reputation, and the world of wine economics.

Kevin M. Visconti
Columbia University
kv2305@columbia.edu

doi:10.1017/jwe.2021.6

Amazon Link

Wine in Austria. The History

By: Willi Klinger & Karl Vocelka
Publisher: Christian Brandstätter Verlag, Vienna
Year of publication: 2019
ISBN: 978-3710604041
Price: $69.66
510 Pages
Reviewer: Kevin D. Goldberg
Savannah Country Day School
E-Mail: kgoldberg@savcds.org
JWE Volume: 16 | 2021 | No. 1
JWE Pages: 108-111
Full Text PDF
Book Review

Wine is intensely national and regional. Winegrowers and others in the trade regu- larly interact with state and local actors, from those who enforce the national wine law to the members of the village cooperative. Wine scholars have normalized this dualism by treating wine as a national or regional subject (say, e.g., a study on Italian wine, or a book about the region of Champagne). While approaching wine through a national or regional lens is organizationally satisfactory, recent scholar- ship has called out the limitations of both approaches, suggesting instead that a global lens is best suited to portray a trade that is, if nothing else, international in nature. This globalist critique of the dualist status quo has been convincing, with the national lens most prone to insufficient generalizations.

Enter Wine in Austria: The History. The national paradigm, for all its faults, has found its redeemer. Before embarking on a review of the book, which includes some minor criticisms, I want to make clear upfront my opinion that this book is a mas- terpiece. In fact, in almost 20 years of reading academic wine publications, I would consider this herculean effort to be the most ambitious, courageous, and interesting that I have encountered. Its 500 pages (including notes) of text from more than 40 contributors are of the highest pedigree, while its color images, luxury binding, and producer-bio inserts (more on these later) make this book irresistibly unique.

The origins of the book date back to 2006 when Willi Klinger was preparing to take over as CEO of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board (AWMB). Almost 15 years in the making, Klinger’s brainchild finally saw the light of day at the AWMB’s 2019 “Wine Summit,” an annual press event for the Austrian wine trade. Klinger’s quality-oriented marketing strategy necessitated strong academic partners to undertake the research required for the book. Klinger found such partners in Karl and Michaela Vocelka. Karl Vocelka, now retired, had served as Chair of the Institute of History at the University of Vienna, where he developed into a leading expert on Habsburg and Austrian history. Michaela Vocelka worked as the Chief Archivist and Head of Academic Research at the Simon Wiesenthal Archive/Documentation Center in Austria.

The bulk of the book consists of short but thoroughly researched essays on a wide variety of topics. Although most essays are narrow enough in their focus to remain coherent, it is clear that the broad scope of topics presented a challenge to the book’s organization. The result is a semi-arbitrary breakdown of the almost 500 pages into 5 general chapters, each of which is further divided into subsections that contain the authored essays. Describing each essay would turn this review into a full-length book of its own, so I will take the liberty here of summarizing each of the five chapters while only selectively addressing certain essays. It is worth noting that the editors’ intention was not to make a sustained argument about Austrian wine but rather produce a comprehensive account of the history of Austrian wine that can serve as a catalyst for further studies (the book’s subtitle confidently declares that this is the history of Austrian wine, not a history).

Chapter 1, “Environment and Nature,” brings together academic scientists and viticultural practitioners to address soils, climate, vines, and wine geography. For economists and historians, this chapter may be the most foreign, yet also, perhaps, the most fascinating. Dozens of images of rock strata animate relatively dense (for the non-specialist) text about loess, intramontane basins, and stratigraphic super units. The authors use colorful Huglin Index maps to show the warming of Austrian wine regions and to support the argument that winegrowers will have to navigate this rapid warming by adapting cultivation techniques. Ferdinand Regner’s contribution on autochthonous grape varieties marries ampelographic images to historical and ancestral descriptions of Austria’s major wine grapes. Although the last few decades have overseen enormous growth in viticultural know-how, there are still uncertainties and unanswered questions about grape par- entage and origins. In a contribution to wine geography, the reader learns that the Austrian Wine Act of 1929 was the pivot point when formerly unregulated geograph- ical designations were formalized into national law. This final section includes a number of pyramidal “systems of origin” charts and definitions for important legal terms (e.g., “Ried” and “Weinbaugebiet”). The book’s drawn-out incubation period unwittingly allowed for explanations of recent legal changes to be included in this chapter, including the 2016 creation of the Austrian Sekt pyramid.

Chapter 2, “Winegrowing through the Ages,” offers cursory introductions to wine during prehistory, Roman times, and the Middle Ages, and much larger sections on

wine and viticulture in the “modern era.” Michaela and Karl Vocelka’s section on the Middle Ages lives up to the editors’ desire for this book to serve as a thought starter for future research, as the section manages to cast a wide net geographically, climatically, religiously, socially, and culturally. Similarly, Erich Landsteiner’s essay, Cultivation, Operation and Organization in Austrian Viticulture, provides a fantastic introduction to field techniques, land tenure regimes, labor structures, and even top- onymic curiosities. In another essay authored by the Vocelkas, we are steered toward thinking about the challenges posed by the shifting borders of the crumbling, multi- ethnic Habsburg Empire. One of the intriguing figures during this tumultuous time was Sándor Wolf, heir to wine wholesaler Leopold Wolf’s Söhne in Eisenstadt (Burgenland). Another of the book’s highlights is Daniel Deckers’s (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) originally researched essay on Friedrich Zweigelt, former Director of the School of Viticulture and Horticulture at Klosterneuburg and chief creator of his namesake grape varietal, a cross of St. Laurent and Blaufränkisch, now Austria’s most widespread in terms of total plantings. Deckers delves into Zweigelt’s ideological and practical ties to Nazism, simultaneously por- traying Zweigelt as a dyed-in-the-wool ideologue and an opportunistic and self- serving functionary. The chapter closes with a too-brief essay on the notorious 1980s Austrian wine scandal (six pages) and an even shorter essay on the conse- quences of accession to the European Union for Austrian viticulture (four pages).

Chapter 3, “Production and Consumption,” is subdivided into three themes—pro- duction, sales/marketing, and consumption, each of which is supported by multiple essays. Roman Sandgruber kicks off the chapter with an interesting if somewhat unwieldy essay that traces wine production and consumption patterns over time. We learn of wine’s relative decline throughout the 18th and 19th centuries vis-à- vis beer’s upturn in the same period. Sandgruber posits several reasons for this, including the high cost of production, the decline of export markets, and the intellec- tual class’s gravitation towards beer in the 19th century. Informative essays by Peter Moser and Michael Moosbrugger introduce the reader to transformations in the field and cellar, respectively, including Lens Moser’s high training system for vine plantings and the various treatments and measures taken between fermentation and bottling (known as “schooling”). The current Zeitgeist for “non-intervention” is a far cry from the heavy-handed cellar approaches of the mid-20th century. The “Production” subsection of Chapter 3 also includes essays on organic, biodynamic, and sustainable winegrowing. Here we learn about Rudolf Steiner, the controversial pioneer of biodynamic agriculture.

Austria has had an out-sized impact on contemporary global wine culture, from the GrüVe marketing campaign of the 1980s and 1990s to the Tyrolean-born “super- star” sommelier Aldo Sohm. A series of essays on sales and marketing provides a fascinating glimpse into a notoriously difficult task—selling Austrian wine. Reproductions of advertisements add color and a visual component and make this one of the more fun sections of the book. Of course, one can argue that alcohol advertising has deleterious effects on consumers prone to addiction. Thus, I

commend the authors for including a section on problematic consumption and dependency and for allocating space to a description of the Anton Proksch Institute, one of Europe’s premier addiction treatment centers.

Chapter 4, “People and Wine,” brings the reader into the world of wine culture, including religious practices, folk customs, and architecture. Hannes Etzlstorfer’s essay on ancient and liturgical wine culture and another essay on the Jewish contri- bution to Austrian wine remind us how scholars use wine to examine or magnify larger social developments, including the cycle of privileges and bans levied on Austria’s Jewish population. Wine villages were also sites of “invented traditions.” Whether barrel sliding in Klosterneuburg, “grape cures” in Baden bei Wien, the swearing-in of “Hiata,” or grape-protectors before harvest, there was no shortage of such customs in the Austrian wine territories. Peter Rauscher and Barbara Thuswaldner’s essay on wine architecture is one of the more unique in the book. Although wine architecture is not uniform, the requirements of wine production necessitate certain features that architects try to creatively blend into a given land- scape. The Middle-Age farm and cobbled cellar lanes now split duty with modern aesthetic achievements, including Steven Holl’s “Loisium” in Langenlois, a hotel- spa-resort wine experience, and the F.X. Pichler Winery in Dürnstein, with its ambi- tious, wave-like aluminum facade.

Chapter 5, “Research, Teaching, Sommellerie,” also sheds light on today’s wine experience by delving into—in too short form—the effect of globalization on Austrian wine education and the growth of sommellerie, driven in part by AWMB’s commitment to popularizing Austrian wine.

Wine in Austria: The History, although decidedly national in its approach, embod- ies its own dualism; it is academic and accessible, beautiful and functional, compel- ling and a great work of reference. While it is certainly a book for academics who love Austrian wine, it is a treat for anybody interested in wine, academically or casually. Of particular interest are the two dozen or so half-page inserts that punctuate the book, each of which features an image and brief historical description of an Austrian wine estate or grower. Featured estates include Stift Klosterneuburg, Nikolaihof, Hirtzberger, Schloss Gobelsburg, Esterházy, and several others that wine consumers would be happy to encounter on store shelves.

Willi Klinger’s effort, along with that of his co-editors Karl and Michaela Vocelka, is a Gesamtkunstwerk in the truest sense of the word. Rigorous scholarship, zealous attention to editorial detail, an opulent aesthetic appeal, and eminent read- ability all factor into the total feel of the book, making it among the best wine books that I have ever read.

Kevin D. Goldberg
Savannah Country Day School
kgoldberg@savcds.org

doi:10.1017/jwe.2021.5

Amazon Link

The Goode Guide to Wine-A Manifesto of Sorts

By: Jamie Goode
Publisher: University of California Press, Oakland, California
Year of publication: 2020
ISBN: 978-0520342460
Price: $18.95
248 Pages
Reviewer: Neal D. Hulkower
McMinnville, OR
E-Mail: nhulkower@yahoo.com
JWE Volume: 16 | 2021 | No. 1
JWE Pages: 106-108
Full Text PDF
Book Review

Think of Goode’s fifth book as an assortment of short one-sided conversations on various wine-related topics. As such, this small volume, measuring 4 by 6 inches (10 by 15 cms) and containing fewer than 50,000 words, is a radical departure from his four previous books, and therein lies the challenge for those accustomed to the good doctor’s more focused and structured writing. His intended audience is “a broad spec- trum of readers, including interested consumers and those in the wine trade” (p. xi). He states that the first half is for the wine drinker and the rest is for the industry. But it is not until the last paragraph that Goode presents his reason for this free-flowing offer- ing: “It’s enough to say that wine is worthwhile, complex, and repays attention. It is special. We need to cling to the cultural richness that has its origin in a time and place, and celebrate this fabulous gift. That’s why I wrote this book” (p. 228).

By virtue of his decades as a “wine communicator,” as he prefers to be called, Goode has gained gravitas and earned the right to share his perspectives. The guide is “an attempt to gather together some of my thoughts about wine, in a series of short, targeted chapters” (p. ix) he explains in the Preface. “My approach to wine is a bit different, and I think it is unique… I was trained as a scientist, but I’m an artist at heart” (p. x), he emphasizes. Unlike the more left-brained I Taste Red and Flawless, which are important contributions to our understanding of neuro- enology and wine faults, respectively, this collection of musings emanates mostly from his right-hemisphere. The tone is frequently more emotional than educational, although there is at least one instance when he lets loose with technical terminology. Following the Preface are 55 2- to 9-page chapters in no obvious order or intercon- nection with titles like “Some wines are just wine,” “Framing: how words can get in the way,” and “Beer is better than wine.” A three-page, two-column index is included.

Goode accepts the fact that his views on wine may not be widely held. “I don’t expect everyone to agree” (p. xi), he acknowledges. Indeed, it did not take long for me to take issue. Chapter 1, “The heart of authenticity,” contains the assertion “…there is something unique about wine in that it is a product of a particular time and place…” (p. 1). While I certainly regard wine as a distinctive beverage, it is not for the reason Goode states. These days, coffee, tea, whiskies, and even canna- bis are sourced from specially designed sites and can be vintage-dated. Wine’s uniqueness stems from much more than the elusive notion of terroir that Goode

fully embraces. It is a product with a history going back to biblical times and a pres- ence and cultural impact across most of the world. It commands religious-like ven- eration like nothing else borne from the earth.

Chapter 2, “The skill of winegrowing,” encourages the use of the term “wine- grower” in place of winemaker. While this is fine if viticulture and oenology are prac- ticed by a single individual, but what if these responsibilities are divided, as is frequently the case?

The scientist makes a rare appearance in Chapter 19, “We are not programmed to like certain wines” (pp. 75–80). Dr. Goode presents a terse but technical analysis of the biological basis for flavor preferences peppered with chemical and genetic nomenclature.

In Chapter 20, “Scores can be useful, but are mostly stupid” (pp. 81–85), Goode rails against scores and tasting notes, which he calls horrible, yet admits to using both. “We experience wine, and then, because of the need to communicate, we have to translate these experiences into words,” he confesses. I like his suggestion to use metaphors to describe a wine, which could at least convey the emotional impact on the taster, rather than trying to dissect and then articulate its flavor. On the other hand, his reason for scoring wines, “because everyone else does, and I want my readers to see quickly how well I liked the wine” (p. 82), is insufficiently convincing, as even he admits he is “deeply uneasy with this practice” (p. 82).

One of Goode’s most important observations is in Chapter 28, “A mystical trans- formation” (pp. 117–121), which emphasizes the importance of microbes in making wine. “Terroir is latent; it’s the microbial activity that unfurls it and makes it a reality” (p. 118), Goode maintains in a noteworthy aphorism.

On the other hand, some chapter ledes, such as the one for Chapter 44, “Stop trying so hard and just be yourself” (pp. 184–186), try too hard to set the stage for the point he is about to make. Here Goode shares his experience buying a basic used car which he does not “pimp up” as a metaphor for not adjusting wines to try to make them great.

Chapter 37, “Segment or be damned” (pp. 149–152), begins with the ironic proc- lamation, given the lack of discernable organization in the book, “Many discussions about wine, the wine market, and ‘consumers’ are formless” (p. 149). Then Goode goes on to highlight the obvious: “There’s a big gap between the commodity segment and the fine wine/wine geek segment…with some wine geeks changing their purchasing behavior depending on occasion…” (p. 151).

Chapter 41, “Lead with your best” (pp. 167–169), contains an interesting juxtapo- sition regarding cheap wines of yore, like Chianti: “…they weren’t very tasty. It’s what the market wanted, though…” (p. 167). This begs the question: What, then, was the attraction? Surely it was more than the straw covered fiasco, many of which found a second life as a candle holder.

Goode offers a compelling defense of wine journalism in Chapter 54, “The impor- tance of stories” (pp. 220–224). “To suggest that the merit of a wine lies in how much you ‘enjoy’ the flavor, or how much hedonic appeal it has, is nonsense,” he concludes (p. 223). Instead, he suggests that the fact that stories wine journalists tell influence consumer sales of specific wines to confer a status and impose a responsibility on the profession.

Goode is obviously unafraid to stake positions on all vinous matters. By virtue of his background, his opinions are well informed and, hence, matter. The scope of the issues he addresses range from the obvious to the significant. So, whether a reader might rate a particular chapter bad or good will depend on his or her level of knowl- edge about wine and the degree of commitment to the industry and culture that have risen up around it. For me? Though I disagree with some of the opinions and with certain emphases and expositions, when it was good, it was very, very Goode.

Neal D. Hulkower
McMinnville, OR
nhulkower@yahoo.com

doi:10.1017/jwe.2021.4

Amazon Link

Which Winegrape Varieties are Grown Where? A Global Empirical Picture

By: Kym Anderson & Signe Nelgen
Publisher: University of Adelaide Press - Free eBook downloadable from https://www.adelaide.edu.au/press/titles/winegrapes
Year of publication: 2020
ISBN: 978-1-925261-86-8
Price: $75.00
800 Pages
Reviewer: José F. Vouillamoz
www.josevouillamoz.com
E-Mail: jose.vouillamoz@gmail.com
JWE Volume: 16 | 2021 | No. 1
JWE Pages: 105-106
Full Text PDF
Book Review

Free eBook downloadable from https://www.adelaide.edu.au/press/titles/winegrapes

I wish we had Which Winegrape Varieties are Grown Where? on hand when Jancis Robinson MW, Julia Harding MW, and I published the reference book Wine Grapes (Robinson, Harding, and Vouillamoz, 2012). It would have saved us from cross-checking multiple sources and from contacting each and every country in order to obtain updated information on the bearing areas for each of the 1,368 grape varieties in our book. One year after our publication, Kym Anderson and Nanda R. Aryal opportunely provided comprehensive statistics on the wine grape varieties of the world in the first edition of Which Winegrape Varieties are Grown Where? We subsequently exchanged a lot of information among authors, and Kym most affectuously “acronymized” our book RHV, based on our initials.

For the revised edition of Which Winegrape Varieties are Grown Where?, Kym Anderson and Signe Nelgen have done a tremendous amount of additional research to put together statistical data for 1,705 varieties from 53 countries. In a constantly changing wine world, it is fascinating to compare data from 2000, 2010, and 2016, illustrating the evolution of what is called “encépagement” in French, which can be somehow translated into “vine populations.”

As a strong advocate for “vinodiversity,” I am fascinated to delve into the Varietal Intensity Indexes that indicate the importance of a variety in a region compared with the rest of the world. I am pleased to see that these indexes have the advantage of highlighting obscure indigenous or limited new PIWI grape varieties. On the oppo- site, the revised edition offers new features like indexes of internationalization of varieties, showing how many non-native varieties are cultivated in each region.

Climate change has become a hot topic—I am thrilled to see in the revised edition the addition of key climate indicators for each region, thus making it quite useful to know which grape varieties can be grown in a cool, temperate, warm, or hot climate.

The revised edition of Which Winegrape Varieties are Grown Where? is an almost infinite source of fascinating data on the past, present, and future of the wine world from a statistical point of view. And, the icing on the cake, believe it or not, it is free!

Congratulations to Kym and Signe for this groundbreaking compendium!

José F. Vouillamoz
josevouillamoz.com
jose.vouillamoz@gmail.com

doi:10.1017/jwe.2021.3

Amazon Link

Passions: The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson

By: James M. Gabler
Publisher: Bacchus Press, Palm Beach
Year of publication: 2016
ISBN: 978-1533034700
Price: $25.00
348 Pages
Reviewer: Robert N. Stavins
Harvard University
E-Mail: robert_stavins@harvard.edu
JWE Volume: 16 | 2021 | No. 1
JWE Pages: 102-104
Full Text PDF
Book Review

Having only recently read Ron Chernow’s excellent biographies of Alexander Hamilton (Chernow, 2004), George Washington (Chernow, 2010), and Ulysses S. Grant (Chernow, 2017), I was eager to read a biography of Hamilton’s great political oppo- nent, George Washington’s talented Secretary of State, and—of course—the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Instead, I “changed it up,” as my son would say, by reading this work by James Gabler that promised from its title to combine my armchair fascination with American history and my abiding interest and love of fine wine.

The book lives up to its title, as it provides what may be a nearly exhaustive (but sometimes exhausting) encyclopedic compilation of Jefferson’s travels and wines. Apparently, seven years were required for Gabler’s research and the writing, and it shows. The book draws on what I assume to be abundant original research and offers what must be the most complete and authoritative cataloguing of the wines Jefferson enjoyed (or not) from before the Revolutionary War, through Jefferson’s

time in Paris as ambassador, including extended travels to vineyards in France, Italy, and Germany, in the White House as President, and—of course—at his beloved Monticello.

Thus, the book can function as an excellent reference—presumably for someone who wants to check on Jefferson’s travels in this year or that, the wines he was trying at the time, and the details of his transport, accommodations, conversations, and meals. Hmm, I wonder, in April of 1787, where did Jefferson visit, how long did he stay there, where did he sleep, and what wine did he drink? OK, on page 97—we learn that Jefferson spent two days in Turin at the Hotel d’Angleterre, and drank for the first time Nebiule, made from the precursor of today’s Nebbiolo grape.

So, this is a remarkable reference, and the book’s reasonable cost may be justified by just two (of the five) appendices: one being a compilation of Jefferson’s favorite wines that are “available today,” that is, in their modern incarnations; and the other an inventory of Jefferson’s White House wine cellar with detailed annotations. But even a great reference work is not necessarily a book I can recommend trying to read from start to finish (unless you have committed to write a review, of course). In too many of the book’s 16 chapters, I felt like I was reading notes prepared for me by a very careful research assistant—from which I would then have to prepare a first draft of a chapter or article. Indeed, what I would love to read would be a long New Yorker article by Mr. Gabler summarizing some highlights of these 300+ pages.

For me, such highlights would include descriptions of dinners, dinner companions, cuisine, wine, and conversations at Jefferson’s Paris residence on the Champs- Elysées, at the White House, and at Monticello. Likewise, it was fun to read excerpts from letters in which Jefferson gave advice about which wines to buy to three Presidents: Washington, Madison, and Monroe.

Yes, Jefferson’s favorites from Bordeaux included Château Margaux, Haut-Brion, Lafite, and Latour, which I was surprised to learn were called “First Growths” even in 1784, fully 70 years before Napoleon III’s 1855 classification. But Jefferson was not the ultimate wine snob, and purchased and drank a range of slightly lesser Bordeaux, including Gruard-Larose, Leoville-Las-Cases, Leoville-Poyferre, Leoville-Barton, Calon-Segur, Pontet-Canet, and—of course—from Sauternes, Château Yquem, which I learned was a very different wine in Jefferson’s day, 60 years before infection with botrytis cinerea made d’Yquem the remarkable Sauternes it is today. Beyond Bordeaux, wines of roughly similar pedigree were Jefferson’s favorites in Burgundy, the northern and southern Rhone, and elsewhere on the Continent.

Jefferson enjoyed a long retirement from the Presidency at his beloved Monticello from age 66 until his passing at 83 years of age. Those years included some marginal involvement in the political world, but mainly via letters to his successors pressing for some favored policy. Just two years into his retirement, in 1811, Jefferson abandoned his previous view of international trade policy, which was essentially based on the

theory of absolute advantage of Smith (1776), and came to favor instead a somewhat isolationist policy, even more distant from Ricardo’s theory of comparative advan- tage (Ricardo, 1817), which had not yet appeared, let alone diffused. At a time of European wars, this meant—remarkably—that for a time, Jefferson favored wines from Maryland, which he claimed to be “of the quality of the best Burgundy” (p. 215).

Not long after Jefferson sent a long letter to President Monroe, shortly after his inauguration, advising the new President of the wines he should add to the White House wine cellar, Jefferson became an advocate for public policies that would be favorable to wine drinkers like himself. Interestingly, he did so in ways that would be perfectly familiar to today’s lobbyists. He argued in a letter to the new Secretary of the Treasury against a luxury tax on wine then being considered by Congress: “I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens” because it would reduce wine consumption and would be “in effect a condemnation of all the middling and lower conditions of society to the poison of whiskey …” (p. 224).

To the end, Thomas Jefferson was a remarkable man—statesman, diplomat, architect, inventor, farmer, viticulturalist, and passionate oenophile. In regard to Jefferson’s reputation as a “Renaissance man,” my favorite quote in the book is not from Jefferson’s many letters but rather is a quote from another President some 150 years after Jefferson left office. At a White House dinner on April 29, 1962, honoring Nobel laureates, President John F. Kennedy told the group, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone” (Kennedy, 1962).

References

Chernow, R. (2004). Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin Group.
Chernow, R. (2010). Washington: A Life. New York: Penguin Group.
Chernow, R. (2017). Grant. New York: Penguin Group.
Kennedy, J. F. (1962). “Remarks at a Dinner Honoring Nobel Prize Winners of the Western

Hemisphere,” 29 April. Published by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, eds.,

American Presidency Project. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California Press. Ricardo, D. (1817). On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. London:

John Murray, Albemarle-Street.
Smith, A. (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London:

W. Strahan and T. Cadell.

Amazon Link

Drunk in China: Baijiu and the World’s Oldest Drinking Culture

By: Derek Sandhaus
Publisher: Potomac Books, an Imprint of the University of Nebraska Press Lincoln, NE
Year of publication: 2019
ISBN: 9781640120976
Price: $29.9
295 Pages
Reviewer: Andrew Watson
University of Adelaide
E-Mail: andrew.j.watson@adelaide.edu.au
JWE Volume: 15 | 2020 | No. 4 - Selected Proceedings
JWE Pages: 452-455
Full Text PDF
Book Review

As the title states, China has one of the oldest, if not the oldest, drinking cultures in the world. Residues of alcohol have been found on Chinese pottery dating back 9,000 years. Given the size of the Chinese population, its distilled white liquor, baijiu, is also the most consumed spirit in the world. Yet knowledge and appreciation of baijiu remain limited outside of east Asia.1 On their first sip, most novices react 1The word jiu refers to alcoholic drinks and baijiu (literally, white liquor) specifies it as distilledwhite spirit compared to, for example, putaojiu (grape wine) or pijiu (beer). negatively. It takes time and experience to appreciate an unknown fermented and distilled drink. Derek Sandhaus’ purpose in writing this readable book, therefore, is to introduce China’s history of alcohol-making to a broad audience, to distill the findings of scholars who have worked on the history, economy, and culture of drinking in China, and to encourage a greater appreciation of a rich tradition. He is an enthusiast and, as one of the teams promoting the Ming River brand of baijiu in the United States, he has a direct interest in making the drink more popular.
The pun in the title is intended since the book includes extensive discussion both of the history of baijiu, its contemporary production, and social and economic roles and also of the challenges faced by visitors during many hospitable encounters at the Chinese meal table. As the traditional saying quoted in the book notes: “A sober guest is the host’s shame” (p. 94). While some readers not experienced in Chinese banquets or less interested in Derek Sandhaus’ sacrifices of liver health in researching the range of regional flavors and production might find the anecdotes on those aspects slightly long, this reader enjoyed the insights they produced and was reminded of many past encounters across the Chinese dining table.
Derek Sandhaus first went to China as a student in 2006 and had some typically negative experiences of baijiu. It was not until after 2011 when he went as a “trailing spouse,” accompanying his wife to a diplomatic appointment in Chengdu in Sichuan province, the home of some of China’s most favored baijiu varieties, that he began to explore the drink. By 2016, he had become a strong advocate for it and was launched on a mission to spread its fame and to promote the sale of the spirit outside China.His book records his journey and his efforts to find out more about its history and to learn about its production.He traveled widely in China to get to know the regional varieties, he consulted historians and other specialists and their studies, and he observed the contemporary economic and social context. The result is an enjoyable and insightful study that provides an excellent starting point to explore China’s drinking culture.
Overall, the book addresses four core themes: the history of alcohol in China, focusing primarily on the distilled baijiu; the production process and the main ingredients and varieties; the social and political context; and the way the industry has evolved in contemporary China. Its bibliography and footnoting provide a guide to further study for those who are inspired to learn more.
In discussing the history of Chinese alcohol, Sandhaus makes extensive use of scholars in the field, such as Kupfer (2019). He argues for a domestic origin of alcoholic drinks, subscribes to the “beer-before-bread” theory of the emergence of agriculture, and notes the importance of alcohol for the development of cultural and religious life. The early Chinese alcohols were grain based and eventually gave rise to a yeast starter consisting of a clump of mashed grain, a qu. This innovation became a distinctive feature of fermenting in China and gave many baijiu’s distinctive flavors. Combined with local waters, the result was the emergence of a multitude of regional styles and characters. In tracing this history, Sandhaus refers to many of the Chinese myths and legends about the origins of alcohol and to the rich literary tradition in praise of drinking. It was not until the Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368) that the art of distillation arrived in China from its Middle Eastern origins, although Sandhaus speculates on the possibility of an earlier transmission along the Silk Road and quotes Chinese scholars who argue for a local origin. Once it arrived, however, it acquired strong local characteristics, with a preference for sorghum as the grain base and the use of a solid-state fermentation and distillation process whereby steam passes through the fermented grain to extract the alcohol. By the early Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), baijiu had become widespread across China.
Over time, the production of baijiu adopted a range of production processes and characteristics. While sorghum remained a key grain, barley, maize, wheat, and rice were also used. The fermentation processes diversified, with different types of qu, and the distillation techniques varied. Sandhaus describes many of the key issues involved and the impact on flavor and character. He notes the broad classification into four main types: strong flavor (aroma) nongxiangxing, light flavor (qingxiangxing), sauce flavor (jiangxiangxing), and rice flavor (mixiangxing). Each has the qualities of taste, aroma, length, and so forth that are enjoyed by connoisseurs, although the Chinese vocabulary for appreciation is less complicated than that of the wine drinker. He also notes that there are also many sub-categories of classification.2 Each style has its major producers, and many of them are very strong liquors, commonly in the region of 50% or more alcohol. The strongest this reviewer has encountered was Lao Baigar from Shandong at 63%! The other aspect appreciated by Sandhaus is that the grain base of baijiu complements the nature of Chinese cooking. Drinking and toasting are always accompanied by food.
Turning to the contemporary social and political context, Sandhaus underlines the importance of drinking as a feature of doing business in China, particularly since the reformperiod began in 1978. Eating and drinking together have become a prominent aspect of building relationships and trust across the economy and politics. Sandhaus explores this issue through many anecdotes and shows how excessive consumption became an aspect of corruption and influence-building. The Chinese phrase yan jiu (cigarettes and alcohol) puns with the word yanjiu (research), and the latter, has been commonly used as a satirical comment on the potential for officials to “research” an issue through fine living with cigarettes and alcohol. He also discusses how excessive alcohol consumption has generated some widespread problems of poor health and obesity among officials and is a target of efforts to curb corruption.
A further issue to emerge from the book is the way the baijiu industry has developed in modern China. Under the planned economy model, there were efforts to standardize production and quality and to focus on some key brands and styles.
Guizhou Maotai, Sichuan Wuliangye, Beijing’s Erguotou, and Xi’an’s Fengjiu were all examples of this trend after the 1950s. Local products tended to be ignored and neglected. Since the reforms began, however, there has been a revival of varieties and products and much greater competition between regions and brands. Some of the most famous brands now sell for very high prices, especially aged bottles.
Sandhaus draws out many aspects of these issues, but it would be worth exploring further how the development trajectory of the baijiu industry illustrates the evolution of both the planned and the reform economies. The planned economy emphasized administrative controls of production, standardization, pricing, and distribution.
The economic reforms decentralized production and encouraged competition.
Local officials promoted the development of local economies, especially in the making of consumer goods and regional products. Producers diversified their products to compete in the market. Brands sought to strengthen their identity and prestige.
The growing wealth of society also encouraged more consumption and helped establish a hierarchy of consumption by social status. In much the same way as the market for malt whiskies has evolved in other parts of the world, the baijiu market has grown in complexity and range. A similar story can be told for other Chinese products such as green teas and special foods and medicines (e.g., Etherington and Forster, 1993). This is an aspect that Sandhaus broaches but would be worth a deeper study beyond this book.
In sum, this book provides a broad and well-researched introduction to the history and contemporary fate of baijiu drinking in China. Mr. Sandhaus has a mission to encourage a greater appreciation of the drink and its merits, both as a devotee and as a marketer. He even supplies some cocktail recipes to provide a gentle introduction to the spirit for the uninitiated, although those of us with some experience of it might still prefer the pure flavor.

2 Those who would like to get further insight into production processes and classifications would find Zheng and Han (2016) very helpful. They list three major and nine minor categories and the exemplary distilleries for each type.

Andrew Watson
University of Adelaide
andrew.j.watson@adelaide.edu.au
doi:10.1017/jwe.2020.51

Amazon Link

Women Winemakers: Personal Odysseys

By: Lucia Albina Gilbert & John C. Gilbert
Publisher: Luminare Press, Eugene, OR
Year of publication: 2020
ISBN: 978-1- 64388-258-1
246 Pages
Reviewer: Neal D. Hulkower
McMinnville, OR
E-Mail: nhulkower@yahoo.com
JWE Volume: 15 | 2020 | No. 4 - Selected Proceedings
JWE Pages: 449-452
Full Text PDF
Book Review

The pinnacular profession of the wine world is a winemaker. Yet, for too many years, the path to the top for women was blocked by male-domination, law, tradition, ignorance, superstition, and outright sexism. In 2011, Lucia and John Gilbert, both retired academics, embarked on a research project to chronicle the progress women have made in becoming winemakers, first looking at California and later France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and New Zealand. Women Winemakers summarizes their findings based on meetings with nearly 150 lead winemakers, almost all women, in these regions. It serves as the tangible companion to their website, www.womenwinemakers.com, which invites and posts updates. Lucia has made a career of studying women who break into traditionally male careers, whereas her husband John, a chemist and biochemist, concentrated on the science of winemaking. In contrast to Wine Girl by Victoria James (James, 2020) and Pinot Girl by Anna Maria Ponzi (Ponzi, 2020), which were also released in 2020 by two industry insiders, this volume presents an outsider’s perspective of the recent history, personalities, and current circumstances of women in the wine world. The Introduction begins with a quotation about the wine business from Women of Wine by Ann Matasar (Matasar, 2006). She asserts that “no industry has so resolutely excludedwomen from positions of influence for so long” (p. 1). The recent history evidencing the increased opportunities for women and revealing remaining challenges is the focus of the Gilberts’ work. “Our goal in writing this book is to make leadwomen winemakers more visible (authors’ emphasis)” (p. 1) the authors stress. They do so in four parts. The first, consisting of three chapters, is entitled The Trailblazing Women Winemakers. The second, 1980 to the Present: The Career Pathways Taken, comprises four chapters, one for each pathway: sensory, family, science/agronomy, and enology. The three chapters of Part III, Where to from Here? cover an assortment of topics, including advice to anyone wanting to become a winemaker. It is followed by maps of the six regions with the location of each winery visited by the Gilberts marked. Endnotes and References are next. Part IV contains five appendices and a glossary. An eight-page two-column index is included. There are more than two dozen black and white photographs and figures interspersed throughout the text, page numbers for which are listed separately on pages x–xi. The first two chapters of Part I introduce the trailblazing female winemakers in California during the years 1965–1974 and 1975–1979. “We start with 1965 because this is the year when MaryAnn Graf graduated from UC Davis in Fermentation Sciences, the first woman to do so” (p. 9) the Gilberts explain. After a series of lower level positions, Graf was hired by Simi in 1973 and became the first female winemaker in California. In addition to her, seven other women who became lead winemakers between 1965 and 1974 are profiled. Among them is Zelma Long, who succeeded Graf in 1979 after a stint as the chief enologist at Robert Mondavi, where she hired a few of the others. “Zelma was in a unique position… not only as a gatekeeper for hiring but also as a wise mentor” (p. 23) the authors point out. Long, who wrote the Foreword to the book, went on to a distinguished career and garnered several awards. The second chapter covering the next five years introduces a dozen women who began working in California’s wine industry in the years after the Judgment of Paris tasting in 1976. Four of these are portrayed in more detail. One of them, Carol Shelton, shared her experiences at Rodney Strong/Windsor Vineyards over 19 years first as an enologist and later as a winemaker for the Windsor Vineyard label. There “she had to deal with the usual and pervasive sexist attitudes…despite being named the most awarded winemaker in the US for at least fifteen years and winemaker of the year several times” (p. 34). She finally decided to go out on her own when the president of the winery sent flowers and congratulations to her male counterpart after she won a top award at the California State Fair. In Chapter Three, we visit with six female winemakers in the Champagne region of France; Piemonte, Italy; Rioja and Priorat, Spain; the Douro Valley, Portugal; and Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. In addition to traditional paternalism and inheritance laws that favored sons, women in Europe faced bizarre beliefs that limited their roles. For example, in Champagne “even in the early 1990s, some still held to the myth that the presence of a menstruating woman in the cellar would turn wine into vinegar” (p. 40). In Spain, opportunities for women were restricted under Franco. Though circumstances improved after his death in 1975 and the transition to democracy, Daphne Glorian-Solomon, proprietor and winemaker of Clos Erasmus in Priorat, maintains that “[t]he higher you get, the harder it is for a woman to get the job. People still have a hard time to accept a woman as a boss” (p. 49). Part II contains four chapters, each of which explores one pathway to a career in wine and contains profiles of women winemakers who followed that route after 1980. Chapter Four, The Sensory Pathway, also highlights Professor Ann Noble, the first woman hired as a faculty member in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at University of California, Davis, and a developer of the “Aroma Wheel.” The Family Pathway, the title of Chapter Five, considers several women, each of whom became “the first daughter to become the winemaker for her family’s estate” (p. 77). In Chapter Six, we meet three female winemakers who followed the agronomy pathway and three who came to wine via science, chemistry, in particular. The enology pathway taken by six women is the subject of Chapter Seven. Part III begins with Chapter Eight, Predictions Based on Our Empirical Studies of California Winemakers, which summarizes the results of three studies that seek to validate “the assumption (authors’ emphasis) that women were increasingly moving into the lead winemaking positions in California and that gender equality was close to being achieved” (p. 127). The first looks at the percent of female and male lead winemakers to see “whether women winemakers in California have shattered the ‘glass ceiling’” (p. 127). Though the criteria for doing so are never presented, the conclusion, based on the finding “that 9.8% of California wineries reported a woman as their main or lead winemaker…” (p. 129), is that they have not. The second study revealed that female winemakers “[p]roportional to their representation… are making wines that are more highly acclaimed in comparison to those of their male counterparts, as evidenced by their inclusion in Opus Vino…” (p. 134). This conclusion should be strengthened with support from other reputable sources. The third study found that the percentage of wineries with female lead winemakers increased “from 10% in 1999 to 14.7% in 2015 overall, and 20.5% when only available positions were considered” (p. 134). “We interpret the results to mean that progress appears steady but slow,” (p. 134) the Gilberts conclude. Career advice for winemaker wannabes is outlined in Chapter Nine. The recommendations are based on the conversations the authors had with the women winemakers they met with. “The responses from the diverse group…were remarkably consistent” (p. 142) they determined. These include getting a formal education and experience working harvest, in the cellar and laboratory, and tasting. Also “[c]onfidence, persistence, and a strong work ethic are all essential” (p.145). Being part of a network, finding a mentor, and getting involved professionally are all important. The chapter includes a list of 20 qualities of a competent winemaker that can be viewed as success attributes. Examples are a strong science background, solid technical training, and a discriminating palate. “Special Words for Women Entering the Field or Early in Their Careers” are offered regarding getting a first job, how to behave, and how to move up. Juggling work and family is also covered. This 14-page chapter, a distillation of lessons learned from those women who made it, is the most valuable contribution of the book. Chapter Ten very briefly returns to the importance of career pathways, addresses why it is taking so long for women to achieve their goals, and what is being done to promote change. Each region the authors visited has some activity or organization dedicated to the advancement of women. For example, “Femmes & Vins de Bourgogne is one of the ten regional association of Femmes de Vin (French Wine Women)” (p. 161). The appendices in Part IV contain shorter profiles of the women winemakers introduced in more detail in Chapters One and Two, along with others who were only briefly mentioned as well as those who began their careers between 1980 and 1984. There are also lists of winemakers by region and country. Guiding questions for the interviews are also shared. While the inclusion of a glossary might be helpful to some readers, I found at least one inaccuracy: Cabernet Franc is a parent of Cabernet Sauvignon (the other being Sauvignon blanc), not a cousin as indicated. The Gilberts are mostly successful in producing a volume intended for a wide audience that blends scholarly analyses with case studies. Their adherence to the mantra guiding academic expositions, “tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them,” unfortunately occasionally results in excessive repetition of the same point over just a few pages. That Graf was the first female graduate in fermentation science at the University of California, Davis, is mentioned on pages 4, 9, and 10. Cathy Corison’s quotation: “Back in 1978, when I did my first harvest, I never thought that women would be recognized as winemakers” appears on page 1 and 36. The short profiles in Appendix I of those already presented in more depth earlier add nothing. SinceWomen Winemakers is a snapshot of a work in progress, many of the particulars in it will change over time. Nevertheless, there are insights of lasting value, especially to those contemplating a career in the wine industry with aspirations of reaching the top of the profession. The four pathways are a clever categorization of the sources of motivation for those considering entering the business. Success attributes of and lessons learned by those who have reached the top offer essential wisdom. For the rest of us not in pursuit of a career in winemaking, the book and website give us visibility into another enterprise where women are finally making progress, albeit at a pace too slow for many.

Neal D. Hulkower
McMinnville, OR
nhulkower@yahoo.com
doi:10.1017/jwe.2020.50

Amazon Link

Burgundy: A Global Anthropology of Place and Taste

By: Marion Demossier
Publisher: Berghahn, New York and Oxford
Year of publication: 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78533-851-9
Price: $195.00
267 Pages
Reviewer: Kevin D. Goldberg
Savannah Country Day School
E-Mail: kgoldberg@savcds.org
JWE Volume: 15 | 2020 | No. 4 - Selected Proceedings
JWE Pages: 446-448
Full Text PDF
Book Review

Terroir exists these days somewhere between novel and passé. Its precept that place ascribes taste is ubiquitously echoed, yet nearly impossible to scientifically verify. For consumers, terroir prioritizes authenticity and quality, dictating in no uncertain terms that nature (or God) is paramount in the vineyard and cellar (e.g., zero-zero winemaking, native yeasts, etc.). Yet, this narrative presupposes terroir’s illiberal qualities; the winegrower’s labor is subordinated to the soil while the consumer’s palate is nullified by the allegedly objective taste provided by climate and the environment.
So how then has terroir—illiberal and unprovable—become the defining enological maxim of our time?

Scholarly studies of terroir have scrutinized its various manifestations in geology and culture, but have in most cases, failed to recognize its rootedness in a region’s politico–economic landscape. Also overlooked is terroir’s fluidity. Even in Burgundy, the unofficial home of terroir-ism, its meaning is continuously reinvented due to various micro and macro factors, including the parcelization of vine holdings through partible inheritance and globalization. Terroir has winners and losers.
Ensuring one’s place as the former rather than the latter requires work, even the reworking of the very definition of terroir.
As a native Burgundian, Marion Demossier (University of Southampton) had to tread with more care than usual, even for an anthropologist, in her unpacking of the region’s terroir. The puzzling hierarchization and differentiation associated with this relatively small area seem at first glance to constitute a rather high time and effort barrier for consumers. But, in fact, this complex arrangement is the semi-intentional result of intellectual work, mostly by landowning and winemaking elites, as they encountered challenges at the vineyard, local, regional, state, and global levels.
Chapter 1 (Wine Landscapes and Place-Making) examines the relationship between landscape and social organization. The hierarchy of Burgundy wine (villages to grand cru) is a result of the region’s continuous need to position itself within ever-evolving global hierarchies. Whether the growth of French tourism in the 20th century or the emergence of a global wine culture more recently, the construction of place in Burgundy has been moored to trends outside of its villages’ walls. In Chapter 2 (Wine Growers and Worlds of Wine), Demossier’s analysis parallels (probably unintentionally) a recent trend in wine journalism that repositions the winegrower at the center of wine quality. Here, Demossier is at her best, as she turns away from the “black legend” of anthropological doom and gloom, which tends to focus only on eroded communities, and instead hones in on the Burgundian elite who have managed to creatively adapt to—and perhaps even help to shape—the forces of globalization. The vigneron, located somewhere between a peasant who seeks only to let nature speak and an artisan who skillfully shapes raw materials into a finished product, has been instrumental in ensuring “that the Burgundy story remains constructed around terroir, history, authenticity and quality” (p. 77).
Chapter 3 (The Taste of Place) engages with the anthropological and historical literature of taste, as well as the voices of prominent critics, including Jasper Morris and Jancis Robinson. The result is a fascinating admixture that admits to the nuanced ways in which intermediaries (négociants, chefs, critics, consumers, etc.) defined quality norms related to gustatory taste and subsequently shaped local reputations in Burgundy. This is an important corrective to the all-too-often imposition, especially in Burgundy but also elsewhere, including Germany, of allegedly static tastes codified in centuries-old maps and tax tables.
Demossier evocatively captures terroir’s paradoxes in Chapter 5 (Beyond Terroir).
Here, by returning to the role of the winegrower, she illuminates the need for the perpetuation of micro-differences in a world made ever more uniform by capital and global environmental movements. Whereas “beautiful vines” in the 1990s meant intensive intervention, including the use of tractors and herbicides, the morerecent biodynamie movement meant a return to “letting the terroir speak,” as Demossier has heard from various growers (p. 156).
Chapters 6 (Translating Terroir, Burgundy in Asia) and 7 (Creating Terroir, Burgundy in New Zealand) shift the geographic focus beyond Europe while allowing Demossier to simultaneously broaden and sharpen her analysis. For all of New Zealand’s differences from Burgundy as a site of winegrowing, there exist important commonalities between the two regions, including capitalist economic structures and the need for each region’s consumers to cultivate “differential distinction” through the purchase and consumption of its wines. Nevertheless, an unequal relationship exists between the Pinot Noir vineyards of Central Otago and Burgundy, or what we might consider the varietal’s colony and metropole, respectively, with knowledge seeming to flow in one direction only.
Burgundy culminates in a fascinating story about the region’s attempt to achieve UNESCO recognition, told firsthand by Demossier, who offered input into drafting the proposal. As a response to the increasingly global, identical, and quality-oriented wine trade, elites within Burgundy worked to evoke and construct the notion of place (vineyards, or climats, in particular) as something natural and resistant to the changes foisted upon the rest of the world by the internationalization of the trade.
Demossier cleverly notes that while heritage is ostensibly about the past, in the case of Burgundy, it is more so about the future.
Demossier’s book offers a candid glimpse into a fascinating world in which one should not always believe what one hears or sees. She is as critical of her own enmeshing into the narrative (as a native Burgundian) as her fellow anthropologists are wary of her deep-dive into the “soft” anthropological subject of elite Burgundian winegrowers. However, a careful reading of Demossier’s work sheds light on more than just the narrow world that it purports to study.
The construction of terroir narratives is not unique to Burgundy, nor is the ascribing of taste to place unique to wine. Tracing the application of terroir-ist strategies, whether in the slatey vineyards of the Mosel River Valley or in the volcanic soils of Boquete’s coffee fields, helps us to understand how local interests intersect with global forces. Producing, marketing, and consuming what we believe is unique belies the encroaching uniformity, which might help us understand how culture operates in realms far removed from Côte d’or.

Kevin D. Goldberg
Savannah Country Day School
kgoldberg@savcds.org
doi:10.1017/jwe.2020.49

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