Journal of Wine Economics Volume 11 | 2016 | No. 3

One of the many parallels explained in this fascinating book is that between wooden boats and wooden barrels. Barrels were required to store all sorts of things (food, booze, water, and nails) on ships as soon as the technology of boatbuilding became sufficiently advanced to undertake long sea voyages. Barrel makers (coopers) and ships carpenters plied a trade that was almost entirely interchangeable, using the same tools (axes and saws, wedges or froes, broadaxes and adzes, and many more), working with the same materials (wood, mostly), and adopting the same tech- niques (bending wood with heat, making the vessel watertight when required). So the association between barrels and ships is a long one, even though these days ships and storage units are no longer made of wood, and the apogee of using barrels for storage and packaging was in the late nineteenth century.

The book is divided into 14 chapters, starting with the simple question, why wooden barrels? In addressing this, the reader learns the origins of gathering around the office water cooler and the etymology of the terms scuttlebutt, pork barrel, and scraping the bottom of the barrel; why barrels are round; and why barrels taper from the middle outward. So barrels were the preferred means of packaging because they were secure, mobile, adaptable, and cheap and easy to make—the process of making them having hardly changed in centuries. Of course, when made of the right wood they imparted flavors to fine wines and whisky, whiskey and bourbon.

Chapters 2–5 then take the reader through the history of barrels, from the age of the Celts, who started out with amphorae to transport olives and wine and then slowly developed the prototypes of the barrels that were to become so ubiquitous in later times. The Celts passed the baton to the Romans, who gave us the early asso- ciation between barrels and wine. By the Middle Ages, barrels had become common- place in the ancient wine-growing regions such as Bordeaux, where there was a desperate need for an efficient means of transporting wine to markets near and far (especially London). By this time, cooperage had become a recognized trade, one of only about 40 designated crafts in Britain and Europe.

Chapter 6 traces the parallels between boats and barrels, and their making, mainte- nance, and functions, in more detail, and chapter 7 provides more detail about the chang- ing organization of coopers: from guilds to cooperages. Chapter 8 then turns to the modern barrels: the near monopoly of oak wood for aging wines and spirits, with French oak (Quercus rober) favored for wine and American oak (Quercus alba) largely used for aging whiskey and bourbon in the United States; the geography of the produc- tion of oak trees; how these barrels are crafted (chapter 9); and how aging in oak actually works (chapter 10). Of particular interest is the role played by oxygen in softening the wine; the types of flavors that the wood imparts to the wine, both naturally and through the toasting of the wood; and the different designs and styles of the modern barrel. Some of these issues are then revisited in more detail in chapters 11–14.

This is an accessible, interesting, and stimulating book that tells a compelling story about the origins of one of the most important (and expensive) parts of the modern making of fine wines.

Nick Vink
University of Stellenbosch
nv@sun.ac.za

doi:10.1017/jwe.2016.31

Burgundy is the most terroir-oriented region in France if not in the whole world. The focus is on the area of origin, as opposed to Bordeaux, where classifications are producer driven and awarded to individual chateaux. A specific vineyard (climat or lieu-dit) will bear a given classification, regardless of the wine’s producer. The main levels in the Burgundy classifications, in descending order of quality, are as follows:

–  Grand cru wines are produced from a small number of grand cru vineyards in the Côte d’Or and make up 2% of the production at 35 hectoliters per hectare. There are 33 grand cru vineyards in Burgundy.
–  Premier cru wines are produced from specific vineyards that are considered to be of high quality, but slightly lower than grand cru. They make up 12% of production at 45 hectoliters per hectare.
–  Village appellation wines are produced from vineyard sites within the bound- aries of 1 of 42 villages. Village wines make up 36% of production at 50 hecto- liters per hectare.
–  Regional appellation wines are wines that are allowed to be produced over the entire region or over an area significantly larger than that of an individual village. These appellations can be divided into four groups: The new Coteaux Bourguignons appellation covers wines made throughout the greater Bourgogne region, from the Chablis region in the north to and includ- ing the Beaujolais region in the south. Bourgogne is the standard appellation for wines made anywhere throughout the region excluding Chablis and Beaujolais; these wines may be produced at 55 hectoliters per hectare. Subregional appellations cover a part of Burgundy larger than a village; exam- ples are Hautes-Côtes de Beaune and Mâcon-Villages. -Wines of specific styles or other grape varieties include white Bourgogne Aligoté (which is made with the Aligoté grape), red Bourgogne Passe-Tout-Grains (which can contain up to two-thirds Gamay), and sparkling Crémant de Bourgogne.

Simply Burgundy: A Practical Guide to Understanding the Wines of Burgundy by Mark E. Ricardo, a practicing attorney, a registered investment advisor, and the founder and president of Trellis Fine Wine Investments, focuses on exactly that— the classification of Burgundy. With 45 pages plus three appendices, it is about the same number of pages as the Burgundy chapter in Karen MacNeil’s popular Wine Bible. I would call Simply Burgundy a booklet.

Although the Wine Bible provides a good introduction to Burgundy, Simply Burgundy: A Practical Guide to Understanding the Wines of Burgundy is not an intro- duction to Burgundy, but an introduction to the classification of Burgundy. Furthermore, it does not go deeply into the ins and outs of the Burgundy classifica- tion but stays with the essentials, leaving aside details and aspects of lesser impor- tance of the classification.

The structure of the booklet is as follows: After 1 page on “Regions and Grape Varietals,” the author explains in 7 pages the concept of the Burgundy classification. This is followed by reviews of the classification region by region: Chablis (3 pages), Côte d’Or (23 pages), Côte Chalonaise (2 pages), Mâconais (3 pages), and Beaujolais (3 pages). Yes, the booklet includes Chablis and even Beaujolais, which in many books about Burgundy are excluded.

An essential part of the Burgundy classification is the system of climats, which I would have liked to be more developed by the author. Climat is a term for a specific vineyard site of a few hectares. The system of climats in Burgundy was granted World Heritage Status by UNESCO last year. Although the author never uses the word climat, he refers to the climats with grand cru and premier cru status but leaves all the other climats aside (village climat). You can find the latter regularly on Burgundy labels, more in Burgundy’s export than domestic market. Interestingly, the new German wine classification system, which is modeled after the Burgundy classification system, does not allow winemakers to indicate climats on labels that have neither grand cru nor premier cru status.

There are practically no numbers in the booklet. One does not find anything about the size of the various regions, subregions, and vineyards or yield restrictions at the various levels of the classification, to name a few areas, where numbers would have been helpful to understand Burgundy.

At the lowest level of the classification, the regional level, the booklet is silent on most categories. That may have been motivated by the thought that the targeted readers of the booklet would mainly be interested in the upper levels of the classification.

Looking beyond the classification, the Burgundy lovers agree that although the classification is important to ascertain the quality of a wine before opening a bottle, equally important, if not more important, is who produced the wine (i.e., the winemaker). The famous Clos Vougeot, for example, is owned by about 80 dif- ferent vignerons, and they all put exactly the same text on the label of their wine bottles, while the quality of Clos Vougeot (and price) varies widely among the range of producers.

The author touched on this issue by adding a list of top producers for each region. The effort is commendable, but I would have appreciated some background informa- tion on the producers, such as annual production, négociant (that buys the grapes) and/or domain (that grows its own grapes), and price range.

Continuing to look beyond the classification, there is, of course, nothing in Simply Burgundy: A Practical Guide to Understanding the Wines of Burgundy on the history of Burgundy, nor is there anything on the structure of the industry.

The origins of Burgundy’s classification can be found in the work of the Cistercians who were able to delineate plots of land that produced wine of distinct character. The Roman Catholic Church had an important influence on the Burgundy classification. As the power of the church decreased, vineyards were sold to the bourgeoisie. The Napoleonic inheritance laws resulted in the continued subdivision of many vineyards so that some winemakers hold only a row or two of vines.

In terms of the structure of the industry, the role of négociants, who do not own vineyards, is not referred to at all. Négociants play a vital role in the Bourgogne. Négociants sell wines at all quality levels, including grand cru.

To sum up, this is a very small book (a booklet) with the objective of providing “a practical guide to understanding the wines of Burgundy.” The author is concen- trating on one aspect—the classification of the wines of Burgundy—and leaves many other aspects that are equally important to “understanding the wines of Burgundy” aside. On the aspect he covers (i.e., the classification), he does not explore the ins and outs of it but focuses on the essentials.

I like the booklet very much as a reference. For the next edition, I would love to see more maps in the booklet. In the current one, there is only an overall map of the Burgundy region with its five subregions.

Christian G.E. Schiller
International Monetary Fund (ret.) and Emeritus Professor,
University of Mainz, Germany
cschiller@schiller-wine.com

doi:10.1017/jwe.2016.32

I paused after the first four pages. It just seemed a bit too artsy for a real-life crime story. For example, the following sentence did not set the hard-boiled tone I was expecting: “At moments like this, surrounded by the sublime splendor of the vine- yards before harvest, the Grand Monsieur sometimes thought of the French masters – Pissarro, Renoir, Monet” (p. 2). However, as I pressed on, I realized that this was a different kind of read and one to which I would eventually take.

Journalist Maximillian Potter updated and greatly expanded his May 2011 Vanity Fair article, “The Assassin in the Vineyard,” (http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/ 05/vineyard-poisoning-201105) into this book, which first appeared 3 years later. Unconstrained by word count, Potter was able to complete the story of a pathetic extortion attempt in January 2010 aimed at the owners of two extraordinary vine- yards in Burgundy. He does so by interleafing the details of the crime with about a thousand years of history of the more famous vineyard, Romanée-Conti. What happened at the second, Musigny, owned by Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé, merits only a couple of pages.

The protagonist is Aubert de Villaine, the Grand Monsieur, co-gérant of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC), with a member of the Leroy family serving as the other manager. His story, parsed out across the 17 chapters, dominates the narrative. Though not always in linear fashion, de Villaine’s life is recounted from his birth through a tasting on March 7, 2013 of the 2010 vintage, the year of the crime. Despite being born into the family that had acquired Romanée-Conti in 1869, de Villaine initially was not sure he wanted to go into the business. His time in California’s wine country beginning in 1964 led him to his decision: “Everywhere he turned, everyone he spoke to… looked with envy to France’s rich winemaking history for guidance. Everyone … told him how fortunate he was to be a part of such traditions at the greatest Domaine in all of France” (p. 166). On a call to his father, he asked for a job at DRC when he returned home.

A second key player is Louis-François de Bourbon, the Prince de Conti, much favored blood cousin of King Louis XV and namesake of the vineyard. Conti’s story encompasses intrigue and his likely involvement in the aborted Protestant uprising in France in 1757. The account of his acquisition of La Romanée under the nose of the king’s former mistress, Madame de Pompadour, and what he chose to do with the wines made from it is a delicious tale of spite.

The crime, the destruction of a handful of vines and a threat to poison hundreds more in the two vineyards if a significant sum of money was not paid, represented an attack on a sacred French institution. However, the resolution of the affair was so mundane that in and of itself, it would not have merited expanding the original article into a book. As a result, Potter wanders across time and space to fill the pages. In chapter 10, for instance, we are taken to California in the late 1840s for a history of the Almaden winery, which segues into profiles of Burgundy importers Frank Schoonmaker and Frederick Wildman and then goes on to detail de Villaine’s visit to the winery and his meetings with Professor Albert J. Winkler and Robert Mondavi. Individual taste will dictate how much these digressions will amuse or irritate the reader. Most of the time, I found them engag- ing if not always necessary.

One excursion that should be of interest to wine economists is the discussion of arrangements for pricing and distributing DRC wines in various countries and what happened when a gray market emerged. Chapter 15, Quelle Pagaille, recounts this event that led to a serious rift between the two managers of the Domaine and the dismissal of Lalou Bize-Leroy.

While I was reading the book, I was touring Champagne with an importer who also brings in Burgundies. He had been in the Côte d’Or at the time the events described in the book were unfolding. When I asked his opinion of the book, he was initially quite negative, especially about the writing and some errors. Later, he softened his criticism, admitting that many of the inaccuracies would probably only be noticed by hard-core and particularly knowledgeable Burgundy geeks. Nevertheless, his plaint, “Dude, do your research,” would seem to be the least we should expect from a journalist.

Another oddity that calls into question Potter’s attention to detail is the following: “Born on August 13, 1717, into a family with Burgundian roots … Louis-François studied philosophy and the arts, having a particular fondness for Mozart” (p. 38). The good prince was clearly ahead of his time as the composer was born in 1756.

If I was given to pause at the beginning, the conclusion of the final chapter was partially redeeming. Potter admitted to having his first taste of Burgundy while cov- ering the story of the crime for Vanity Fair in 2010. Until then, he wrote, “when I found myself reading a bit of a wine review, it struck me as pretentious to the point of being worthless” (p. 269). He went on to cite a review of “1987 Romanée- Conti by Allen Meadows, the self-appointed Burghound” concluding that “for con- noisseurs, this sort of review might be useful. It didn’t seem especially helpful for me” (p. 269). Paradoxically, in the acknowledgments, the author thanked Meadows who “answered many of my elementary questions” (p. 278). He also wrote, “I am deeply indebted to the work of many authors but these books were invaluable source mate- rial … The Pearl of the Cote by the ultimate Burghound, Allen Meadows” (p. 279). Perhaps one can attribute this change of heart to the epiphany Potter experienced when he tasted the 2008 La Tâche: “It is like divine, liquefied Pop Rocks that make me feel lightheaded – the kind of happiness that I felt after I first kissed my wife” (p. 272).

Like the author, the intended reader is not required to be an oenophile. As an unabashed one myself who has visited Burgundy and Champagne, where the crime and its resolution took place, I did not expect to add to my knowledge of wine, though I did learn a bit about DRC. However, I found Conti’s story more intriguing than de Villaine’s. The crime and its aftermath, which Potter describes as “unbelievable because it was all so remarkably unremarkable” (p. 240), left me more sad than satisfied. Nevertheless, despite its somewhat uneven writing style and the specter of inaccuracy, the book, which according to Potter’s LinkedIn page is now in development for a movie, made for an agreeable diversion.

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

doi:10.1017/jwe.2016.33

The Economics of Chocolate is—like an upmarket chocolate bar—rich, dense, and satisfying. Its editors, Mara Squicciarini and Johan Swinnen, are both at the University of Leuven in Belgium, a country that has deep and historic connections to chocolate and a country where “the idea of producing a book on the economics of chocolate comes naturally,” the editors write. The work was also “inspired by the rapidly growing field of the economics of wine, another luxury product, and the eco- nomics of beer, another Belgium specialty with sometimes surprisingly similar eco- nomic characteristics as chocolate.”

The book is about economics in its widest sense; its 22 chapters by various authors cover “history and economic development, demand and supply, trade and invest- ment, geography and scale economies, psychology and politics, technology and inno- vation, health and nutrition,” (p. v) and so forth, the editors explain. There is even a chapter on how to encourage people to eat less chocolate.

Given my job as chief agricultural officer at Mars Incorporated, a company that turns a lot of cacao (as the crop that becomes cocoa is known) into chocolate, I have strong views about this commodity, views that will surface in this review. I also coed- ited an almost 1,000-page book on the history, culture, and heritage of chocolate, a fact I mention only so that I can add the confession that “economics of” does not appear in its index, demonstrating the timely necessity of The Economics of Chocolate. It is timely and necessary because of the watershed on which the com- modity sits.

Many cacao growers in Africa, the main producing region, Latin America, and Asia live in deep poverty. They do not have enough land to grow enough cacao to escape that poverty. Thus, many are moving into cities or into other crops, such as rubber and palm oil.

As emerging markets appear, their appetite for chocolate is growing rapidly. Demand is likely to double over the next 20 years, yet the current production capac- ity is crumbling. Cacao is an underdeveloped crop, still in the early stages of domes- tication, threatened by pests and viral and fungal diseases that have serious effects on production. Political and economic instability in areas where it is grown is another threat. So the chocolate industry is predicting a shortage of 1 million metric tons of cacao by 2020. That is a big shortfall in a little time.

However, this book is largely the product of a conference attended mainly by econ- omists and social scientists, rather than agriculturalists. So this stark reality is not captured strongly enough among chapters with titles such as “From Pralines to Multinationals” and “Chocolate Brands and Preferences of Chinese Consumers.”

Christopher Gilbert, looking at the “Dynamics of the World Cocoa Price,” hero- ically constructs a chart of U.S. dollar cocoa prices back to 1850, concluding that “the effects of demand-side shocks are more persistent than those of supply-side shocks (p. 307).” Writing in late 2014, he predicts that the International Cocoa Organization’s cocoa price average, $2,439 per ton in 2013, would rise steadily toward $5,000 by the end of the decade, but higher prices would cause more cacao plantings and “prices will drift back toward current levels in the following decade.” Given the pressure on cacao, the major chocolate companies are not nearly as calm as Gilbert.

William Clarence-Smith begins his chapter on chocolate consumption from the sixteenth century until the early twentieth century by claiming chocolate is “slightly addictive” (p. 43) and ends by noting that “debate still rages over whether chocolate is physiologically addictive (p. 62).” However, between these statements he offers a fascinating account of cocoa consumption around the world and its competition with the likes of tea and coffee (and the fact that for long periods cocoa beans were used as currency in parts of Latin America, keeping demand high).

Cocoa was consumed as a liquid for much of its social history, but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a perfect storm of events coalesced to create the “great choc- olate boom.” The invention of milk powder and ways to get the fat out of the solids led to smooth chocolate bars, and other new technologies created the possibility of great product diversification. Even new techniques in advertising played a role in the boom.

However, lest chocolate consumption rise too high, Sabrina Bruyneel and Siegfried Dewitte offer a chapter entitled “Health Nudges: How Behavioural Engineering Can Reduce Chocolate Consumption.” They were moved to do this work based on the “observation that chocolate not only provides immediate utility but also contributes to the rise of obesity and, in its wake, a host of preventable diseases (p. 167).” They define nudges as “subtle rearrangements in the decision environment that support con- sumers in adapting welfare-enhancing behaviours, like choosing healthy food options (p. 158).” For example, bowls of chocolate were placed within “close proximity” (20 cm) of test subjects and “within reach” (70 cm). Results showed that the “probability of consumption and the number of chocolates consumed decreased significantly when the distance to the chocolates increased from 20 to 70 cm.” (Now if I can just get someone to move that bowl of chocolates “within reach” …)

Heike Alberts and Julie Cidell offer a look at chocolate consumption, manufactur- ing, and quality in Europe and North America. American mass-market chocolates tend to have more sugar and less cocoa than their European cousins. American choc- olates are not rolled (“conched”) as much, if at all, so they tend to be grittier. Chocolate manufacturers in the United Kingdom have always substituted palm oil, coconut oil, and so forth for cocoa butter, whereas Americans have resisted this. As for “quality,” well, it is subjective. The authors describe taste tests in which “chocolates sold in discount grocery stores performed very well, and among milk and dark chocolate received better marks than more expensive brands, many of which customers believed to be of particularly good quality (p. 131).”

Other chapters look at consumption in emerging markets. The traditional Chinese diet contains few sweet items, according to Fan Li and Di Mo, but the growth rate of China’s chocolate market has accelerated between 2004 and 2010 by 10% to 15% per year, more than five times the growth rate of the global chocolate market. (This growth rate is spurred by what the chocolate industry likes to call “emerging chocolate lovers”!)

Russia is “one of the most promising emerging chocolate markets in the world,” (p. 400) according to Saule Burkitbayeva and Koen Deconinck. Russians are consuming more chocolate and “are increasingly switching to more expensive choc- olates, causing the market to grow even more strongly in value terms. Observers expect growth to come from new product development such as healthy snack alter- natives or the introduction of new flavours and shapes (p. 416).”

Not to be outdone, India is the fastest-growing market for chocolates in the world. Africa, the world’s major supplier of cacao beans, has not been a consuming region because few people there have been able to afford such luxuries and because most imported chocolate brands, especially in the tropical regions, “do melt at local ‘room temperature.’” Despite these issues, “the growth rate of chocolate consump- tion in both North Africa and SSA [sub-Saharan Africa] is comparable with that of China and India, and is even higher per capita wise than the latter two countries (p. 453).”

There is much on the sustainability of the industry: both environmental sustain- ability (cacao growing is a great cause of deforestation and the loss of biodiversity) and social sustainability (issues of poverty and child labor). However, the picture is a bit too rosy, with emphasis on what companies are doing rather than what the indus- try is not doing. This rosiness is best captured in one chapter title: “From Small Chocolatiers to Multinationals to Sustainable Sourcing.”

There is also perhaps too much optimism that a few Western NGOs such as Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, and UTZ can lead remote farmers into sustainability through certification systems that set farming and employment standards. Certification is certainly a part of the solution (and Mars will by 2020 use only “certified sustainable” cacao), but companies and governments need to do much more.

I began by saying the book is “satisfying,” and it is. This old chocolatier reviewer found insights on every page. However, it is only the beginning of a dialogue that must move rapidly forward so that it can be part of the saving transformation of this threatened industry. I have some suggestions for the second edition.

Let us take a harder look at the future, as many chocolate companies are moving toward intense production on irrigated cacao plantations, a move that would drive many present farmers out of cacao and would certainly change the economics of chocolate, not to mention the agricultural economies of countries such as Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Indonesia.

Let us also take a harder look at the past. The history passages of The Economics of Chocolate start with cacao in what is now Central America. In fact, cacao origi- nated in the Morona, Nangaritza, and Zamora River valleys in what is now Ecuador. It must have developed some economic value there, or its seeds and/or seedlings would not have been transported so far north and east.

Let us stop confusing cacao and the chemicals it contains with “chocolate,” which is a combination of cacao with things not particularly good for one in large concentrations, such as sugars and fats. This confusion leads the authors of the chapter on chocolate’s nutritional and health effects—Stefania Moramarco and Loreto Nemi—to write that “we focus on ‘unadulterated’ chocolate, that is, dark chocolate with at least 70% cocoa solids (p. 134).” Something that its 30% “other” is hardly “unadulterated.”

This confusion leads the same authors to refer to “the beneficial effects of choco- late on CVD” (cardiovascular diseases) when speaking of the Kuna Indians’ habit of drinking “three 10oz servings of homemade cocoa beverages per day” (p. 140) and suffering little or no CVD. However, these drinks were almost pure cacao, with no added sugar or fat. They were not chocolate.

I feel strongly about this because over the past 20 years, Mars scientists have pro- duced some 150 peer-reviewed studies in scientific journals on the health benefits of some of the ingredients of cacao without ever claiming that chocolate is good for you. Whiskey contains a great deal of water, but one would be ill-advised to source one’s hydration needs from whiskey.

The book also makes the standard error of claiming that cocoa flavanols have an antioxidant effect. Some of the work by Mars has shown that they do in the test tube but have little antioxidant effect once they get into the human body.

However, the slowly emerging, but astonishing, health benefits of cocoa flavanols may have a huge effect on the economic future of cacao, if not chocolate. An article on the front page of the New York Times in 2014—too late to be included in this book— reported: “In a small study in the journal Nature Neuroscience, healthy people, ages 50 to 69, who drank a mixture high in antioxidants called cocoa flavanols for three months performed better on a memory test than people who drank a low-flavanol mixture.” It quoted the study’s senior author, Dr. Scott Small of Columbia University, as saying that on average the improvement of high-flavanol drinkers meant they per- formed like people two to three decades younger on the study’s memory task, and about 25% better than the low-flavanol group. It quoted another researcher as saying, “An exciting result. Look, it’s chocolate. Who’s going to complain about chocolate?” Note that even the New York Times thinks that flavanols are antioxidants, and a leading researcher thinks that “it’s chocolate.” No, it is not chocolate; it is flavanols.

Much more work must be done to set the economics of cacao and chocolate straight. However, Squicciarini and Swinnen have made a valiant start. Let the research, reporting, and dialogue now accelerate.

Howard-Yana Shapiro
Mars Incorporated and University of California, Davis
Howard.shapiro@effem.com

doi:10.1017/jwe.2016.34

The Business of Wine Making is a comprehensive book that covers all aspects of grape growing, wine making, wine marketing, and business in 360 pages of tightly packed information related to science, viticulture, enology, economics, and business.

Let me begin with my conclusion. This is an outstanding dual-purpose book. On the one hand, it is very practical and may serve as the perfect reference guide for the beginning or advanced grape grower, winemaker, or wine marketer. On the other hand, it is theoretical and very useful for every wine aficionado who wants to know more about wine and its production, at a profound level.

It was only after I had read the first 30 pages that I noticed the biography of the late Jeffrey Lamy (1938–2014) on page 349. After a long illness, he passed away just after finishing the final update on the manuscript of this book. An obituary published online by the Oregonian on May 9, 2014, (http://obits.oregonlive.com) Oregon Wine Press sketches the main stations of his life: “Lamy was a 1960 graduate of Yale University with degrees in industrial administration and mechanical engi- neering. He later earned an MS in business.” After working in the aerospace indus- try, he became the manager of the Chamber of Commerce of Moscow, Idaho. Later on, he was the director for economic development for the Eugene, Oregon, Chamber and was subsequently appointed to the Pacific Northwest Regional Commission. In the late 1970s, he moved to the Portland, Oregon, area to become a vineyard and winery consultant and sought-after speaker and lecturer. As general manager and winemaker, he guided Montinore Vineyards, then Oregon’s largest vineyard- winery (400+ acres), from feasibility study to national prominence.

Lamy also was a regular contributor to the website Enobytes.com (http://www. enobytes.com). His posts include analyses ranging from issues related to terroir and technology to urban wine markets. His contributions go in length, depth, and thoughtfulness substantially beyond what is currently considered a blog post and will fascinate every wine economist.

The Business of Wine Making appears to be the quintessence of his professional life and his passion. It is divided into 19 chapters plus a 10-page appendix. In addi- tion, there is no shortage of synoptical support. The book contains 104 tables and 110 figures!

Lamy begins his book by describing the market place, supply and demand side (chapters 1 and 2), trends in the number of wineries, by size and region, and their production differentiated by region and kind of wine, cost and price trends, demand, and market conditions. Interestingly, aside from the three western states of California, Oregon, and Washington, he also covers New York, Virginia, and Michigan and their grape varieties including many French-American hybrids.

Chapters 3 to 7 are about the grape and its growing conditions. Here Lamy devotes more than 20 pages to solar radiation (some parts of chapter 3 and all of chapter 4). For various orientations, slopes, and latitudes he provides figures with hourly incoming solar radiation just like Orley Ashenfelter and I did for German vineyards (Ashenfelter and Storchmann, 2010). Lamy also provides the mathemat- ical link between radiation and temperature and details how planting and pruning can optimize the solar energy influx; this is fascinating and meticulous work. He goes on by describing the outline of a vineyard and how it should be maintained including various spraying regimes, and finishes with a financial analysis.

In chapters 8 and 9, Lamy sheds light on the winemaker’s role. First, “what does a winemaker cost? (p. 123)” As we learn, in 2012, in California experienced winemak- ers earned between $90,000 and $105,000 per year. In addition, “Profit-based bonuses seem to be gaining popularity with eastern wineries.”

He then continues with describing the technicalities of wine making, from the determination of titratable acidity, over various fermentation methods, yeasts, filtra- tion, and cyroextraction (for eiswein) to bottling. Everything is covered in great detail and supported with ample figures and tables. There is a lot to be learned here. Carbonic maceration, for instance, is always used on Beaujolais wines: “The usual procedure is to fill a tank with whole clusters and seal it up except for a relief valve. The weight of the grapes crushes some at the bottom of the tank. Yeast fermentation starts spontaneously in the juice from the native yeast on the grapeskins. CO2 production drives the air up and out, so intercellular fermentation can begin. … The process metabolizes some of the malic acid, softens the wine’s tannic edge, gives it a fat mouthfeel and imparts a taste dimension that distinguishes Beaujolais wines” (p. 138).

In “Does the Wine Sell Itself?” (chapter 10), Lamy discusses various ways to market the wine produced such as winemaker dinners (he adds in bold: “The diners expect to meet the winemaker” [p. 198]), tasting rooms and in-store wine tast- ings, weddings, and wine-related merchandise. Here, he also gets to the legalities of direct shipments and wine clubs accompanied by a section entitled “Distributors Control Your Marketing Destiny.” This chapter is not just relevant to the practical winemaker, Lamy also raises the larger issue of U.S. alcohol regulations and partic- ularly considers the economic implications of the three-tier system.

Chapters 11 to 13 are devoted to bookkeeping issues and the capital stock (i.e., winery equipment and the winery itself). Typical for this book, Lamy often moves from the big picture down to the smallest detail. For instance, what crush pad equip- ment is needed? How do the various crush models work? What are the best brands? There are many tables that detail the cost effectiveness of various destemmers, pomace pumps, and presses. Lamy also presents numerous winery design outlines and floor plans depending on the desired capacity.

Chapter 14 deals with winery revenues and expenses and is mainly a spreadsheet exercise. For wineries of different sizes in growing regions as different as Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oregon, or Washington, Lamy lists all cost components including taxes and makes inferences about the yields and grape/wine prices needed to meet certain profitability goals. This analysis is aug- mented by a scale economy study (chapter 16). For both grape growers and wine- makers, Lamy sets a minimum size needed to at least break even.

Assessing the profitability of a winery is also important for acquisitions (chapter 15) to make sure the old joke: “How do you make a small fortune in the wine indus- try? Answer: start with a large one” (p. 303) does not come true. In two short chapters (chapters 17 and 18), Lamy describes various management issues and “where to get the money” (p. 323).

The book concludes with a case study, written in dialogue style, that wraps up the book with a few business questions he leaves to the reader to decide.

Overall, this is a fascinating book, densely packed with information. Those who want to learn more than is already documented in this book can consult other sources. After each chapter, Lamy lists the most important references, oftentimes classics by authors such as Maynard Amerine, Emile Peynaud, or Albert J. Winkler.

I utterly enjoyed reading this book, and I learned a lot. The Business of Wine Making is a must for anybody who grows grapes or/and makes wine or ponders doing so in the future. Due to its comprehensiveness I would also recommend it as a textbook for Wine MBA courses, that are currently sprouting everywhere, par- ticularly if they have a multidisciplinary focus. In addition, it will serve as an excel- lent reference for the nonproducing consumer who wants to learn more about his or her favorite beverage.

Karl Storchmann
New York University
karl.storchmann@nyu.edu

doi:10.1017/jwe.2016.35