Journal of Wine Economics Volume 12 | 2017 | No. 1

I have read many “wine books,” some casual, some pedantic, and many happily informative. But Bianca Bosker’s book stands out as being spectacularly successful in teaching us about wine, in making us love wine, and in presenting a tone of unfail- ing good humor. It is cast in the form of an autobiography over a period of one year in which she decides to learn about wine, taste, and especially smell and which ends with her passing her examination to become a certified sommelier and finally getting employed as one.

There is no tasting without smelling. It is fair to say that olfaction is “in,” as shown by some recent attention from canine ethologists (see Alexandra Horowitz, Being a Dog: Following the Dog into a World of Smell, Scribner, New York, 2016, 336 pp., ISBN 978-1-4767-9599-7 [hardback], $27.00). In fact, dogs’ noses are so much more sensitive than ours (with a few hundred million olfactory bulbs versus our just a few million) that I have wondered whether they could be trained to distinguish in blind tastings between, say, Château Latour and Château Lafite.

Bosker starts her career as a “cellar rat,” continues with tastings, trails established sommeliers in famous restaurants, gets endless advice from friends and other aspi- rants to wine greatness, visits experts from California to Dresden, gets periodically bawled out by bosses, and (assisted by a thousand flashcards) crams endlessly for the forthcoming three-part exam consisting of blind tastings, the theory of wine, and service. Service is crucial; you must be dressed just right and follow specific rules: Don’t pour men before women, don’t pour the host before the guests, don’t pour more for one person than another. And God help you if you drip. Don’t pick up the glasses to pour, and don’t take more than two pours to fill one glass. Don’t empty the bottle the first go- around. Don’t forget to wipe the bottle’s lip on each pour, and before you pour. Don’t ever block the label with your hand. Don’t look awkward. Don’t fidget. Don’t pour from the left. Don’t walk clockwise. Don’t ever swear. Don’t make the guest ask you the vintage. Don’t look so eager. Don’t look so serious—you don’t want to be a funeral director, do you? Don’t be so shy. Don’t say “um.” And for the love of God don’t look so nervous. (p. 80)

In one of her early exposures to the “real thing,” a droplet of Madeira rolls down the stem of the glass she has just poured: “It was like a turd smeared on a wedding gown” (p. 79).

Most importantly, perhaps, Bosker trains her nose with a 54-sample kit (Le Nez du Vin) of fragrance essences that she sniffs daily. Interestingly, Horowitz (of canine fame) also religiously sniffs Le Nez du Vin and agrees with Bosker that one must verbalize the smells to retain them in the brain; however, she seems to be less successful than Bosker, learning the smells of essences in the kit but not dis- tinguishing wines more successfully as a result. Bosker takes issue with the frequently held view that humans’ olfactory bulbs have shrunk and hence animals have a stron- ger sense of smell, because in humans, the brain provides a strong assist in smelling. But dogs are special, because their noses have a vomeral cavity, a second smelling organ that humans lack. There are some minor disagreements between Bosker and Horowitz: the former maintains that pheromones may be important in bringing humans together (p. 97), whereas the latter states that people do not seem to detect pheromones at all (p. 88).

Part of the sommelier’s job is to sell wine, and to do that, she needs to know what the guest wants. There is clearly an art to figuring out what the guest really wants, and Bosker’s description of how sommeliers see through guests is almost scary, making the reader think that when one goes to a restaurant, it is akin to unwittingly landing on a psychiatrist’s couch; at a minimum, guests are subject to keen observations (“She wore … a ring the size of a shi tzu” [p. 152]). She provides good advice that amateurs can benefit from, such as how to tell alcohol or acid or sugar content in a wine and what makes a quality wine (or a bad wine), although some of her colleagues would prefer to preserve some of the mystery in wine by leaving these questions unanswered.

She describes the research lab of Treasury Wine Estates, with its philosophy that wine should be developed like fast food with market research, tasting panels, focus groups, and the like. That poses an interesting question: what have you really accom- plished if you manage to create a laboratory-designed wine that tastes just like Château Margaux? As Bosker puts it, “But for wineries that want to keep prices low and production high, nature no longer gets the final say on flavor” (p. 187). Laboratory-created wines may well fool people, just as “A Portrait of Gentleman,” putatively by Frans Hals, fooled art lovers (for a while); but as soon as it becomes known that such a work is not the real thing, its price will drop. As in art, we

Book Reviews 107 need authenticity, which is one good reason why the Rudy Kurniawans of this world

will not replace the real McCoy.

Has Bosker been able to train herself (that is, her brain) to recognize and identify wines? There is really only one way to tell—medical technology. Functional MRI (fMRI) is used in a variety of circumstances to examine changes in the brain under various stimuli. Dogs have been subjected to fMRI to identify the changes that occur in their brains when they are exposed to their beloved masters (Gregory Berns, How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013, 272 pp. [hardcover], ISBN 978- 0-544-11451-7, $25.00). That study was difficult to carry out, because dogs in the experiment had to be trained to lie absolutely still in the MRI machine, despite its substantial noise output. Bosker, in turn, sips some wines through a tube in the MRI machine and concentrates on identifying them. Sure enough, the fMRI shows her brain responding in the predicted manner, proving conclusively that her yearlong sniffing practice has altered her brain and that trained sommeliers are not just blowing hot air but really have knowledge that the rest of us lack.

As Bosker’s year of learning and apprenticing comes to an end, she has her exam- ination, which elicits moments of tension, nerves, and fear. In the blind-tasting part of the exam, she has to identify two wines; a white, which she calls a Chablis (1–3 years old), and a red, which she identifies as a California Cabernet (1–3 years old). She nails it. The other parts of the examination go equally well, leading to her designation as a Certified Sommelier. The final chapter deals with her getting a job from Paul Grieco as sommelier in his wine bar, Terroir, which had been named the World’s Best Wine Bar. It is a worthy, richly deserved culmination of her anxiety- and work-filled year.

It is amazing just how much “stuff” this book contains about wines, tastes, smells, production, service, tastings, sommeliers, customs and wine lore, successes and screw-ups, and much, much more. Most importantly, Bosker communicates to the reader on every page the abiding love she has for wine and for the activities that wine professionals undertake. It is a “must-read” for everybody who loves wine or would like to reach that point.

Richard E. Quandt
Princeton University
requandt@gmail.com

doi:10.1017/jwe.2017.4

Much has been made of the massive scale of this book, which reviews the origins and wines of nearly one hundred of Napa Valley’s several hundred wineries. Printed in China on super-heavy paper stock, it is difficult to actually lift. Apart from being unwieldy, the connection of the author to the wine and beverage industry has led some to call the book a vanity project. It is published by Leslie Rudd, for whom Kelli White is the sommelier (along with her fiancé) at PRESS, the St. Helena steak house (there is no other word for its menu) that Rudd operates. Indeed, a brief section of the book is devoted to a discussion of the wine list at PRESS. To top matters off, the HoseMaster of Wine has provided a hysterically funny blind book review (yes, he reviews the book without reading it—think blind wine tasting) at  www.hosemasterofwine.blogspot.com.

Like the HoseMaster of Wine, I did not read the entire book, and I doubt the author would expect anyone to do so. After offering a brief history of early wine pro- duction in the area, Napa Valley Then and Now becomes a series of well-researched vignettes, with a few photos of bottles and vineyards thrown in for good measure. Each vignette provides a brief history of a winery, its vineyards, and some tasting notes on wines from the property to which the author has access. These tasting notes focus mainly on the aging of the wine; a symbol indicating whether a wine has started to show its age is assigned to each, which some wine collectors may find especially useful.

I found the winery vignettes I did browse through to be accurate and sometimes very interesting. I learned that the Scholium Project, whose oddball name I always wondered about, was started by a former professor from St. John’s College in Annapolis who just extended his sabbatical indefinitely. And the School House Vineyard, which has a rather long and tortuous history, is a kind of microcosm of the Napa Valley story itself.

The book has brief prefaces written by Leslie Rudd and Robert Parker, each of which reads like a book jacket’s advertising blurb.

However, the book has one enormous problem: its size and weight make it so ungainly that it is nearly impossible to read the entirety of many entries. Merely folding the pages over becomes a serious task, and searching the book for an entry (the entries are alphabetical, which helps) is ridiculously time-consuming in the Internet age. This book truly needs to be uploaded to the Internet, where it could be easily searched, where the font size could be adjusted, and where it would weigh no more than a simple tablet.

Orley Ashenfelter
Princeton University
C6789@princeton.edu

doi:10.1017/jwe.2017.5

Of all the books that aim to “pair” wine with food, or with geography, or with prices, or with taste, or with history, or with any other variable, Gisela Kreglinger’s new book on wine is a statistical outlier: the author pairs wine with spirituality. The Spirituality of Wine is a book about wine and the Christian faith, as the author describes it: “The Christian spirituality I espouse in the pages of this book is rooted in Christian Scripture and nourished by the wisdom of the rich Christian tra- dition of our ancestors, those who have gone before us in the faith” (p. 1). Kreglinger has the theological chops and the family experience to write such a book: she holds a Ph.D. in historical theology from the University of St. Andrews, and she grew up in a family whose business has produced and sold wine for generations.(1)

If a reader comes to this book knowing nothing about the Christian faith, or about wine, those deficiencies will be remedied. Indeed, a thesis of the book is that the Christian faith cannot be understood and appreciated without knowing its nexus with wine. The connection Kreglinger makes between Christianity and wine is not only historical, such as Jesus’s first miracle being the changing of water into wine. The deeper connection is theological: the very divinity of Christ and the nature of salvation itself is tied to the blood of Christ, which the Christian faith connects to wine. Thus, The Spirituality of Wine can be read as a primer on the tenets of the Christian faith. But the book also can be read as a primer on how wine is made, in what manner wine is to be consumed, and the reason wine is the most special of all beverages.

Kreglinger divides her book into two parts: Sustenance and Sustainability. The first tilts toward theology; the second tilts toward the production and consumption of wine. What is especially satisfying about the book is the way the author weaves the narrative of the Christian faith with the narrative of wine making and wine consumption. The word “informative” comes to mind—but so does the word “inspirational.”

Many sermons have been given about Jesus’s turning water into wine at a wedding feast in Cana (John 2). Kreglinger goes beyond this familiar story to explain how wine appears in the Christian scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. Noah is the first vintner (Genesis 9:1), producing a beverage the Bible describes as bringing glad- ness to the human heart and comfort during times of distress (Psalm 104:15; Proverbs 31:6–7). Noah also is the first person in the Bible to become drunk, and Kreglinger describes not only the joy that wine consumption can bring but the tragic consequences that overconsumption can cause. Other Old Testament figures whose lives connect with wine include Abraham (Genesis 14:18) and Isaac, who gives his son the eloquent blessing, “May God give you the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine” (Genesis 27:28, 37). When Moses sends out scouts to survey the promised land, they report seeing a “valley of grape clusters,” which signals the goodness of the promised land (Numbers 13:21–27). At the time of Israel’s rule under Solomon, the scriptures record that the people of Israel lived “each under his own vine and fig tree” (1 Kings 4:25). This was a time of peace and flourishing—and wine helped make it so.

Indeed, so fundamental is wine in the Bible that the nation of Israel is often com- pared to a vine or a vineyard. In Psalm 80, Israel is described as a vine brought out of Egypt to be transplanted in the fertile soil of the Promised Land. As Kreglinger out- lines the connection between God’s chosen people and wine, important parallels include “the need to stay rooted in God’s garden; their dependence on God the vintner for pruning, watering, and protection; and their calling to become a fruitful nation and a blessing to others” (p. 26). The parallel between Israel and viticulture continues when the prophets, bemoaning times of Israel’s wickedness, describe Israel as a “wild vine” (Jeremiah 2:21; Hosea 10:2). The Bible verse displayed at the United Nations plaza is drawn from Israel’s connection to wine: “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2:4). The pruning hook is the most fundamental tool of the vintner.

In the New Testament, Jesus repeatedly makes references to wine—and assumes his audience is familiar with viticulture. Jesus enjoys wine—indeed, one of the charges leveled against him by the Pharisees is being a “glutton, a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 15:19–20). Jesus regularly illustrates his parables with references to viticulture and wine. In the “I am” statements by Jesus, he says of himself: “I am the true vine; God the father is the vine-grower; and his disciples are the branches” (John 15:1–6). So fundamental is viticulture to the Christian gospel that the apostle John maintains that followers of Jesus are to “abide” in Christ—in the same way that a branch must “abide” in (or be connected to) the vine to bear fruit.

According to Kreglinger, the relationship between wine and the Christian faith culminates in what Christians call “the last supper,” where Jesus takes a cup of wine and compares it to his blood, which will be shed for the sins of the world. From this mysterious mingling of blood and wine is derived the sacrament where Christians consume wine—following the same instructions that Jesus gives to his fol- lowers at their Passover meal: “this do in remembrance of me.” No six words have done more to increase the consumption of wine than these six words of instruction from Jesus to his disciples.

For generations, millions of people have consumed wine each Sunday in accord with this teaching. Roman Catholics believe that the wine they consume at Mass actually is the blood of Christ. Protestants believe that the wine they consume at communion represents the blood of Christ. In each case, wine provides the vehicle for “communing” with Christ in recognition of what Christians (of all stripes) believe to be the atoning death of the Son of God.(2) If the sacrament of the Lord’s supper were not enough to establish the crucial connection between the Christian faith and wine, Jesus tells his followers that when they are with him in heaven, there will be a feast—and on that day, Jesus will drink wine “new with you in my Father’s Kingdom” (Matthew 26:29; Mark 14:25; Luke 21:18).

Of particular interest to readers of this journal will be Kreglinger’s account of the role of Christian monasteries in the production of wine. Monasteries in England, Ireland, and as far north as Denmark have produced wine, some of them becoming highly skilled in viticulture. Monks in the Cistercian Order cleared the land and planted the vines that produced the highly regarded Clos de Vougeot of Burgundy. Kreglinger’s favorite movie, referenced several times in the book, is Babette’s Feast, a film that celebrates the spirituality and gladness of consuming superb food and wine. The wine served in this cinematic feast? Clos de Vougeot.(3) Dom Pérignon is the name of the Benedictine monk whose oenological genius led him to produce the now famous champagne of that name. Years later, Franciscan friars would see the potential of viticulture in what is now northern California, a geo- graphic focal point of the wine industry.

In an enlightening portion of the book that discusses wine and the Reformation, Kreglinger makes a persuasive case that the Reformers never counseled abstinence even as they contended that being drunk from wine was a sin. Kreglinger quotes Calvin: “By wine the hearts of men are gladdened, their strength recruited, and the whole man strengthened, so by the blood of our Lord the same benefits are received by our souls” (p. 57). The Reformers were united on the doctrine of sola scriptura—the Bible was central to their faith. Zwingli compares the Bible to “a good strong wine.”

Joy, Kreglinger maintains, is to be part of the Christian experience. Her chapter “Wine and Communal Feasting” is a biblically based ode to the joy of wine con- sumption. The chapter also is a theological brief for wine as God’s gift to gladden human hearts and enhance family and communal pleasure by consuming the fruit of the vine. Christians who believe in abstinence will find little ammunition in this chapter. According to Kreglinger, “Christian feasting becomes a place where we embrace and cultivate this posture of gratitude and joyful celebration.” And wine is to be part of the feast. Blending precepts from the Bible with the narrative of Babette’s Feast, Kreglinger explains that wine, properly used, “allows us to experi- ence God as the lavish giver” (p. 88). It is not just a sip of wine that is being pre- scribed here; Kreglinger uses the term “gentle intoxication” to describe the heart gladdening that wine is to foster.(4)

In Part I of her book, Kreglinger contends that the practice of viticulture once was a spiritual exercise as well as an agricultural endeavor. She argues this should still be the case: “If the vintner participates in crafting wine that is both God’s gift and the work of human hands, his or her vocation has profound spiritual meaning” (p. 121).

Kreglinger interviews several vintners as to whether they have a sense of “calling” to their work. Some affirm a spiritual dimension—a cooperating with God the creator—in crafting a good wine. The stories of Father Hufsky, a Catholic priest who tends a personal vineyard, and Sister Thekla, the vintner at the Abbey of St. Hildegard, illustrate the kind of connection Kreglinger longs to see in a human partnership with the Lord of the vineyard. Kreglinger is saddened by the vintners of today who do not understand or acknowledge this connection, and she laments those who have commoditized wine and produce only for the sake of profit. Yet she leaves room for the promise of an inherent spirituality, even for secular vintners.

Part II of The Spirituality of Wine delves further into the wine-making process itself, exploring the connection between God’s place (or what some would call nature’s place) and the role of humans in contemporary wine production. Informed by her discussions with vintners around the world, Kreglinger contends that wine loses its distinctive value and becomes “degraded into becoming just another generic drink” when producers seek profit over quality and variety (p. 147). The author worries that modern technologies enable shortcuts that discon- nect vintners from the spiritual nature of crafting wine. For Kreglinger, technology separates wine—that mysterious fruit of the vine—from the vineyard itself.

In a well-researched (if somewhat disjointed) chapter on the health benefits of wine, Kreglinger draws from Christian and non-Christian sources. Even before modern medicine, the apostle Paul instructs Timothy to treat an upset stomach with wine (1 Timothy 5:23). Hippocrates used wine as a potent antiseptic. But to my mind, the author devotes too much space to modern medicine. She plainly believes that wine’s physical benefits complement the spiritual, but Kreglinger’s strong suit is that she grew up in a vineyard and studied theology—she did not grow up in a vineyard and study medicine.

Proverbs 20:1 states: “[W]ine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.” Kreglinger would agree. She gives unvarnished attention to the potential for alcohol abuse in a chapter subtitled “Rescuing Wine from the Gluttons for the Contemplatives.” Here, Kreglinger repeats her position that wine is not meant to be consumed mindlessly; it is a good gift, but, as with every gift, it has an intended use. The Bible also describes wine as a reward: “Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine” (Proverbs 3:9–10). Thoughtfully addressing the complexities of substance abuse, Kreglinger does not shy away from the fallen nature of the human relationship with alcohol, but she is adamant that wine “was meant to draw us nearer to God and each other rather than alienate us even further from his loving and healing presence. In the words of the German proverb, ‘To drink is to pray, to binge-drink is to sin’” (p. 198).

Weaving insights from today’s vintners with New Testament metaphors, Kreglinger concludes by challenging modern notions of identity and community. In drawing the strands of the book together, she writes: “Christ invites us to see one another … as branches held together and nourished by Christ, the vine, and tended by a caring vintner, God the Father” (p. 202). Although Kreglinger some- times strays into secondary concerns, such as consumerism and virtual media, that distract from the book’s theme, she successfully explains—through the palatable prism of wine—that “[t]he Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1).
1 As a baby, Kreglinger was placed in a playpen in the vineyard because her mother was working there. As a little girl, her job was to crawl into the wine vats and scrub them clean from the inside. The Kreglinger family vineyard is neither a hobby nor a tax dodge.

2 This is how Kreglinger describes the sacrament and its connection to blood, wine, and a supper: “The Lord’s supper becomes a place where we cease to strive and we learn to receive the person of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of our sins, and eternal life… . This is something that Christ does and will continue to work within us until the end of days. We eat Christ’s body and drink his blood. As we take into ourselves his living presence [through the wine and the bread], he mysteriously forms and grows his very own life in us personally and communally” (p. 72).

3 Kreglinger quotes the wine writer Hugh Johnson, who accords this encomium to the Cistercian monks: they made Clos de Vougeot “the laboratory of their pursuit of perfection” (p. 50).

4 Her words are worth repeating: “The intoxicating effect of wine is often seen as purely negative. But Babette’s Feast is a moving example of how gentle intoxication can enhance our festive play before God and allow us to let go of our defenses and embrace a life of greater vulnerability and transparency with God and with each other” (p. 99).

Kenneth G. Elzinga
University of Virginia
elzinga@virginia.edu

doi:10.1017/jwe.2017.6