Journal of Wine Economics Volume 16 | 2021 | No. 2

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.

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

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