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JWE Volume 16 | 2021 | No. 3

Journal of Wine Economics Volume 16 | 2021 | No. 3

Divestiture and Its Market Reaction in a Consolidating Industry: The Global Brewing Industry

Ludwig Erl & Florian Kiesel
Pages: 239-259
Abstract

This study provides a perspective on the market performance of divestitures in the global brewing industry. In 2018, the five largest players accounted for 60% of the global beer volume. We analyze to what extent the capital market values divestitures in an industry where players usually seek efficiency gains and growth through mergers and acquisitions. Based on a sample of 61 divestiture intent announcements in the period from 1999–2018, this study shows that publicly listed brewing groups experience significant positive abnormal returns of about 1.4%. We measure the influential effect of success determinants concerning the underlying industry, the divested business, the divestiture structure, and the divestor itself.

Ludwig Erl and Florian Kiesel

Keywords: brewing industry, divestiture, event study, industry consolidation.

Willingness to Pay for Wine Bullshit: Some New Estimates

Kevin W. Capehart
Pages: 260-282
Abstract

As part of a classic article in this journal, Richard Quandt identified 123 wine descriptors that he deemed to be bullshit. In this paper, I examine whether wine consumers are willing to pay any more (or less) for wine if it is described by one of those “bullshit” descriptors. I use three methods to examine that. The first method involves applying a hedonic regression to a dataset of prices and expert descriptions for about 50,000 wines. The second method involves applying a match- ing estimator to the same dataset. The third method involves a stated-preference survey of about 500 wine consumers. The three methods suggest that for most of the descriptors Quandt deemed to be bullshit, most consumers’ marginal willingness to pay for a descriptor is zero or near-zero. Yet, for some of the descriptors, some consumers do seem to have a non-zero marginal willing- ness to pay, perhaps because the descriptors shape a consumer’s subjective experience or because they signal objective aspects of wine.

Kevin W. Capehart

Keywords: expert evaluation, hedonic regressions, matching estimators, stated preference.

Market Segmentation and Dynamic Analysis of Sparkling Wine Purchases in Italy Francesca Bassi

Francesca Bassi, Fulvia Pennoni & Luca Rossetto
Pages: 283-304
Abstract

The Italian market of sparkling wines increases as volume and assortment (such as brands, appellations, typologies) mainly because of sparkling Prosecco consumption. We investigate the repeated purchase behavior of sparkling wines in two years within the supermarket channel through scanner data collected from a consumer panel. We propose a Hidden Markov Model to analyze these data, assuming an unobservable process to capture consum- ers’ preferences and allowing us to consider purchases sparsity over time. We consider multi- variate responses defining types of purchases, namely price, appellation, and sugar content. Customers’ covariates influence the initial and transition probabilities of the latent process. We identify five market segments, and we track their evolution over time. One segment includes Prosecco-oriented consumers, and we show that loyalty to Prosecco changes strongly over time according to the region of residence, income, and family type. The findings improve the understanding of the market and may provide evidence to design successful marketing strategies.

Francesca Bassi, Fulvia Pennoni and Luca Rossetto

Keywords: dynamic market segmentation, hidden Markov model, loyalty, repeated purchases, variety-seeking behavior.

Restaurant Wines: Bottle Margins and the By-the-Glass Option

James A. Dearden, Xiaohui Guo & Chad D. Meyerhoefer
Pages: 305-320
Full Text PDF
Abstract

Using a sample of New York City restaurants, we examine the relationship between a wine’s bottle margin and whether the restaurant offers that same wine by the glass. We find that restaurants offer less expensive wines by the glass but set higher margins on these bottles than for similar wines offered only in bottles. Overall, offering wine by the glass is associated with a 5.0% increase in the bottle price and a 12.2% increase in the bottle margin. We find similar results for retail and wholesale markups of wine bottles. Our results offer evidence that settles a theoretical ambiguity in the menu-pricing literature (Anderson and Dana, 2009) about whether to raise or lower the price of a high-quantity package when introducing a low-quantity package of a good, as it applies to restaurant wine pricing.

James A. Dearden, Xiaohui Guo and Chad D. Meyerhoefer

Keywords: product-line pricing, restaurant wines

Wine Ratings: Seeking a Consensus among Tasters via Normalization, Approval, and Aggregation

Olivier Gergaud, Victor Ginsburgh & Juan D. Moreno-Ternero
Pages: 321-342
Abstract

The modern era of wine journalism has provided abundant information about wines and wide- spread use of numerical rating systems. A tiny difference, especially at the top of the distribu- tion of ratings, may have striking consequences on wine sales and investment returns. This article provides a general framework to obtain a consensus among tasters’ opinions (reflected as numerical wine ratings) via three subsequent stages: normalization, approval, and aggregation. It is inspired by contributions in political science, social choice, game theory, and operations research. We apply it to the Judgment of Paris as well as to rank 2018 en-primeur Bordeaux wines, rated by five international experts.

Olivier Gergaud, Victor Ginsburgh and Juan D. Moreno-Ternero

Keywords: global wine score, Judgment of Paris, ratings, 2018 en-primeur Bordeaux wines, wines

Book & Film Reviews

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

By: Susan Keevil (ed.)
Reviewer: Debraj Ray
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

The Story of Wine: From Noah to Now

By: Hugh Johnson
Reviewer: Neal D. Hulkower
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

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

By: Susan Keevil (ed.)
Reviewer: Neal D. Hulkower
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

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