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Book Review: Continued Surveillance by Jake Lorenzo
Review by Tim Patterson. Wine writers love Jake Lorenzo's stuff; many wish they could write like him, or more precisely, get away with writing like he does. It's not so much the sheer literary quality of Jake's "mostly true stories of the wine business," the book's subtitle; it's the vantage point and the audacity. Jake Lorenzo is the rare wine writer who views the wine world from inside the industry, not as an outside observer dispensing judgments and scores. Better yet, he freely admits that he and his friends love to get hammered--common enough among wine writers, but rarely the... continue reading 
- Posted by: Tim on March 3, 2010 9:36 PM
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Book Review: A Year of Wine by Tyler Coleman
Review by Brooke Cheshier. When I first slipped into A Year of Wine: Perfect Pairings, Great Buys, and What to Sip for Each Season, I worried it would be too formulaic. I am drawn toward in-depth histories (anything by the Kladstrups), poetic memoirs (Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher's Love by the Glass springs to mind), and basically any book that feeds me my wine knowledge indirectly, though story, instead of through instruction. Since I evidently don't like to know I'm receiving an education, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about what was basically a one-year manual for... continue reading
- Posted by: Brooke on January 26, 2010 10:35 PM
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Book Review: In Search of Bacchus by George M. Taber
Great travel writing should do more than simply paint a picture of distant locations and suggest how they may be experienced. At its best, the travelogue should transcend its itinerary and offer a deeper, more meaningful narrative than one might expect to experience themselves should they find themselves in the writer's footsteps one day. George Taber's new book, In Search of Bacchus: Wanderings in the Wonderful World of Wine Tourism, ultimately fails to satisfy. That the book should be so ordinary and uninspiring was a huge surprise given the tremendous enjoyment I got out of the author's previous two works,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 9, 2010 4:10 PM
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Book Review: Resveratrol by Matilde Parente
Review by Tim Patterson. This is a short booklet, no frills, on a very focused topic, and will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the serious science behind the claims that resveratrol in red wine is a boon to your health. Definitely worth a read. This whole business started, of course, with the famous "60 Minutes" piece over a decade ago on the French Paradox, the mystery of how it could be that the folks who eat foie gras for snack food have fewer heart attacks than the rest of us who just eat McDonalds's grease on... continue reading
- Posted by: Tim on October 6, 2009 9:25 PM
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Wine Will Never Smell the Same Again: Luca Turin and the Science of Scent
I've recently discovered someone that I think may be perhaps the greatest writer of tasting notes in the history of the English language. He's not a wine critic, and the notes aren't about wine. But Luca Turin can write about what he smells better than anyone I have ever seen. Luca Turin is many things, but perhaps most of all he is a scientist. But then again that may be too small a word for a man whose career has consisted of smashing down many of the walls that divide traditional scientific disciplines. Pioneer might better describe this man who... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 3, 2009 9:49 PM
- Filed under: Book Reviews , Ramblings and Rants
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Book Review: The Psychology of Wine by Evan and Brian Mitchell
Review by W. Blake Gray I hate this book. I hate this book primarily because its title is misleading. Though one of the authors was once a psychologist, there's very little psychology here. If it were titled, "Logorrheic Lit Major/Sommelier Muses On Wine And Literature," that would at least be truth in advertising. Psychology is a science; this book has no charts and graphs, but it does have 298 footnotes, most of them to books of fiction or literary analysis. Even if it were better titled, I would still hate this book, because I hate the writing style. The Australian... continue reading
- Posted by: Blake on September 9, 2009 9:31 PM
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Book Review: Grape Man of Texas by Sherrie McLeRoy and Roy Renfro
Review by Alfonso Cevola. Twenty-five years ago, I got a call from a client of mine, originally from Bordeaux, who had a wine bar in Dallas, Texas. "My father is visiting from France and would like to go to Denison, Texas, and see where Mr. Munson lived and worked. Would you like to go with us?" My friend's father was Raymond Chandou, who studied and worked under Emile Peynaud, and who ran one of the largest and most successful wine cooperatives in France. "You bet," I said. I was definitely in on this trip. A few years before, while making... continue reading
- Posted by: Alfonso on June 14, 2009 8:22 PM
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Book Review: Notes on a Cellar-Book by George Saintsbury
Review by Tim Patterson. If you love to drink wine, and love a good read, you have to get ahold of this book. The dust jacket for this re-issue and annotation of English wineophile George Saintsbury's famous Notes on a Cellar-Book describes it--correctly--as "one of the greatest tributes to drink and drinking in the literature of wine." It's also the quirkiest, the most baffling and inscrutable, and the most flagrantly opinionated. Writing in the 1920s, Saintsbury (1845-1933) was more than an avid drinker and collector; he was a legendary professor of literature in the British Isles, the author of something... continue reading
- Posted by: Tim on April 19, 2009 11:20 PM
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Book Review: Wine Politics by Tyler Coleman
Review by Tim Patterson. Here we have that rarity of rarities: a wine blogger who knows how to write a footnote. Wine Politics dates from the days when Tyler Colman--known to the wine blogosphere as Dr. Vino--was an academic political scientist teaching at NYU, before he succumbed entirely to the wiles of wine. The book is an expansion and retrofit from his dissertation in political economy at Northwestern University, and so when you encounter, in the course of a discussion about supply and demand and wine quality, references to economists Joseph Stiglitz and John Maynard Keynes, you quickly realize this... continue reading
- Posted by: Tim on April 6, 2009 8:48 PM
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Book Review: Reflections of a Wine Merchant by Neal Rosenthal
Review by Alfonso Cevola. It's not unusual to pick up a wine book that reads like a journal. But Neal Rosenthal's Reflections of a Wine Merchant reads like it could have been the personal journey of a score of young folks who entered the wine industry 30 years ago, me included. The confluence of experience was so uncanny at times that I started thinking this guy had climbed inside my head. He may be a celebrated and accomplished fellow in the world of wine importers now, but in the early days many of us traveled the same wine paths and... continue reading
- Posted by: Alfonso on March 29, 2009 6:16 PM
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Book Review: Heard it Through the Grapevine by Matt Skinner
There are two things I wish were more easily found in the world of wine: great bottles for under $5, and excellent introductory wine books for novice wine lovers. Although after reading his latest book Heard it Through The Grapevine: The Things You Should Know to Enjoy Wine, I'm tempted to suggest that the wine world also needs more people like Matt Skinner. Born in Melbourne, Australia, Skinner stumbled into the wine world almost by accident. As relayed in a 2005 profile in the UK's The Observer, his transformation from surf bum to celebrity sommelier sounds more like the plot... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on March 21, 2009 8:24 PM
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Book Review: Wines & Wineries of California's Central Coast by William Ausmus
Review by Arthur Przebinda. The Central Coast is a huge appellation. Compiling a comprehensive guide to its wineries is nearly a Herculean task. William A. Ausmus, a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Communications professor, set out do that with his book: Wines & Wineries of California's Central Coast: A Complete Guide from Monterey to Santa Barbara. The book consists of a very good 30-page introduction and a main section with winery profiles. The latter is divided into three parts, each focusing on a separate county: Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. Each of these contains its own detailed introduction,... continue reading
- Posted by: Arthur on February 13, 2009 8:38 AM
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Book Review: The Widow Cliquot by Tilar J. Mazzeo
Review by W. Blake Gray Great books are often the result of obsession. They have to be, considering the hours put into work that may never be published. Tilar Mazzeo, an assistant professor at Colby College, spent years pursuing her obsession with the life of the Veuve ("widow") Clicquot for her book The Widow Cliquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It. The Widow built one of the leading Champagne houses in the early 19th century in an era when few women were internationally famous for anything other than marrying well or divorcing scandalously. Most... continue reading
- Posted by: Blake on January 21, 2009 11:51 PM
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Book Review: American Vintage by Paul Lukacs
Review by W. Blake Gray. Is wine food or alcohol? Most Americans would immediately choose "alcohol," perhaps laughing at the question. In Europe, though, that wasn't the case for centuries. Before water purification became widespread, wine was safer to drink than water. The idea that wine is primarily an intoxicant is relatively recent, and like so many influential memes in the world today, it comes from the United States. Paul Lukacs' book American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine was inspired by the author's realization at an Italian wine event that U.S. wine has become not only the best in... continue reading
- Posted by: Blake on December 28, 2008 5:29 PM
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Book Review: The Billionaire's Vinegar
Review by Tim Patterson. If you're getting your morning jollies reading about the amazing collapsing Ponzi schemes of investment wizard Bernie Madoff, you'll love The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Story of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine. It's all there: fraud on a grand scale; apparently smart people who should have known better committing serial stupidities; rich people doing pratfalls in public. It's like a bottle full of schadenfreude; what more could you ask from a wine book? In this particular case, the super-rich and the official arbiters of vinous taste make fools of themselves over a stash of wines... continue reading
- Posted by: Tim on December 18, 2008 11:57 PM
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Book Review: The Battle For Wine And Love by Alice Feiring
Review by Brooke Cheshier. I was going to read Alice Feiring's book and write my review and I swore I was not going to be influenced by the controversy that was thundering across the web-writing world. But then I thought, well, perhaps I'd just take a peek? One quick look? So I clicked onto the Cellar Rats forum, then the Wine Spectator Bulletin Board and suddenly found myself swept up in the tornadic, mostly negative conversations occurring on these sites. Heck, even Amazon.com reader critiques seemed uncensored. One Amazon review, titled Feir and Loathing on the Champagne Trail, basically dubbed... continue reading
- Posted by: Brooke on October 6, 2008 8:30 PM
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Book Review: The Geography of Wine by Brian J. Sommers
Review by Tim Patterson. This is a very useful, though not very exciting book. No rhapsodies about mind-bending encounters with memorable wines, no personality portraits of wild and crazy winemakers, no dirt on the owners of winedom's most precious pieces of dirt. But dirt, yes--the kind geographers start from and worry over. Brian Sommers teaches geography at Central Connecticut State University, including a course on the geography of wine, a subject that turns out to include a vast range of vinous things. Early on, he explains to non-geographers--that would be nearly all of us--that the geography of wine is more... continue reading
- Posted by: Tim on August 5, 2008 10:03 PM
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Book Review: Passion on the Vine by Sergio Esposito
Review by Alfonso Cevola. There are stories that are meant to be true and stories that are intended to stir one's enthusiasm. In reading Sergio Esposito's highly engaging Passion on the Vine: A Memoir of Food, Wine, and Family in the Heart of Italy, how can you not want to have your very own Neapolitan family? While some of the anecdotes may not be the gospel truth, the book follows in the tradition of the Neapolitan, who are known as the story tellers of Italy. An extra pinch of salt, one more clove of garlic, and what does it matter,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alfonso on July 27, 2008 6:18 PM
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Book Review: To Cork or Not To Cork by George Taber
There's only one thing, you might say, that stands between a thirsty wine lover and her wine. And luckily, that obstacle is usually easily overcome with one or more variations on a twist of a wrist. Corks, screwcaps, crowncaps, glass stoppers, plastic corks, synthetic corks, agglomerated corks, the list goes on and on. 20 billion of them are used each year, and these closures which seal our precious bottles of wine are given very little thought by most wine drinkers. Indeed, we only tend to notice them when they are unexpected -- a screwcap when we were thinking about cork,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on May 31, 2008 6:54 PM
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Book Review: Biodynamic Wine, Demystified by Nicholas Joly
Review by Tim Patterson. Biodynamic grapegrowing and winemaking have gotten a great deal of press in recent years, far out of proportion to the planted acreage involved. Much like the coverage for the adventures of Britney Spears--also wildly outstripping the extent of her creative resume--biodynamics write-ups have tended toward the sensational, even the salacious, emphasizing the ritual usage of cow dung and excursions into pop astrology. At the same time, there is no denying that the international Who's Who of biodynamic growers and winemakers turns out some mighty tasty wine--Chapoutier in the Rhone, Zind Humbrecht and Ostertag in Alsace, Domaine... continue reading
- Posted by: Tim on May 18, 2008 3:53 PM
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Book Review: Red, White, and Drunk All Over by Natalie MacLean
Review by Jessica Yadegaran Do readers really care about active yeasts and secondary fermentation? Or do they long to understand wine's seductions, and its otherworldly sense of place? Do they care about a region's production, or would they rather hear how a glass of juice resembles a curvy redhead, and why it makes them feel the way it does? You know, drunk. This is among Natalie MacLean's first points in Red, White, and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass. A descendent of Celtic alcohol-lovers and livers, MacLean, a sommelier, writes first and foremost from a sensual... continue reading
- Posted by: Jessica on May 9, 2008 6:45 PM
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Book Review: House of Mondavi by Julia Flynn Siler
Review by W. Blake Gray. Carlo Rossi was a real person: a relative of Ernest and Julio Gallo. In the 1970s, the Gallos launched a new jug wine and decided "Carlo Rossi" (though he actually went by "Charlie.") had the right ring to it. Now he's famous and synonymous with cheap wine. This is not a bad thing: songs and even a band have been named after him. And people who buy Carlo Rossi wine do not turn up their noses at it -- it's bringing pleasure into their lives. It seems that Robert Mondavi may be headed down the... continue reading
- Posted by: Blake on April 14, 2008 9:02 PM
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Book Review: First Big Crush by Eric Arnold
Review by Christy McGill. Have you ever daydreamed about a different life? Perhaps one set in some sun-dappled, far-flung wine-making countryside where rows of grape vines bursting with perfect fruit are transformed with the help of your touch into magnificent wine? A better question might be—has anyone with even a cursory interest in wine actually not harbored this fantasy? Eric Arnold, a 20-something former joke and copywriter decided to chuck it all, leave New York and take his version of that daydream to the next level. What resulted is First Big Crush: The Down and Dirty on Making Great Wine... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on April 5, 2008 10:40 PM
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Book Review: The Oxford Companion to Wine by Jancis Robinson
As casual wine lovers, we live in the daily romance of wine. We thrive on the pleasures of a great glass with a wonderful meal, a fabulous bottle shared with a friend, or the exciting first taste of a new grape variety. But lurking just under the surface of this delightful, even magical world, lies a deeper more complex universe of wine made up of history, geography, geology, meteorology, organic chemistry, geopolitics, economics, philosophy, and more. Some are content to always experience wine in the most casual of ways, but nearly every wine lover I know has at some point... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on March 18, 2008 11:41 PM
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Book Review: A Wine Miscellany by Graham Harding
Review by Jessica Yadegaran. Did you know that the world's oldest single vine is in the Slovenian city of Maribor? Or that the Italian Ministry of Justice supports a Roman jail's production of Novello wines to the tune of $600,000? And how about this: the world's largest wine list belongs to Bern's Steak House in Florida. The restaurant stocks half a million bottles and employs ten wine waiters. Gems like these make up Graham Harding's A Wine Miscellany: A Jaunt Through the Whimsical World of Wine. Harding, chairman of the Oxford Wine Club and director of a specialist wine importer,... continue reading
- Posted by: Jessica on February 20, 2008 11:28 PM
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Book Review: Love by the Glass by Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher
People fall in love with wine every day, and many never realize that it is happening. They just wake up one day and they can't imagine a life without it. Frankly, the same is true when we're talking about the people that we love -- unless there's a bolt from the blue, much of the time we never even realize just when, exactly, we started loving the person that we end up spending the rest of our lives with. The mysterious pull that wine and love have on our souls is similar enough that it comes as a surprise to... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on February 3, 2008 8:49 PM
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Book Review: The Botanist and the Vintner by Christy Campbell
They say those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but many of the events of the past were so dependent upon the knowledge of the times, that there is simply no way they could ever occur again. Indeed, those of us who are alive today take certain moments in history for granted, precisely because our modern experience blinds us to the extent of the crisis that these events most certainly represented at the time. Such is the case for the modern wine lover, who enjoys a bottle with the carefree ignorance that there was... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 18, 2008 11:57 PM
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Book Review: I'll Drink To That, by Rudolph Chelminski
Review by Wanda Hennig "The story of how Beaujolais reached its present prominence is worth a look because it encapsulates so much not only about the wine itself but also about France and the French themselves: this quick, talented, nervous, occasionally maddening but altogether admirable people." So writes Rudolph Chelminski in the opening chapter of his book about Beaujolais: the wine (or more aptly, wines); "the" Beaujolais," as he reminds readers to call the region; and Georges Duboeuf—known as "Mr. Beaujolais" in the wine world. Duboeuf is the driven "French peasant" of the title, seemingly an intuitive marketing genius, who... continue reading
- Posted by: Wanda on January 11, 2008 11:59 PM
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Book Review: Washington Wines & Wineries by Paul Gregutt
Review by Cole Danehower When I read James Laube advising in a recent Wine Spectator column that "Many Washington reds . . . make for good alternatives to their counterparts from California," I could almost feel the heat of Paul Gregutt's blood boiling. Gregutt is a well-known wine writer and authority in the Pacific Northwest and the author of the just published Washington Wines & Wineries: The Essential Guide. Gregutt is a partisan of Washington wine quality. I could easily imagine he might have claimed that many Washington reds would make good replacements for their California counterparts! Frankly, he'd... continue reading
- Posted by: Cole on January 4, 2008 3:45 PM
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Book Review: Sweet Wines by James Peterson
Review by Jennie Schacht. In the world of wine, the sweet ones get short shrift. But veteran cookbook author James Peterson doesn't mind. His book, Sweet Wines: A Guide to the World's Best with Recipes, covers the territory that wine writers often leave behind. Peterson's discussion of the wines, accompanied by his own evocative photographs, covers this complex subject clearly and succinctly. After a context-setting introduction, he takes us on a geographic voyage through the thirteen most important countries producing sweet wines, describing major regions and the wines for which they are best known. Sidebars point to interesting details, top... continue reading
- Posted by: Jennie on December 28, 2007 1:04 AM
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Book Review: Hip Tastes by Courtney Cochran
Review by Jessica Yadegaran. Millennials, there's much to celebrate. Not only did wine out sell beer last year, but you are officially the fastest growing segment of the wine consumer market. Good times, indeed. So if you're young and trendy " or both " and looking for a solid introduction to wine, you've found it in Courtney Cochran's Hip Tastes: The Fresh Guide to Wine. Cochran is the brains behind the uber-popular San Francisco-based Hip Tastes events, where 20-somethings relish PB & J and Tater Tot pairings for their wine against a techno beat. She's infused her first book with... continue reading
- Posted by: Jessica on December 21, 2007 10:45 AM
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Book Review: At Home in the Vineyard by Susan Sokol Blosser
Review by Tim Patterson. Oregon's Sokol Blosser Winery prides itself on a number of "firsts" it has scored over the years, for everything from its wine to its architecture. Now co-founder Susan Sokol Blosser has written the first account of the rise of Oregon wine by a pioneering industry insider, and it's a good one. When Susan and her husband, Bill (the whole scheme was his idea) planted their first vines in 1971, they had none of the relevant skills and experience—no background in growing grapes, making wine, or running a business. They, and a lot of other people in... continue reading
- Posted by: Tim on December 14, 2007 11:11 PM
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Book Review: Vino Italiano: The Regional Wines of Italy
Review by Bill Rohwer. With dozens of wine regions, hundreds of grape varieties, and several overlapping classification systems, Italian wine is not a subject for the faint of heart. The authors of Vino Italiano certainly have the credentials to write an authoritative account. Joseph Bastianich co-owns (with Mario Batali, who lived and cooked in Italy for some years) five Italian restaurants and an Italian wine shop in New York City, as well as owning two Italian wineries, one in Toscana, another in Friuli; David Lynch is the wine director at one of these restaurants and a prolific wine writer.... continue reading
- Posted by: Bill on December 7, 2007 8:01 PM
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Book Review: North American Pinot Noir by John Winthrop Haeger
Review by Cole Danehower. If I were a grape, and someone wanted to write a book about me, I'd pray that someone was John Winthrop Haeger. Haeger's singular work, North American Pinot Noir, is a model of precise scholarship translated into cogent and flowing narrative. Thankfully devoid of the purple prose syndrome so prevalent in writing about Pinot noir (for example, Oz Clarke calls Pinot "seductive, sultry, steamy, sinful if possible," while Serena Sutcliffe says that "to unlock the flavors and smells of fine Burgundy is to attain a hedonist's nirvana."), the volume should serve as the prototype for sober,... continue reading
- Posted by: Cole on November 30, 2007 4:50 PM
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Book Review: What to Drink With What You Eat, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg
Review by Jennie Schacht. If you have ever anguished over what to serve with your perfectly poached salmon, or what to prepare for your dinner guests toting wines they brought back from South Africa, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have advice for you. 2007 International Association of Culinary Professionals "book of the year" winner What to Drink with What you Eat: The definitive guide to pairing food with wine, beer, spirits, coffee, tea—even water—based on expert advice from America's best sommeliers is the current sine qua non of wine and food pairing, with 230 pages listing over 1500 pairing suggestions... continue reading
- Posted by: Jennie on November 23, 2007 5:36 PM
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Book Review: Decantations, by Frank Prial
Review by Derrick Schneider. Frank Prial’s New York Times wine articles educated and entertained subscribers for more than 25 years. His small piece of the Dining section whisked readers into historic chateaux, through renowned vineyards, and into hearing range of the business’s most interesting people. Food and wine lovers no doubt looked forward to his articles, but they were ephemeral works destined to be the next day’s birdcage liner. Devotees can now trawl through the Times’ online archives to find them, but they might prefer to pick up Decantations: Reflections on Wine by The New York Times Wine Critic which... continue reading
- Posted by: Derrick on November 16, 2007 4:00 PM
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Book Review: Educating Peter, by Lettie Teague
Review by Jessica Yadegaran. If wines were movies, what would be your Citizen Kane? After all, one man's genre-defining epic is another man's Roadhouse. That's the premise of Lettie Teague's Educating Peter: How I Taught a Famous Movie Critic the Difference Between Cabernet and Merlot or How Anybody Can Become an (Almost) Instant Wine Expert. Teague, an executive editor at Food & Wine magazine, spent a year weaning her dear friend Peter Travers off fatty Chardonnay and into the nuanced arms of Riesling and Pinot Noir. Entertaining and easy to read, it is an ideal ride for the budding wine... continue reading
- Posted by: Jessica on November 10, 2007 11:47 AM
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Book Review: The Science of Wine: From Vine to Glass, by Jamie Goode
Review by Tim Patterson. Jaime Goode is one of the best popular science writers in the English language, and fortunately for us, his subject is wine, not cosmology or tropical diseases. Trained in biology, a former scientific editor, his Wine Anorak website (and accompanying blog) is a major presence in internet wine and the original source for many of the ideas explored in this fascinating, mind-opening book. The Science of Wine isn't a textbook on grape growing or winemaking, though it covers a lot of that ground. Its chapters are focused on key concepts and controversies in the serious wine... continue reading
- Posted by: Tim on November 3, 2007 9:11 PM
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But Wait, There's More!
This page only has the last sixty entries in this category. If you're interested in digging farther into my archives, you'll want to use the complete list of archives to access my articles by month.
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March 2010
Most Recent Entries
Book Review: Continued Surveillance by Jake Lorenzo Book Review: A Year of Wine by Tyler Coleman Book Review: In Search of Bacchus by George M. Taber Book Review: Resveratrol by Matilde Parente Wine Will Never Smell the Same Again: Luca Turin and the Science of Scent Book Review: The Psychology of Wine by Evan and Brian Mitchell Book Review: Grape Man of Texas by Sherrie McLeRoy and Roy Renfro Book Review: Notes on a Cellar-Book by George Saintsbury Book Review: Wine Politics by Tyler Coleman Book Review: Reflections of a Wine Merchant by Neal Rosenthal
Favorite Posts From the Archives
Masuizumi Junmai Daiginjo, Toyama Prefecture Wine.Com Gives Retailers (and Consumers) the Finger 1961 Hospices de Beaune Emile Chandesais, Burgundy Wine Over Time The Better Half of My Palate 1999 Királyudvar "Lapis" Tokaji Furmint, Hungary What's Allowed in Your Wine and Winemaking Why Community Tasting Notes Sites Will Fail Appreciating Wine in Context The Soul vs. The Market 1989 Fiorano Botte 48 Semillion,Italy
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