Book Review: "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" by Tom Standage (2005)

 

"Drinks have a closer connection to the flow of history than is generally acknowledged, and a greater influence on its course."

This really isn't a "review" I guess, but just a little "hey, this book exists, check it out!" It was published all the way back in 2005 and I recently picked it up at my local library.

The book is hella fun. It's called "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" and goes through the history of mankind broken down into the beverages at the time they ruled the world above all else. From beer in the stone age, to wine, to distilled spirits, to coffee, to tea, to the soda of today.

It goes over how and why the beverage rose to be so popular, the culture and consumption habits of those who drank them, and how they changed the course of history. There are so many cool things in here that I never knew, such as coffee houses creating the stock exchange and tea being the drink that fueled the Industrial Revolution. As a history nerd in the beverage industry, I loved it. 

"Baths, wine and sex ruin our bodies. But what makes life worth living except baths, wine and sex?" - Corpus Inscriptionis VI, 15258

Read More

Book Review: "Ancient Wine: the Search for the Origins of Viniculture" by Patrick E. McGovern

I hope you like pottery! Like, really really like pottery! A lot! Because that's what Ancient Wine by Patrick E. McGovern is pretty much all about. This is because when you go back thousands and thousands of years, before writing, all we can hope to know about ancient wine is through the pottery that survived and the residue that remains within.

Patrick E. McGovern is the scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. According to this book, he and his laboratory have made some pretty incredible discoveries on the ancient history of wine, including the discovery that wine has been around for thousands of years before we thought.

Ancient Wine doesn't read like a story about wine, starting from the beginning and moving forward. Ancient Wine reads like the story of McGovern's career, going in the order of as things were revealed to him through his work. Although McGovern TRIES to keep it by place and time, it very much does bounce around all over the place a lot, so going into this it helps to know your ancient Mediterranean and Mesopotamian civilizations and their timelines.

Not only does Ancient Wine go into the history of wine (and beer, as well) in ancient times, but also the science behind the knowledge and technology that we use today to find what kind of beverage was in that pottery and how we know how old it is. Very, very cool book that will teach you a lot of very, very cool things you didn't know you wanted know.

(Originally published in 2003, this reprint from 2019 includes an Afterword by the author to catch you up on all of the updates in what we have learned and what is new in archaeological technology since the original printing.)

Read More

Book Review: "Alcohol: The World's Favorite Drug" by Griffith Edwards (2000)

 "Alcohol: The World's Favorite Drug" was published in 2000, one year before I was legal to drink. I heard about it in the past month when it was mentioned in the book "Drunk" (read my review of that book here), and I was able to purchase a used copy online that once called Richards Library in Newport, New Hampshire, home.

The author of Alcohol is Griffith Edwards; an MD whose work is on the study of addiction to alcohol and other drugs, and you can definitely tell. The book is kind of misleading in title, as it focuses on alcohol dependency most of the time. And it does so very effectively, especially when it talks about alcohol dependency from the viewpoint of the dependent; how they think about it and the excuses they tell themselves.

It is not misleading in saying that it's "a look at fact and falsehoods, and how to tell the difference." There are many things that we all think we know about the history of alcohol that simply aren't true, but we've been conditioned into believing them by rhetoric from the anti-alcohol and pro-alcohol movements and industries.

"Alcohol is a fact around which are created myths, and those myths themselves then become powerful facts."

With the 90th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition upon us, let's use that as an example. The Gin Craze in eighteenth century England was really really bad, but nothing has touched alcohol abuse as much as America in the 1830's. This is when the US was at 18 liters per capita in consumption, whiskey was cheaper than tea and coffee, and there certainly was fair enough grounds for a temperance movement to grow. At first this movement was just against distilled spirits, but the conditions in the 1830's lead it to be against any alcohol at all, such as beer and wine

Fast forward 90 years, with many events and individual state prohibitions in between, what was a valid movement against a very real problem had become the myth that all alcohol consumption is evil and the cause of all of mankind's woes, which is simply not true but many still believe. This all lead to the US national Prohibition. Over the next decade and beyond, the anti-Prohibitionists blamed speakeasies and organized crime and bootlegging on Prohibition, and even though those existed long before Prohibition, this is rhetoric we still believe. Fascinatingly, calling alcoholism a disease started in the 1800's but faded in the early 1900's... but then it was revived by the anti-Prohibitionists to say "hey, it's not the alcohol that's the problem, it's YOU!"

"With intoxication, there is the supposed removal of decent civilizing restraint when those centres (autonomic nervous system) are anaesthetized by alcohol and the more primitive parts of the brain are allowed to take over control of the behavior. Often there seems to be more of a metaphor than of brain science in this kind of theory."

So yes, the book explains how facts turn into myth and then myth into facts as we know them, and it does it very well with each topic it touches.

Alcohol is basically a book about "to-drink-or-not-to-drink", a history of alcohol dependency and abuse, and then even recovery. So while it claims to be neither for or against the consumption of alcohol, and it proves that many times by staying with facts and keeping opinions in the grey area, the outcome of everything that it discusses weighs heavily on the downside of drinking over the upside. Honestly, that's where that facts go in science and history. (Drunk goes into how important drinking is to our social needs as humans, but still comes to the same conclusion in physical health costs.)

Thus, it is a very powerful book for those who need to quit, want to quit, struggling to be sober, or successful in sobriety.

It can be anyone. "... proneness to develop alcohol dependence does not have any single master explanation to cover every individual. It is not a matter of some people being doomed to alcohol dependence by their genes while the rest of us drink with impunity. And for any one individual no simple causal explanation is likely to suffice."

Read More

Book Review: "All Our Broken Idols" by Paul Cooper

This book has nothing to do with wine (I believe alcohol is only mentioned maybe twice), but it was so good that I just had to share. As a huge fan of history, I was listening to the Fall of Civilizations Podcast's episode about Assyria when at the end the host, Paul Cooper, mentioned he wrote a novel that takes place during the reign of Ashurbanipal. So of course, I had to get it.

All Our Broken Idols actually takes place in the same place but in two different times. Yes, one story takes place in ancient Ninevah in the 640's BCE, but the other takes place in modern Mosul in 2014 CE.

In the ancient story, Aurya is the main character. She's a teenager living in an Assyrian village. It appears to me that her older brother has some form of autism; he literally remembers everything, every little detail about every moment, goes into sensory overload quite often, and is a gifted artist. When their father suddenly dies (I won't tell you how) just before he was to sell a huge rock to King Ashurbanipal, they travel with the King and his men to the city of Ninevah to start anew.

In the modern day story, Katya is the main character. She's a 26 year old archeobiologist, meaning she's an archeologist who specializes in plants (very important in archeology). Her father was from Iraq and moved to England where he met her mother. But he was a reporter and about 10 years earlier he went back to Iraq to report on the conflicts there, and he never came back. Rather than going to Greece for a site to work at, she chose the ruins of Ninevah to search for her roots and possibly her father. And if you were paying attention to world events back then, you know what happened to Mosul back in 2014.

The writing and storytelling is wonderful, and the two stories intertwine beautifully, culminating together perfectly. I ripped through this book so quick it's not even funny because I couldn't put it down. Highly HIGHLY recommended.

Read More

Book Review: Wine Economics by Stefano Castriota

I was sent this book to review in December of 2020, just after one very difficult event in my life and just before another. Needless to say, I never got around to reading it until now.

Wine Economics was originally written in Italian, and later translated into English by and for the use of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in 2020, with the addition of bringing the United States' Prohibition into discussion. I'm not sure when the original Italian version was printed, but none of the studies referenced or data given in the book took place after 2016. Being almost 4 years old (or older) there are just a few things that are probably a little out of date now but no big deal as they're still relevant. There is one that will give you a chuckle, though: When it states that there couldn't be a new adult beverage genre that could hurt sales of all other existing adult beverages, it clearly didn't see the canned cocktail craze coming.

Wine Economics covers EVERYTHING in, well, wine economics. From the vineyard, to the winery, to the consumer. It includes important things that need to be understood in the wine world, such as why prices will keep going up as the temperature does from climate change, the profound universal impact of cooperatives in every industry, how rapid increasing of appellations could cause consumer confusion, and even the benefits of local vineyards for people who do not drink.

It is very much a university textbook, so be prepared for reference names and years very, very often. Certain parts of the book were hard for me to get through, with my ADHD, because of this distraction occurring so often. Also, there are a lot of graphs and none of them made a lick of sense to me. Numbers and graphs are not the kind of smart I am.

"For every company that records very heavy losses, there is another that makes huge profits."

What is completely fascinating about this book is that it breaks down things in way that other wine books do not. When it talks about New World vs Old World, it just doesn't talk about style or laws. It breaks down, at length, the differences of production, distribution, company structure, marketing, and consumption, as well.

Because this is Wine Economics book, it isn't trying get you to have an opinion on something or make you believe in one side of something. It's simply stating facts, and it points out a lot of conflicting studies when it needs to be said there is a real reason for not having full evidence of something. Studies are so inconsistent on whether or not heavy investments in quality lead to actual higher profits, that it might not. There is less money invested in making an ocean of swill, and its sold for less, but it sells more. Apparently the only investments consistent for higher profit is aging, advertising, and promotion.

Also, take alcohol abuse, for example. There is no evidence that alcohol abuse is more prevalent with the poor and/or unemployed than the rich and/or employed because studies are always so different. It could be that the rich and/or employed have the means and tools to hide alcohol abuse better. But it also nails down consistent studies that leave no doubt of their accuracy, such as alcohol abuse is much higher in newly legal consumers and the elderly than those aged between.

This book is not for everybody. As I said, it is very much a university textbook with a lot of information and ZERO personality in its narration. But boy, did I learn a lot about things that I didn't even know that I wanted to know with all that information. The amount of research on statistics and studies done to make this book is staggering.

"Building a reputation requires significant short-term investments to obtain long-term returns."

Here's a list of things included in Wine Economics that I thought were worth mentioning:

Chapters 1-2: Costliness of consumption trends to wineries, concentration of varieties due to globalization, wine publicity's focus on higher quality win instead of the more produced and consumed jug and bulk wine, why wine prices will increase as the temperature does with climate change, grape growing contracts with wineries, how prices are established

Chapters 3-4: Porter's five forces of the wine sector (threat of new entrants, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of substitute products or services, rivalry among existing competitors), the structure of different forms of wine companies and their motivations, the profound universal impact of cooperatives in every industry (and how their existence has been ignored in education since McCarthyism), the innovation boost of industrial clusters

Chapters 5-6: big statistical study break-downs on if investments in wine collecting are are actually worth it, wine auctions, winery stocks, risk insurance for damage and currency, investment theory (there is all sorts of calculus-like formulas here and I have no idea what the heck is going on), collective and individual brand reputation, institutional reputation with explanation of European classification systems, problems with Italy's system, rapid increasing of appellations creating consumer confusion, studies on social capital of communities

Chapters 7-8: externality consequences and solutions for wine producers and consumers, the benefits of vineyards for those who do no drink wine, benefits of moderate consumptions (such as reduction of risk of cardiovascular disease), damage from abuse (physical and mental health, work, suicide, accidents, violence, cost in society), combating and preventing abuse, services like Uber may have increased alcohol abuse and bar employment, taxation of alcohol, USA's three-tiered system, the unlikely team-work of alcohol distributors and anti-alcohol movements (joining together to fight free distribution)

Read More

Book Review: "Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization" by Edward Slingerland

Just by going back into the articles on this blog, it should be no secret to you that I'm a huge science and history geek. But I'm especially geeky about evolution and the cosmos. I've delved into so much Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Richard Dawkins that it's ridiculous. Clearly, I'm also a wine geek, so when you combine those things together I'M IN!!!

I saw Drunk while browsing Barnes & Noble one day, trying not to lose my six year old and making sure the books my thirteen year old wanted were appropriate. I was like "Cool! A history of our drunk asses! SOLD!" but it was not like what I was expecting. Rather than accounts throughout history on our said drunken asses, this book asks the question:

How has evolution not eliminated our enjoyment of getting drunk? It's clearly harmful to your organs, leaves you with awful hangovers, and is a very common cause of death around the world, so you'd think those who refrained from booze for whatever reason would produce more offspring, and through evolution we'd have some reaction that would stop us from consuming ethanol. 

But this book goes through it all from the very beginning, and it goes deep into who we truly are as a species. How our primate lineage and instincts mixed with our worker-ant mentality and societies butt heads within our heads often, and because of this we need to shut down our prefrontal cortex to open up our creativity and inspirations.

Drinking and dancing together at the ancient ceremony or local pub builds trust and creates friendships. This has made the act of community drinking an important part of the human experience, and lead to the great ideas and progress we have made throughout history.

But the book also goes into a relatively new threat: the rise of ABV in wine (from 5% average to 12% average) and beer (we're seeing it get even bigger now with craft beer), the creation of distilled spirits (allowing you to get sloshed very quickly), and the ability to completely isolate ones self (drinking alone). Is this why evolution hasn't done anything about alcoholism yet? Is this drastic change to the alcohol we consume, the advancement of our technology, and social changes too new? And if we keep going in the direction we are, will evolution react?

At one point he wonders if there should be a different legal age for buying and consuming distilled spirits than wine and beer, and to me that completely makes sense. An earlier age for the lower ABV products of beer and wine would create a greater appreciation and respect for drinking, and there would be less abuse when the brain is developed enough for distilled spirits. For defending this, he uses the drinking cultures of southern Europe vs northern Europe.

Slingerland sticks up for the community pub and believes it's worth a hit to the liver to enjoy yourself, because if you can't enjoy yourself and your friends and be merry, then what do you have? But he takes a step back... well, many steps back and then moves closer and closer to a step back, to really analyze what's going on with us and our love of intoxication. He sees it through the eyes of both Spock and Kirk, and he's great at it.

I recommend this book to all the science, history, and wine geeks out there. It will reel you in and not let go until you're done.

Read More

Book Review: "Fermentation as Metaphor" by Sandor Ellix Katz

"Just as people can project irrational fear of bacteria upon fermentation, people can project any number of irrational fears of contamination by the other upon the race/nation/culture."

Sandor Ellix Katz is obsessed with fermentation. He experiments with it, he writes about it, he takes pictures of it, he teaches about it. In his book "Fermentation as Metaphor" he not only goes into some of the science of fermentation, but sees the act of fermentation in human society and culture.

As he states, and I'm paraphrasing, things don't change effectively by fire. That burns everything down. It takes a slow fermentation, a "bubbling up", to make cultural changes and form social behavior. Actual fermentation breaks down nutrients into more accessible forms. Metaphorical fermentation breaks down the old and creates the new. He connects this to politics, religious beliefs, general ideas, racism, climate change, overuse of sterilization in everyday life, and even the differing ideas of purity. And it's all done in an intricate, detailed way that keeps you reading and doesn't lose you at any point.

This isn't a woo-woo magic/spiritual book, it's based on science, but this might sound just like that to some: One part of this book that I really connected to was the idea of emotional composting. Where you can turn your negative emotions into creating positive ones. Rather than suppressing these terrible things, you embrace and accept them, you cry about them and let them out, and then you use them as motivation to turn it all around. That's what I did to get through something that hit me pretty hard a few years ago, and left me with some pretty effective trauma. I was able to ferment all of that into improving and getting away from it. I now have a term to use for how I got through it all.

With 50 beautiful photographs of fermentation taken using microscopes, this is a beautiful book in both its visuals and its words. It's 108 short pages (many of them photography) and you can finish it easily in one sitting. I highly recommend that you do so.

"Fermentation is a force that cannot be controlled, and the changes it renders are not always desirable."

Read More

Book Review: Eastern Promise by Peter Stafford-Bow

"I was tempted to suggest that anyone who reduced a living wine - its relationship with its terroir, the stage of its development in its decades-long life, the conditions prevailing at the moment of consumption, not to mention the company in which it was consumed - to a single numerical score, was a tedious, innumerate fool."

Eastern Promise is the fourth book in the Felix Hart series by Peter Stafford-Bow, and let me start off by saying that I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of these books. Corkscrew started things off back in 2017, recording Felix's rise into the wine trade, becoming a Minstrel of Wine, and going on a series of ridiculously hilarious adventures. Brut Force expands on his Minstrel duties while continuing to have Felix running around to save his own life. Firing Blancs was the first to be based on one location; South Africa. While the first two books were fun, hilarious, and definitely must-reads, Firing Blancs is where you could see Peter really coming into his own as story teller.

In the fourth installment, Eastern Promise, Peter continues that trend. Not only is this just a well-written story, it is definitely the wittiest of all four of the books and is very hard to put down. I finished it in just a few nights, staying up much later than I probably should have, and I cannot tell you how many times I literally laughed out loud. The character of Felix Hart is a treasure, and the world that Peter has build around him is quite brilliant.

You'll never think of elephant seals the same again. Trust me.

So what has Felix gotten himself into this time? Well, of course Sandra from Paris-Blois has coaxed him into doing something he doesn't want to do. This time it's for 1 million US dollars to raid a counterfeit wine scheme in Hong Kong! Although the year is not given, it appears that this all occurs during the later stages of the COVID lockdown, as many travel bans and safety measures (such as masks) have been pulled except for in Asia, where these things are as strict as ever.

As straight-forward as steal-a-fake-bottle-and-run sounds, things aren't really as they seem. And it's made even more difficult when the new idiot CEO of Gatesave fires Felix from his wine buyer job, and he becomes the bathroom accessories buyer instead! However, it turns out that this big screw up becomes a savior move for Felix. And it's a good thing that Felix was enlisted for this mission, because it's going to take a shifty thinker and a lot of screwing up to bring down these bad guys!

This is such a great book, and I highly recommend that every wine lover with a sense of humor reads the whole series. You will not be disappointed.

Oh, one last thing... In my Firing Blancs review I mentioned that Peter is really good at writing American tourists. Well, in this book he proves he's really good at writing modern business jargon. Those CEO and consultant meetings were tooooorttttttuuuuuure.

"On Sunday, if things didn't quite go to plan, my bloated corpse would be fished from a paddy field irrigation ditch somewhere up the Pearl River Delta, and by Monday, all going well, I'd be back in Britain, awaiting my own postmortem. Assuming, that is, there was enough of my cadaver left to examine once the flesh-eating wildlife of Guangdong had finished with it."

THE FELIX HART SERIES

Book 1: Corkscrew (reviewed 1/8/17)

Book 2: Brut Force (review 12/18/18)

Book 3: Firing Blancs (reviewed 12/3/20)

Book 4:  Eastern Promise (reviewed 7/9/23)

Read More

Book Review: Dragonvine by Steven Laine

Back in 2019 I reviewed a book by Steven Laine called Root Cause and enjoyed the crap out of it. So here I am with his newest novel called Dragonvine. This review won't be as long and detailed as the last one, as life is still chaotic while I try and get back to posting here regularly.

Let's cut right to the chase: I FRIGGIN' LOVED IT! My favorite thing about this book is the idea of the main characters. Two of them are here right now in the present and really couldn't be any more different. The other couldn't be any different from them... and he's in ancient China!

So the plot goes like this: Carmine Cooper is a young man in his early 20's who loses his father in a wildfire and he suddenly has to take over his father's California vineyards and winery. But his dad left this world with a lot of debt when he purchased new winemaking machinery a few years back, so Carmine's in some financial trouble right off the bat. Jessica Lung runs the Chinese mob in San Francisco with her twin brother. She's a total badass. A series of events leads her to get into the wine counterfeiting business, and she starts looking for winemakers that have no choice but to cooperate. Wuju is the king's physician and his story starts in 235 BC China. His king is looking for the elixir of life, and while others believe that to be in mercury, Wuju believes it can be found in wine.

By the way, one of Carmine's vineyard plots is planted with a mystery varietal that they assume is Syrah. But what is it really? All of this ties together wonderfully.

Again, I FRIGGIN' LOVED IT! Grab this book, open a bottle of wine, and relax with some Tai Chi music like I did. You will not regret it!

Read More

Book Review: "The Terroir of Whiskey" by Rob Arnold

"Its origin, its heritage, its history. The identity is inextricable from the people who made it and the place that made them."

Rob Arnold is a master distiller and this is a book about his journey to find terroir in whiskey. We're not just talking about whiskey here though, because the fire that is ignited in his question can be traced back to the source of the idea. To see if there is terroir in whiskey, first Rob must grab the concept of terroir itself. And where does the idea of terroir come from and shine through the best? Wine!

Yes, this book has plenty to do with wine but it is still a whiskey book. So after Rob has experienced what terroir truly means and how it's expressed through grapes and its fermented juice, it's now time to see if terroir can be expressed in whiskey. We were always told that whiskey is about the water from where it's from, but what about grains? Can they have terroir too? And can terroir make it through saccharification, then fermentation, and then still show itself after distillation? Finding these answers is a much taller order than you think it is.

The grain farming industry is very, very different than the grape growing industry. Grapes grown for wine have been all about their place of origin for hundreds of years, where as grains have always just been about getting the most yield. The vast majority of grain are gathered from all over the place and put through grain elevators and then distributed out to all sorts of different businesses, whether they make bread, animal feed, beer, or whiskey. So how do you narrow it down? How do you research whether or not grains like rye, barley, and corn can take in a true sense of place and then express it after distillation?

"Wine and bourbon may look and taste different, but there is an impressive overlap between the chemical compounds that make up their flavors."

Rob has a scientific mind so he uses the scientific approach a lot, which as a man of science I appreciate and respect. For those who are not so much into chemistry but still interested in Rob's experiences and findings, I would certainly do a little research into the chemistry of wine and spirits first. There is going to be plenty of times that big words are going to be confusing and honestly wear you down here. Although I'm a science enthusiast who has done plenty of reading on chemistry, especially in the alcohol industry, this went over my head A LOT!

That said, it's not all about lab work, chemical compounds, and peer reviewed studies. There are plenty of down-to-earth, hit-home moments to go around. The feeling of sense of place, his experiences of actually being there, and taking in terroir through his own human senses are prominent too.

I learned a hell of a lot from this book. For example, it never occurred to me that yeasts create alcohol as an evolutionary trait to protect themselves from harmful microbes. But I'm not going to lie: there were some parts that I impulsively wanted to make corrections when it came to wine. However, the dude is a master distiller and clearly smarter than me when it comes to the sciencing so I'm absolutely taking his word on everything else. It's quite the interesting read and I recommend it.

"Here I was, in the middle of rural Ireland, drinking tea, eating scones with fresh butter, and drinking whiskey made from barley grown not more than a hundred yards from where I was sitting. And I was enjoying it with the farmer himself, basking in his pride. It was the expression of a very specific place."

Read More

Book Review: "Firing Blancs" by Peter Stafford-Bow

Felix Hart is at it again in the third installment of Peter Stafford-Bow's wine fiction adventure novels. You may already know that I love these books and I love Peter as a writer, but I have to say... this one is my favorite so far!

I also have to apologize to Peter, directly after kissing his arse, because I should have done this book review A LONG time ago. But there has been a lot going on with family and work and etc, so it took me quite a bit to not only read the book but to also get my act together to write about it!

Read More

The New Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia

This huuuuuge book by Tom Stevenson and National Geographic is now my new favorite reference book. I'm not even exaggerating a little bit here. I plan to grab this thing first when I need to look something up. And it's not just because I just want an excuse to smell it, because my goodness it does have a GREAT "new book smell" to it.

The whole thing is well written, loaded with great information, and has easy to read maps. It looks like not one subregion is left untouched, and it's done in such a way that you feel like you aren't being overloaded with information.

Even with all those things, being a history nerd my favorite section is the Chronology of wine. Ten pages of a straight-up timeline focusing on important events in wine from all over the world. I still haven't sat down and just read the whole chronology through, but I intend to and can't wait.

This book is awesome, man. It's going to claim the spot for my go-to reference book by my desk for awhile. Go get it, wine geeks! BUY IT HERE!

Read More

Book Review: Root Cause by Steven Laine

Author Steven Laine is a native of Ontario, Canada, and he built his career in the luxury hotel business. But it wasn't until he was working in London that his love of wine was discovered. From there he's been to vineyards and wineries all over the world. This is his third novel, but his first rooted on his love of wine.

"Like music, wine is infinite in its variety and manifestations. It plays a central role in history, is global, ubiquitous, and appeals to a myriad of tastes."

The main character is Corvina Guerra, a flying winemaker who works for a large conglomerate. She's the daughter of a Spanish mother and an Italian father, who is a winemaker and vineyard owner in Piedmont, Italy. It should be pointed out that Corvina is an Italian grape variety (although mostly planted in Veneto, which is eastern Italy, instead of Piedmont, which is western Italy). Her cheating husband has left her. She's obsessed with scarves. At first I was like “what is up with this chick and her scarves?” but it honesty didn't take long for me to find it endearing and legitimately wanted to know what pattern and colors her scarf had that day. She's a lovable and sympathetic character that plays both the "straight-man" and emotional role very well when needed.

Bryan Lawless is a wine blogger that was kicked out of Master of Wine contention for sleeping with one of the judges, and he spends his days exposing the uglier side of the industry. When we first meet him, he's purposefully breaking a bottle at a wine auction to prove that it's counterfeit. And we really get to see the cunning and observance of his character when he sits in a restaurant and points out to the manager how his staff is taking advantage of him and the business. Corvina is going to need his problem solving skills and his redemption desperation.

Read More

Book Review: "Brut Force" by Peter Stafford-Bow

The wines are quite open; they have clearly been aerated.

If you've read this book then you understand that quote. If you haven't read this book then you should. Felix Hart is back! It's been two years since I reviewed Corkscrew: The highly improbable, but occasionally true, tale of a professional wine buyer, and I am really excited that there's a sequel! This one is called Brut Force: The further, staggering adventures of a professional wine buyer.

I absolutely loved Corkscrew. It's one of the funniest (and funnest) novels that I have ever read, with no exaggeration. But Corkscrew covered Felix's rise into the business and becoming a Minstrel of Wine, and it was mostly a collection of fun adventures that came together in the end.

Brut Force is more structured, and it's focused on a main plot from the very beginning with adventure in its subplots, although with less wilderness and wildlife. And things get very serious for Felix, as his life is on the line from one major threat for the vast majority of the story. So even though Brut Force doesn't have as many outrageously ridiculous moments as Corkscrew, it's the better book. Peter is clearly growing as a writer.

It's been two years since Felix became a Minstrel of Wine, and now it's time for him to decide which House he'll join. Would he choose House Archevist, House Terroirist, House Mercantilist, or House Hedonist? If you know anything about Felix than you know that House Hedonist is the House for him. But his plans have to be changed against his will, just like many things are about to happen against his will. Like, spoiler alert, almost being drowned in a wine barrel.

Read More

Book Review: Wine Folly, The Master Guide (Magnum Edition) by Madeline Puckette and Justin Hammack

I've been wine blogging for awhile now. I've seen other wine blogs come and go. Many of my favorite ones, with writers who thought so differently and/or offered so much more than the rest of us, faded off within the first six months of their existence. I've even seen my own blog right here go from having original memes and monthly long-read articles about the history and science of wine be reduced to just reviews for almost the entirety of 2018 (hey, it's temporary) because of that pesky thing called "real life".

But right from the beginning there was something special about WineFolly.com. You could see it clear as day. This was something that was going to shake the foundation of wine education. There was the original art, the phrasing, the ability to connect to the reader. And... the decision-making that readers don't have to think about but bloggers do; release dates, the length of the read, keeping blinders on the topic, and when to hold back certain things for another post in the future. This was the real deal. And it was awesome right from the start.

Read More

Book Review: Adventures with Old Vines, A Beginner's Guide to Being a Wine Connoisseur by Richard L. Chilton Jr.

Richard L. Chilton Jr. is a co-owner of Hourglass Vineyard and he has a strong opinion on the definition of a connoisseurship. He says that it’s “the art of tasting wine: pulling the cork, savoring the delight, recording the experience, and comparing the differences between wines of different regions, varietals, and countries.” Maybe you love wine but you’re really more of a collector instead, where obtaining great wine is your main objective. Maybe you love wine but you’re the average consumer, buying what you already know you like the same day you’re going to drink it.

I guess I wouldn’t be considered a connoisseur because, yeah I love tasting and analyzing wine, but I’m driven by theory, history and being as knowledgeable as I can be for my clients. I’m not all that interested in being able to taste the differences between a 1993 Napa Cab and a 1994 Napa Cab.

With his definition in mind, Chilton began writing this book with the intention of both helping new connoisseurs find their way and helping old connoisseurs remember where they came from. What he ended up writing was 49 pages that every wine lover would truly enjoy reading, and another 219 pages that every wine lover should have on their bookshelf for when they need it.

Read More

Book Review: Wine & War by Don and Petie Kladstrup

"To be a Frenchman means to fight for your country and its wine." - André Terrail

The problem with an addictive quick read is that you're done with it that much faster because you couldn't put the damn thing down. Then you're sad when you've finished in just a few days. That's exactly what Wine & War will do to you. And because I really want you to read this quick read (248 pages), I'm making this review a quick read as well. I'll tell you some cool things to perk your interest and then dip out! Get the damn book!

Authors Don and Petie Kladstrup talked to survivors of the World War II Nazi occupation of France and put their stories together in this book. They all went through different experiences and hardships, but the one thing all of these people have in common was wine.

The Hugel's of Alsace, the Drouin's of Burgundy, the Taittinger's of Champagne, and many many more.

Despite the Germans believing that the French had the strongest army in the world, the leaders of France and its military were so scarred from the loss of young men that they experienced in the First World War that they decided on a deal to be occupied rather than go through that horror again. When the Germans rolled in, however, the wine people went to work.

They hid their most prized wines immediately, knowing that the Germans would take them and, more importantly, not appreciate them. They built walls in their cellars, closing in the wines behind them, and had their children collect spiders so they'd spin webs to make the wall look older. Dust from old carpets were collected to put on cheap bottles to make them appear rare.

"Generals rarely have the power to build, they more often have the power to destroy." - Pierre Taittinger to General Dietrich von Choltitz

The first thing that Nazi leader Hermann Goering did in Paris, right at the very beginning of occupation, was drive to a famous restaurant to drink a famous vintage, only to be told they were sold out. After checking their cellar, he found that they were telling the truth. Only they weren't telling the truth, and the vintage was hiding behind a wall only feet away.

Once the occupation was better organized, a system was put into place for winemakers to sell their wine to the Germans. The chapter on the Weinfuhrers, who negotiated with the winemakers, is probably my favorite.

And that's not all. Not by a long shot. Vineyards and houses were taken over by the Germans for their own uses. The famous Haut-Brion in Bordeaux was turned into a rifle range. One vineyard owner spread rat droppings all over her house so the Germans wouldn't take it; and it worked. Other families hid their Jewish friends. With copper being taken by the Nazi's, a young man turned his barn into a chemistry lab to try and create copper sulfate to apply to vineyards.

Their lives were rough, although easier in some places. Goering said that the French could live off of 1,200 calories a day. That's half the calories that you need to survive. For the elderly it was only 850 calories. France was literally starving. And those calories included the wine that had always been so important to the French.

"What helped a lot was the wine. As the food grew scarcer, we drank more and more of it. Occasionally on Saturday evenings, we would buy ten or twelve bottles of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Hermitage, Mercurey, Moulin-à-Vent, Julienas, Chambertin, Bonnes Mares or Musigny and have an evening of drinking and singing." - Verian Fry

One of the greatest stories here is about a Prisoner of War concentration camp for French officers that blackmailed their Nazi captors into allowing them to have a wine dinner. The wine dinner turned into a two week celebration of the wines of France, leading up to everybody getting just a few ounces of wine at the main event dinner. That story in itself is worth picking this book up.

I could go on and on about all the great moments in the book but I'm going to stop right there before I even get to the liberation.

The Kladstrup's did an amazing job in telling these people's stories, and organizing them in a way to form one overall successive one. It's simply an amazing read. If you're any fan of wine, or if you're any fan of history, you absolutely must read Wine & War.

BUY WINE & WAR HERE!

Read More

Book Review: "Corkscrew" by Peter Stafford-Bow

Who was idiot enough to make a wine like this? It had to be French.

Peter Stafford-Bow is a pen name, and after reading this book you'll understand why. He could very easily piss some people off. Corksrew is subtitled "The highly improbable, but occasionally true, tale of a professional wine buyer". He pulls no punches on the wine trade industry and retail industry of England, and I'm sure it's not hard for some to figure out who he's really talking about.

Corkscrew is also one of the funniest novels I've ever read. Peter has a genius wit and a subtle humor that made me break out in laughter constantly, getting strange looks from my wife. Who doesn't love it when an expression is compared to "that of a treasure hunter unearthing a foil-wrapped turd"?

I'm going to give you a run down of how it starts, and a little more so you know what the book is about. If you don't want any spoilers, then I suggest you do not read any further.

Felix Hart, the main character of Corkscrew, is a charismatic and highly intelligent young man with a love of drinking and a gift for dropping panties. His hard partying lifestyle leads him to become the first person with his prestigious scholarship to be kicked out of college. Seeking advice, he visits with his favorite professor who gives him an herbal African concoction called Madame Joubert's Lekker Medisyne Trommel. When added to water, it's a performance enhancer that revitalizes your senses and focus. He's also told that if he wants to travel the world and continue to party, then he should become a wine merchant.

"Kumal! Get my shotgun!"
"Very good, sir."
I had a terrible sense that things were slipping out of control. 

After his boss at a wine shop dies while taking a dump, Felix is promoted as the manager for another store of the chain in Little Chalfont. There he finds that the living quarters given to him by the company was inhabited by squatters, which apparently have some pretty damn good rights in England. Felix earns his way into living with these hippy squatters; Wodin, Mercedes and Fistule. All three would have important parts to play later on in the book.

On the mid-palate, with the help of Madame Joubert's Lekker Medisyne Trommel, Felix climbs the ladder of wine management at Gatesave. The key to one of these promotions is to become a Minstrel of Wine. Earning this certification includes classes that weed out unworthy students almost every time. There's no spitting allowed when tasting during these classes, and if you show you're too intoxicated or can't perform and answer questions then you've "sinned against the gods" and are kicked out. One of the two main events of the book is the final test for the certification, and it's fascinating. I could not put it down.

This book has everything. The wine geekiness secretes the pages. He travels to places like Bulgaria and South Africa in search for wine. But there's also sex appeal as he tries to bed almost every woman that he comes in contact with, and then there's an old man's penis in sparkling rosé. There's also several animal attacks (ostriches, leopards, cows), illegal refugees, drug deals, wacky protesters, the mob, and a few rather disturbing deaths.

On the finish, there's a brilliant display of chaos that ties Felix's entire life story together. I honestly didn't want this book to end. I wanted to stay in the apartment with Felix, Wodin, Mercedes and Fistule. I grew very fond of these characters and would like to see them again.

In conclusion, Corkscrew has to be on the must-read list for any wine lover. YOU CAN EVEN BUY IT HERE:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CCFW82L/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thewinsta-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B07CCFW82L&linkId=76656bed06fc824e6c6d42413fe5a547

"Corks are for cunts," - Van Blerk on screwcaps

THE FELIX HART SERIES

Book 1: Corkscrew (reviewed 1/8/17)

Book 2: Brut Force (review 12/18/18)

Book 3: Firing Blancs (reviewed 12/3/20)

Book 4:  Eastern Promise (reviewed 7/9/23)

Read More

"In every sip taken in the present, we drink in the past"

"For eight thousand years, vines clutching the earth have thrust themselves upward towards the sun and given us juicy berries, and ultimately wine. In every sip taken in the present, we drink in the past - the moment in time when those berries were picked; a moment gone but  recaptured - and so vivid that our bond with nature is welded deep." - Karen MacNeil, The Wine Bible

Read More

Book Review: "PROOF: The Science of Booze" by Adam Rogers

Good morning, sunshine! You are so screwed.

The light coming in through the window is so... there. You'd kill for a glass of water and die if it came with food. Your guts are in full rebellion; whatever happens next is going to happen in the bathroom. And for some reason you can't remember how to read the clock next to your bed, even though you used to be able to do it relatively easily, you're sure.

You have at least a couple of the following symptoms: headache, malaise, diarrhea, loss of appetite, the shakes, fatique, and nausea. You might also be dehydrated, and feel generally slow - a little stupider, a little less coordinated. You, my friend, have a hangover.

Scientists have a more inscrutable name for it: veisalgia, from the Greek word for "pain", algia, and kveis, a Norwegian word meaning "uneasiness following debauchery". That sounds about right.

Adam Rogers, PROOF: The Science of Booze

During the summer we went on a family trip to the Museum of Science in Boston. My daughter had a blast. She loved the butterfly room and all the activities that they have there to get kids interested in how the world works. She loved watching a scene from one of the Ice Age movies in 3D. (Although I think it's a load of crap that it's from the one where dinosaurs were still alive. I know it's a kids movie where animals talk, but c'mon. You're the Museum of Science! Make it from the one where they save the little human, not dinosaurs.)

Nobody had more fun than me. There's so much cool stuff from the Apollo missions that I was in awe. I need to go back, preferably by myself, so I can take it all in without feeling rushed. When we hit the gift shop at the end I poked around. I picked up a t-shirt with Albert Einstein's quote “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”, which I wear regularly on my YouTube channel.

Then I saw this book called PROOF: The Science of Booze. I had to have it. It turns out it was one of the best purchases I've ever made in alcohol education literature.

Read More