Legs Up With a Book and a Drink

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More from Miscellaneous

Wine reading from ancient Rome to the Pacific Northwest

Posted: April 30, 2002



		*Featured Books:*

		Love by the Glass: Tasting Notes from a Marriage

		Vinum: The Story of Roman Wine

		Hic! or the Entire History of Wine (Abridged),

		Chalone: A Journey on the Wine Frontier

		The Winemaker's Marsh: Four Seasons in a Restored Wetland

		How To Taste: A Guide to Enjoying Wine

		Brunello to Zibibbo: The Wines of Tuscany, Central and Southern Italy

		Vino Italiano

		Wines of the Pacific Northwest

		*Related links:*

		New Standards and Revamped Mainstays Original books and reissues for every wine library

Wine is a way of looking at life, and books about wine are as diverse as the people who write them. Wine Spectator has reviewed nine newly published wine books whose diversity of subject matter and approach makes it easy for any wine lover to find a compatible passion.

Several of the books qualify as primers. Let New York restaurateur Joe Bastianich introduce you to the wines of Italy, or English expert Jancis Robinson guide you in the effort to learn how to taste. The rest study wine from different vantage points: a humorous "history" of wine; a conservationist enraptured by a winemaker's marsh; the inspiring story of a successful winery startup.

There's a little bit of everything in this batch. Proof that, when it comes to writing about wine, there's a book for almost every reader.

-- Matthew DeBord

Love by the Glass: Tasting Notes from a Marriage, by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher (Villard, 2002, $24.95, 324 pages, hardcover)

Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher write a weekly wine column called "Tastings," which appears in The Wall Street Journal's "Weekend" section. Their commingled musings -- and their 23-year marriage -- offer living proof that wine is a means to enduring amour.

Their chipper little memoir begins with the couple's early dating days in Miami (when they were both on the staff of The Miami Herald), then traces the evolution of both their unshakable fidelity and their swelling passion for wine. A conceit they have hauled over from their column is to mold each chapter around a significant bottle. The highlights run a remarkable gamut, from Mateus to Château d'Yquem, skillfully mirroring the advancement of the American palate. The two shuttle between marquee journalistic posts in Florida and New York, all the while upping their enthusiasm for wine. There are fertility frustrations and cancer scares, romantic train trips and concerts in Central Park. There is Chardonnay and Champagne. It all coalesces enviably. The Journal column isn't even the crowning achievement. That's something far superior: the culmination of lives devotedly shared.

The couple's self-congratulatory tendencies can be a bit much, however. We hear their personal toast -- "To your face," says Dottie; "To your bottom," replies John -- once or twice too often. The tasting notes mentioned in the subtitle stray far from useful descriptions (a 1974 Christian Brothers Cab has a "walk-to-the-table fruit/oak taste"). But it doesn't really matter, because Gaiter and Brecher are not aiming to please the hard-core or the hard-hearted; they are substantially more invested in soft-focus reassurance, with wine as their hazy delivery system. You don't argue with it; you curl up inside it. And in doing so -- hitched or not -- you join the happy club.

-- M.D.

Vinum: The Story of Roman Wine, by Stuart J. Fleming (Art Flair, 2001, $38, 144 pages, hardcover)

When you get right down to it, who isn't interested in ancient Rome? Gladiator's best picture Oscar last year was just the latest installment in an ongoing popular fascination with the greatest empire in history. Stuart J. Fleming adds a little something extra to the imperial pageant: a brief, but well-documented and attractively produced history of Rome's love for wine.

Romans at every stratum of society relished the glories of the grape, from slaves fermenting a vinegary quaff to wealthy elites debating the proper ratio by which to dilute their wines with water. "Along with grain and olive oil," Fleming maintains, wine was "the backbone of the Roman economy." The story of Roman wine is thus presented as a parallel to Roman expansion, from the second century B.C. to the seventh century. As Rome prospered and the empire swelled, so Roman wine spread across what was then the known world. As Rome declined, so declined the vineyards that Rome had inspired, nurtured and protected.

Fleming, a physicist and archeologist who specializes in radiation dating of artifacts, covers plenty of ground in this engaging volume. He's aided in his odyssey by numerous quotes from classical sources and by lots of full-color charts, photographs and maps. Although his study does not carry a major publisher's stamp of approval, it represents a valuable effort to fill in some important historical blanks. A worthy addition to the wine reference shelf.

-- M.D.

Hic! or the Entire History of Wine (Abridged), by Julian Curry; illustrations by Chris Duggan (Vinum Bonum, 2001, currently available only in the U.K., 68 pages, paperback)

It is possible to get lost in a wine book, but not this one. I timed myself: twenty minutes, from cover to cover. Is this a bad thing? It is not. Because Julian Curry, a British stage and television actor -- and amateur wine commentator -- continues a long trend in English wine writing: He's funny. This dashed-off little volume (it was originally performed on stage) offers a better guffaws-per-page ratio than you're likely to find in more sincere and comprehensive books.

Curry loosely structures his brief history of wine around a single bottle of German steinwein from 1540. "What on earth will it be like?" Curry asks. The answer comes about 15 minutes and 50 pages later. "Feeble, but quite definitely alive." This sounds like not terribly much to build a history, even an abridged one, around. But don't sell Curry short. In a text that makes copious use of quotes from Shakespeare and Keats, among others, he provides brisk, hilarious summaries of the development of Champagne, Bordeaux and Port (this last described as "a drink for crusty old farts"). There's enough info contained here to fake your way, very ably, through all but the snootiest wine tastings.

Best of all, Curry understands that the story of wine carries plenty of saucy connotations. He never scrimps on the naughty details. "Wine and sex, it's a rich vein," he maintains, and that's the most restrained thing he has to say on the subject. Duggan's illustrations wittily accompany Curry's riffs. Shelf this one right next to that classic of British enophilia, Auberon Waugh's Waugh on Wine.

-- M.D.

Chalone: A Journey on the Wine Frontier, by W. Philip Woodward and Gregory S. Walter (The Chalone Wine Foundation/Carneros Press, 2000, $20, 222 pages, paperback)

One doesn't expect a lot from vanity titles -- even when they're undertaken for a good cause -- but in this case, Chalone cofounder Phil Woodward and former Wine Spectator president Gregory Walter have fashioned a book that is lively, informative and packed with personality. All profits from its sales will go to the Chalone Wine Foundation.

The story begins in the late 1950s, when the original Chalone Vineyard was a primitive venture housed in converted chicken coop. There was no electricity, no phone and no water. All those amenities came with time, as did worldwide success. But Woodward and Walter never forget that Chalone, in many respects, is the quintessential story of determination triumphing against adversity -- with innovation driving the process. After a public offering in 1984 (a then-unprecedented move for a small wine business), things really took off. Today, the Chalone Group is poised to reach $100 million in annual sales. Numerous wine-world luminaries -- such as winemaker Rodney Strong, Baron Eric de Rothschild, venture capitalist Bill Hambrecht and Chalone's unpredictable guiding force, the late Dick Graff -- have all contributed to the steady evolution of the company's distinctive identity.

Woodward and Walter do bog down sometimes. There's more about real estate than everyday readers need to know, and the business history often plays down vital happenings, most notably Dick Graff's forced exile (or inevitable departure, depending on how you look at it) from the business. But the tale of Chalone's emergence as a respected wine-world brand is never less than fascinating.

-- M.D.

The Winemaker's Marsh: Four Seasons in a Restored Wetland, by Kenneth Brower; photographs by Michael Sewell (Sierra Club Books, 2001, $40, 192 pages, hardcover)

Sam Sebastiani, the winemaker of this attractive book's title, must be one hell of a guy. Within the first hundred pages, author Brower has likened him to Moses, Franz Kafka's Joseph K. from The Trial, and Henry David Thoreau. All because he decided one day in 1988 to flood a hayfield adjacent to his Viansa vineyard in California's Carneros wine region, restoring a lost wetland.

Brower, a nature writer with more than 20 books under his belt, spent a year studying Sebastiani's marsh, and this gorgeous volume is what emerged. Michael Sewell's lush color photography captures the wetland in all its varied moods from season to season. A shot of nested owls is ferociously well-composed, the raptors unflinchingly staring down the viewer. Another, of stranded carp, is compelling for its repulsiveness. And a series of nighttime visitors to the marsh is technologically nifty.

Unfortunately, Brower's waterlogged prose doesn't match Sewell's visual poetry. Still, the Viansa wetland is worthy of documentation. And though it's a stretch to put Sebastiani in the same league as Old Testament heroes, the man is by all accounts a dedicated conservationist (he was assisted in his marsh project by the eminently commendable Ducks Unlimited). Wine lovers will probably want to hear more about the Viansa vineyards themselves, but that's not Brower's specialty; his interest in the wetland flows from his deep affection for the observation of assorted fauna prospering in their environment.

This drives him to meditate on what he sees. A lot. "The mind does tend to wander when feet are in the reeds," he writes. Indeed it does. In the end, Brower's wandering doesn't spoil the book, but it does diminish its impact.

-- M.D.

How To Taste: A Guide to Enjoying Wine, by Jancis Robinson (Simon & Schuster, 2001, $25, 208 pages, hardcover)

Jancis Robinson possesses an unimpeachable reputation as a wine writer and educator. This book, a revised version of her 1983 text Masterglass, should do nothing but enhance her mojo. Many Wine 101 guides suffer from two fundamental problems: They are big, chunky and overly comprehensive; and they are written in bland, tutoring voices that quickly bore newcomers to wine. Robinson's introduction avoids both pitfalls.