No comments about Something in the Cellar . . .: Ronald Searle's Wonderful World of Wine.

No comments about A Vineyard Garden: Ideas From the Earth for Growing, Cooking, and Entertaining.

No comments about a.53 Great Grapes.

5 comments about The New York Book of Wine: A City and Company Guide (City and Company).

1. My name is Matthew DeBord and I am the author of THE NEW YORK BOOK OF WINE. I welcome any feedback readers can give me and hope that at least some folks will take the time to review the book here on Amazon. Good and bad are both greatly appreciated.

   By the way, my rating is only on this review because Amazon requires that the stars be assigned.




2. I found this book to be well written, informative and educational. It was a good read and will be very helpful in my future wine purchases even though I do not reside in New York. The author's writing style held my interest and the information in Chapter Six should help people interested in a wine weekend realize that they are not limited to Napa.



3. This is a well-researched and highly entertaining read. For someone who loves wine (like me) but can't remember from one dinner to the next what to order (also, alas, like me), it is an excellent guide. It fits in a pocket (I'm not going to carry Hugh Johnson around) and is chock-full of great tips & no-nonsense info about enjoying wine in and around and from New York. But the best thing I can say about the book is that the author seems to love wine for its own sake, not because he's trying to prove anything or show off. On the first page, Debord writes, "The decision to go snobby is yours and yours alone. I advise against it." This sums up the philosophy of "The New York Book of Wine" and sets the tone for a volume that's as witty and tasty as it is underpriced.



4. Being a native New Yorker I was delighted to learn of this book. One of things that I hate is being in Manhattan and not knowing where to find things, like a wine bar for example. Now at least I have the beginnings of where to go to have a wine by the glass or purchase my favorite bottle of Shiraz. The book is set-up so that it is a VERY easy, breezy read. I picked this book up last night at the mall and was half-way through it my the time I got home. Being a wine nut, not just a hobbyist, I can tell you that the listing of specialty wine shops in NYC is worth the price of the book. It also gives the best description, one that I have been touting for years, of NYC, on page 67, that I have ever read. I do have two minor complaints with the book. Firstly, it is a bit light on the wine bar scene. I know of at least five more wine bars that definitely needed to be included. My other complaint is that it is a bit light when it comes to substance. Points are made in just a few sentences and that's it. Certain topics and sidebars throughout the book definitely could have been flushed out in greater detail. This I found very surprising given the fact that the authour is an ex-Wine Spectator contributor. Their writers usually go on and on so I found it ironic that the text was a bit laid back. I also found it funny that the author said that the Wine Spectator is the best wine magazine out there. Would he have said anything different? Overall, a good effort.



5. There are much better books on wine to read and study than this pretentious and deadly dull book. The book is written poorly and makes an interesting subject dull and boring.

5 comments about American Vintage : The Rise of American Wine.

1. This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I loved the the history and, as a wine lover, it helped me understand the product and the industry in a way I never did before. I am a management professor at Stanford, so the best part for me was reading about the innovative practices used in the wine industry, the constant experimentation and information sharing that should serve as model for other industries. After reading this book I realized that the wine industry, not the computer industry, is the best model other firms and industries that want to flourish. I'd give this book six stars if I could.



2. I agree with all the above praise. The book was meticulously researched and well written. Great personal recollections from the people who were there.
   
   There were two minor annoyances
   1. The author repeats himself fairly often.
   2. You get bounced back and forth in time a bit. From pre-prohibition to post and then to the 90's then back to WWII.
   
   Minor issues that probably won't bother you unless you're reading the book on and off over the course of a couple of weeks.



3. Early America wasn't noted for its wines: so what influenced the birth of the industry, and how did it so quickly rise to become a world wine influence? Paul Lukacs provides a history which begins with 17th century grape-growing and winemaking experiments right up to modern times, following the course of wine industry development from individuals who contributed to its rise to families and economics which fostered its evolution. Paul Lukacs is the wine columnist for the Washington Times and Washingtonian, and AMERICAN VINTAGE: THE RISE OF AMERICAN WINE is a winning study for any interested in wine development.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



4. 
   One of my favorite wine writers is Thomas George Shaw, a very experienced London wine merchant, whose Wine, The Vine And The Cellar, is available free on Google Books. He wrote in 1863 about wines from the United States:
   
   "The most important vineyards are those of Ohio, Missouri, and Indiana. Wine is also made in Western Virginia, the State of New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. But the most celebrated is in Cincinnati, where there are large vineyards, especially those belonging to Messrs. Longworth and Zimmermann, who have gained a high reputation for their sparkling Catawba, about which I have expressed my own opinion. In the Northern and North Western States, wines of all kinds, generally in imitation of favourite European, are made; but all have a peculiar--what we should call an American -- flavour and taste ; and the Americans themselves appear to prefer those which are imported from Europe."
   
   Paul Lukas would agree on the preeminence of Cincinnati in the wine world at that time: he writes that the history of fine wine in America started the day Nicholas Longworth arrived, almost penniless, in Cincinnati in the summer of 1803.
   
   Mr. Longworth, "American wine's founding father," planted vineyards along the Ohio River and built the country's first successful winery. But by 1870, the vines had died from diseases no one understood. It would be almost a century before, as Lukas writes, Robert Mondavi would match Mr. Longworth in style and ambition to become the founding father of modern American wine.
   
   Lukacs describes several of his heroes over the years:
   
   Nicholas Longworth, the "founding father" of American wine, a short real estate tycoon who transformed Ohio into the "American Rhineland";
   
   Dr. Charles Welch, a Methodist preacher who created nonalcoholic grape juice in the name of temperance;
   
   Gustave Niebaum, a Finnish sea captain who made a fortune in the fur trade before establishing one of California's first great vineyards, Inglenook;
   
   the secretive and dysfunctional Gallo brothers;
   
   Robert Mondavi and his brother Peter who held opposing views about the direction American wine should take;
   
   Philip Wagner, who first showed that good wines could be made on the East Coast if French-American hybrid vines were used rather than native American varieties;
   
   Andre Tchelistcheff, a Russian-born oenologist, who taught two generations of Californians how to make truly fine wine;
   
   Dr. Konstantin Frank, who was the first to successfully grow European vinifera vines in the East.
   
   Frank Prial summarizes the Mondavi disagreement in his "New York Times" review of the book as follows:
   
   "I would have started [this book] with Robert Mondavi slugging his brother, Peter, in their mother's St. Helena, Calif., kitchen 12 years earlier. Both events had a major impact on the future of American wine. But the fight was, well, more American. ... In 1964, Mr. Mondavi and his brother, Peter, were running the family winery, Charles Krug, in the Napa Valley. Krug wines did well, particularly the C. K. Mondavi line of jug wines. But Robert had a vision of wines that could match the best in the world. Peter, Mr. Lukacs recounts, was happy with the status quo. Heated words led to Robert's ouster from Krug and the opening, in 1966, of the Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville."
   
   However the book is started, Lukacs tells the story beautifully. He avoids technical data, wine industry jargon and the tasting notes. Instead he writes a social history of winemakers.
   
   
   Robert C. Ross 2007 2008



5. I have enjoyed this book a lot. I have learnt a lot about american wine, its history, its specificities, its wineries, its stakes...
   After reading this book, you have a rather accurate overview of the american wine industry.
   
   I was just not always comfortable with the very scholar format.

3 comments about Grape Growing.

1. I got the book from the library and I want it. There is too much good detail to remember. Can you talk them into publishing it on CD Rom? Or, can they at least print some more so I can buy it? It is a narrow subject that probably doesn't have enough readers, but it is good.



2. Very disappointed in this book. I found it a shallow and pretentiously technical book.



3. Superb information. Easy to understand yet comprehensive. This is a "must have" for grape growers. Only reason I'm getting rid of it is area I now live doesn't support grapes [outside of muscadine which grow like a weed]. This covers everything the others don't.

5 comments about The Oxford Companion to the Wines of North America.

1. "Waiting on Petite Sirah hoping for elegance is like marrying a stripper in the hope of witty conversation in old age."

   This is the wonderful kind of wit that you find throughout this book. Bruce Cass, Jancis Robinson and the other fine wine writers who are responsible for the book's substance all appear to have a tremendous love of wine but don't need to deify it. I laughed out loud several times as I read descriptions of wines and wine characters.

   The Wisdom is even more amazing. There is a wealth of factual information and interpretation. Just open up the book to any page and start to read. Within 45 seconds, you will utter, "Wow, I didn't know that."

   This is the best book on wines written in a long time.




2. The Oxford Companion To The Wines Of North America is the definitive guide for wine connoisseurs, weaving the knowledge of 21 wine academics and writers from all over American into a set of compelling introductory essays. The comprehensive 302-page compendium includes an A-to-Z survey of North American vineyards and wine terminology. The informative, "reader friendly" text is further enhanced with superb color photography, twenty maps, and an exhaustive index. The Oxford Companion To The Wines Of North America is an invaluable, fundamental reference for all wine enthusiasts and would make an excellent Memorial Fund acquisition selection for community library collections.



3. I bought this book for our public library's reference collection. Reviews indicated that this book would be an excellent source of information about wine. It falls far short of that. One example: I needed it for a definition of "syrah" (which they refer to in an article) - neither the alphabetical arrangement of the book nor the index yielded anything. This is a coffee table book and nothing more.



4. The "Oxford Companion to Wine", edited by Jancis Robinson, is the definitive modern reference on wine. Not intended to be read as a book, the entries nevertheless make compelling reading and following the cross-referenced entries can easily consume a pleasurable evening. This "supplement" doesn't live up to the original in terms of quality, comprehensiveness or value. If you were expecting a version of the companion tuned to American wines, you'll be sorely disappointed. On the other hand, if you can't get enough of the original and long for more information on California growers, this isn't a bad start. We can always hope for a revised, expanded, second edition.

   For the North American supplement, Jancis Robinson served only as a "consulting editor". She apparently corrected the editor's English usage (see the preface), but she didn't write any of the entries. She did write two throwaway pieces in the beginning of the book on "How Good are North American Wines?" and "Commentators and the Wine Media". There are roughly 60 pages worth of introduction to North American Wine, most of which I did not find deep enough to be particularly informative.

   Almost all of the cross-references on vinification, wine-making, cellaring, tasting, defects, grapes, etc. are in the "Oxford Companion", making it essentially impossible to use the North American guide alone.

   Compared to the "Oxford Companion", the entries are relatively breezy. The font is larger, the margins are wider, and the book is much shorter. Like the "Oxford Companion", the maps are truly horrendous; you'll remember them from coloring assignments in grade school. Invest in Hugh Johnson's and Jancis Robinson's wonderful new "World Atlas of Wine" for maps. The Atlas's coverage of North American wine styles, grapes and regions isn't half bad, either.




5. Given some of the less than stellar reviews of this book, I was expecting far less. This is a collection of excellent information specific to North American winemaking, wineries, producers, etc., that can't - to my knowledge at least - be found anywhere else "under the same roof". There are also some good introductory articles that are educational, especially for the neophyte.
   
   True, the maps in the back of the book are fairly useless. They display towns, highways, mountain ranges, elevation, but no AVAs. That left me dumbfounded. I now know that Hwy 101 can take you from LA to Ventura and further north into Washington State, but - so what? I already knew that, and I live in Illinois. If you're going to include maps in a book like this, they need to be specific and informative.
   
   Still, as I said, the fact that there is excellent information in the A-Z section, and that in the text of that section references are directly made to the Oxford Companion to Wine if the reader wants more information, makes this a very good reference.

5 comments about The Vineyard: The Pleasures and Perils of Creating an American Family Winery.

1. If you loved "Little House on the Prairie" you'll love this true modern pioneer saga set in (of all places) Eastern Long Island, New York. You don't even have to be a wine enthusiast to enjoy the book, although Louisa Hargraves' descriptions of tasting may make convert you.
   While telling her 30 year history of growing French varietal grapes (which people said couldn't be done), the author allows us to experience the grit behind the glamour in all its (pardon me) juicy details.
   As in all successful memoirs, we get a chance to live someone else's life, imagine what it would be like to follow our dream as singlemindedly as she did, and rejoice when dreams come true. We also get to see the price that is exacted. Because Louisa Hargrave keeps us by her side, I stayed up until 2 AM to finish the book. I put it down feeling touched, informed, and inspired.



2. A fascinating account of how a highly educated couple from a suburban background became successful "farming" pioneers growing grapes and making wine on Eastern Long Island. This was not sit-on-the veranda farming. The author makes reference to stories of the American frontier, and certainly that is apt, as the dedication and endurance of these pioneers was extraordinary. Their hard personal work in the fields was the equal of the pioneers, and they also had to deal with modern government. All in all, very intriguing and very well written, with enough human detail to make the people come to life.



3. Alex and Louisa Hargrave went against conventional wisdom when they decided to plant vinifera grapes on Long Island. As you might expect, it was a bumpy adventure in horticultural history, complete with weeds, hurricanes and an incredible amount of work, bringing the couple to the brink of financial ruin. But by the time it was over, they'd proven that grapes could grow (even flourish) on Long Island - and the chronicle of their exploits is charming and lively.



4. My parents chose to own and run a small vineyard. As a contemporary of the author, it is easy for me to empathize with the problems of building a vineyard from scratch. That may best explain why I picked up this book.

   The author and her husband are of a blue blood vintage. Family money allowed them to embark on this experiment, quite the dilettantes at the start. Hargrave and her tall husband had tried other ventures or career options, including an organ (and I don?t mean Wurlitzer) cookbook. My stomach is still turning at the thought. Nothing seemed to click. The two were peripatetic students, travelers, house sitters, Ivy leaguers, quasi trust fund babies, with colorful roots of their own. Louisa Thomas is the grand daughter of five-time Socialist candidate for president of the United States, Norman Thomas.

   One thing they learned from their stab at cooking organs was that the wine allowed the unpalatable food to go down a whole lot better. Inspired in part by this finding, along with a desire to forego hard liquor, husband and wife made a go of starting a vineyard on Long Island. Only this time the process was very serious, engaging and almost enslaving. They mastered the delicate, detailed process of acquiring the right vines, grafting, plucking, fermenting, storing and marketing the wine. They produced great wine; they earned (or at least somehow garnered) great publicity. They hired a lot of people with diverse, difficult and demanding backgrounds. Husband and wife divided the tasks as best they could, each to his or her apparent comparative advantage, she the hands on technician, he the business officer. Along the way, unintentionally it seems, they transformed themselves from soul mates to business partners.

   Raised on a ?grape farm? myself, where my family lived twenty years, her story is spot on ? the planting and pruning, dealing with fungus and pesticides, curbing the weeds, managing the harvest, living with weather that both killed and enhanced the crop ? and evoked long dormant memories and, in some cases, wounds. Grapes are much less romantic when they go into jelly, but also a whole lot easier, especially if you don?t make the final product yourself. The Hargraves immersed themselves in the task. They learned fast, worked hard, and seemed to prosper, even if at times it was by the skin of their grapes. My initial skepticism turned to admiration but, having lived some of their life, never envy.

   The saddest part of an otherwise noble accomplishment is the fact that the husband and wife efforts apparently killed their marriage. It is not very clear why. As the sole author, the wife is a bit coy on this. It may have been fruitful to read the husband?s side of the full story, not just the demise of a good, working partnership. This is a very human, humane story.




5. Nice read. This book will be inspiring to those who are contemplating getting into the winery business, and will be interesting to those who just enjoy wine.

No comments about The Geography of Wine: How Landscapes, Cultures, Terroir, and the Weather Make a Good Drop.

5 comments about Wine & War: The French, the Nazis & the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure.

1. Historical accounts, and memoirs of WWII abound ... but this is the first book I've encountered that focused on the events and circumstances regarding the effects of the war on France's premiere vineyards, winemaking families, and fate of vast cellars of wines (millions of bottles) that lay ripe for plunder.
   
   Before now, I'd seen some direct and indirect references to the massive looting of wine documented in various books and movies on the period ... such as the scene in Steven Ambrose's Band of Brothers in which Easy company uncovers a massive cache of looted vintage luxury champagne in Hitler's Berchtesgaden/Eagle's Nest complex - only to discover that most of it tasted inexplicably like swill. This book not only explains WHY, it also explains who stole them and how those bottles came to be there in the first place.
   
   It's a great book - told as a series of interconnected accounts based on interviews conducted by the authors with winemakers and veterans of the underground resistance who lived (and suffered) though it all.
   
   The storytelling is gripping, fast paced, and, at times, takes on some of the amusing qualities of "Hogan's Heroes", as we see desperate (but oh so clever) winemakers and resistance fighters repeatedly put one over on the occupying forces bent on milking them dry and outright looting them blind. We see massive caves of wines, walled up and hidden from the invaders, we see poor vintages re-labeled as great ones and sold/given to oneologically clueless officers tasked with shipping stolen wines back to Germany ... and we see what happened to those who got caught doing so.
   
   Fiction, even at it's best, sometimes can't hold a candle to some of the crazy (and terrible) things that have already happened in real life.
   
   Highly recommended. The mark of a good book is that it totally immerses you, and won't let go ... and it makes you look for ways to find the time to get back into it, when real life tears you away.



2. Got wine?
   If you do or don't, you'll love Wine and War. This book is a treasure and very good reading.



3. Readers should take their cue from the length and title of this book. No book of this size can definitively cover the wine industry in France nor can it address at any length the effects of war on this country. This in not the intent of the authors though, who make it clear in the introduction that this book is instead a collection of stories that give insight into the effects that wars have had on the French people, their wine industry, and the ways some of those in the industry dealt with the German occupation.
   
   For readers who have an interest in both viticulture and winemaking, Wine & War introduces an interesting perspective. Students of winemaking understand the importance of terroir, vineyard management, and enology techniques. How often however, have those of us fortunate enough not to have lived in a war torn country, had to think about bomb craters, poisons leaching into the soil from chemical shells, and no manpower to work the fields? The beginning of the book also briefly discusses previous wars and helps remind us that the seeds of World War II were sown by the Treaty of Versailles, negatively affecting the victors as well as the vanquished.
   
   This book is interesting in that it explores a topic not previously covered. Don't make the mistake of expecting an in depth research piece, but rather think of it as an appetizer. Something to whet your appetite for explorations into meatier works or even as a guide to future travels in the French wine country. Wine & War personalizes the ongoing struggle of the growers and winemakers to produce the best wine possible under adverse conditions and helps the reader understand what an important economic resource wine is to France. Recommended to be read by the fireplace with a nice Bordeaux in hand.



4. A great book that is very entertaining in a serious way. If you like the history of Europe and of WWII and especially if you are a wine drinker and appreciator this book is for you. Get it here since the price is a lot less than at book stores.



5. One of the best 'war' books I have ever read, as it is not about agression, but of collaboration and a love of something which bonds so many together. The repercussions of the strength of these wine families and communities is felt still today.
   
   I have actually just started to re read this boook, and am fascinated again to read about Berchesgarten in the first few pages - a place I have seen, but at the time had NO idea what lay behind those walls. I love books which give you a new perspective on a well written about series of events.