Winner of the 2020 Gourmand Award for Best in the World Wine History Book, Dr. Laura Catena's Gold in the Vineyards is an illustrated book about the family struggles, triumphs and vineyard secrets behind twelve of the most famous wines and vineyards in the world.
Inspired by Jules Verne’s classic adventure tale, celebrated editor-in-chief of The Wine Economist Mike Veseth takes his readers Around the World in Eighty Wines. The journey starts in London, Phileas Fogg’s home base, and follows Fogg’s itinerary to France and Italy before veering off in search of compelling wine stories in Syria, Georgia, and Lebanon. Every glass of wine tells a story, and so each of the eighty wines must tell an important tale. We head back across Northern Africa to Algeria, once the world’s leading wine exporter, before hopping across the sea to Spain and Portugal. We follow Portuguese trade routes to Madeira and then South Africa with a short detour to taste Kenya’s most famous Pinot Noir. Kenya? Pinot Noir? Really! The route loops around, visiting Bali, Thailand, and India before heading north to China to visit Shangri-La. Shangri-La? Does that even exist? It does, and there is wine there. Then it is off to Australia, with a detour in Tasmania, which is so cool that it is hot. The stars of the Southern Cross (and the title of a familiar song) guide us to New Zealand, Chile, and Argentina. We ride a wine train in California and rendezvous with Planet Riesling in Seattle before getting into fast cars for a race across North America, collecting more wine as we go. Pause for lunch in Virginia to honor Thomas Jefferson, then it’s time to jet back to London to tally our wines and see what we have learned. Why these particular places? What are the eighty wines and what do they reveal? And what is the surprise plot twist that guarantees a happy ending for every wine lover? Come with us on a journey of discovery that will inspire, inform, and entertain anyone who loves travel, adventure, or wine.
Beneath the cover of France's most exquisite vineyards, a city of women defy an army during World War I, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Carousel of Provence.... Deep within the labyrinth of caves that lies below the lush, rolling vineyards of the Champagne region, an underground city of women and children hums with life. Forced to take shelter from the unrelenting onslaught of German shellfire above, the bravest and most defiant women venture out to pluck sweet grapes for the harvest. But wine is not the only secret preserved in the cool, dark cellars... In present day, Rosalyn Acosta travels to Champagne to select vintages for her Napa-based employer. Rosalyn doesn't much care for champagne--or France, for that matter. Since the untimely death of her young husband, Rosalyn finds it a challenge to enjoy anything at all. But as she reads through a precious cache of WWI letters and retraces the lives lived in the limestone tunnels, Rosalyn will unravel a mystery hidden for decades...and find a way to savor her own life again.
"The improbable triumph of the humble Malbec—the Seabiscuit of grapes." —Benjamin Wallace, author of The Billionaire's Vinegar For generations, Argentine wine was famously bad—oxidized, unpalatable, and often mixed with a low-class French grape called Malbec. But then in 2001, a Cabernet Sauvignon / Malbec blend beat all contenders in a blind taste test featuring Napa and Bordeaux’s finest. Today, Argentina and its signature wine are on the tip of every smart traveler’s tongue. How did this happen? The Vineyard at the End of the World tells the fascinating, four-hundred-year history of how a wine mecca arose in the high Andean desert. Profiling the outlandish figures who fueled the Malbec revolution—including celebrity enologist Michel Rolland, acclaimed American winemaker Paul Hobbs, and the Mondavi-esque Catena family—Ian Mount describes in colorful detail the nefarious scams, brilliant business innovations, and backroom politics that put Malbec on the map.
International wine experts bring the wine cellar of the world to your home Follow the story of wine, from ancient to modern times and learn the process of making it today. You�ll explore the flavours and characteristics of grape varieties and styles and discover all about wine making. From Alsace and Western Australia to the Valle d�Aosta and Stellenbosch, hop on a round-the-world tour of major wine-growing regions and explore the top thirty-five.You�ll visit famous vineyards and wine producers, learn about the great wines of each region and take six tours from Burgundy to the Napa Valley. Packed with information on local foods, festivals and interesting places to visit as well as practical tips on buying, storing and serving wine, reading labels and making sense of jargon.
Looks at how and where wine is made and how this affects its quality and pricing, including information on how the professionals taste and rate wine and a country-by-country tour of the latest vintages.
The World of Sicilian Wine provides wine lovers with a comprehensive understanding of Sicilian wine, from its ancient roots to its modern evolution. Offering a guide and map to exploring Sicily, Bill Nesto, an expert in Italian wine, and Frances Di Savino, a student of Italian culture, deliver a substantive appreciation of a vibrant wine region that is one of Europe’s most historic areas and a place where many cultures intersect. From the earliest Greek and Phoenician settlers who colonized the island in the eighth century B.C., the culture of wine has flourished in Sicily. A parade of foreign rulers was similarly drawn to Sicily’s fertile land, sun-filled climate, and strategic position in the Mediterranean. The modern Sicilian quality wine industry was reborn in the 1980s and 1990s with the arrival of wines made with established international varieties and state-of-the-art enology. Sicily is only now rediscovering the quality of its indigenous grape varieties, such as Nero d’Avola, Nerello Mascalese, Frappato, Grillo, and distinctive terroirs such as the slopes of Mount Etna.
The Curious World of Wine is a fascinating miscellany about the colorful characters, celebrated places, and quirky events surrounding wine-making. Recounting wine tales that are by turns amusing, surprising, and occasionally a bit naughty, wine expert Richard Vine reveals little-known facts such as: • The oldest vineyard still producing grapes is thought to be in Maribor, Slovenia, where vines up to four hundred years old remain fruitful. • “Plonk,” a term used to insult any modestly priced wine, got its name from the French words for white wine—vin blanc, pronounced “vawn blawnk,” which was corrupted to “plawnk” or “plonk.” • Thomas Jefferson was so eager to plant native French vines at his Monticello mansion that he nearly went bankrupt fruitlessly hiring experts to defeat a condition that caused European vines to mysteriously die in North American soil. • Touching wineglasses as a toast was originally a deft move to exchange a splash of wine into each other’s cup to ensure that neither party was being poisoned. The Curious World of Wine will keep any wine fan entertained and enlightened—from the most erudite connoisseur to Two Buck Chuck devotees.
Over the past twenty-five years, renowned critic Robert M. Parker, Jr., has visited both legendary and fledgling wineries all over the world and has tasted hundreds of thousands of wines. Only a fraction of those wines have earned his highest ratings and are considered by him to be truly legendary. In his latest book, Parker brings together what he calls "the best of the best," taking readers on a personal tour of the wineries that have impressed him most with their dedication to quality, consistency, and excellence. The World's Greatest Wine Estates pays homage to exceptional wines and the exceptional people who make them. These lavishly illustrated pages showcase 175 of the world's most accomplished -- and most spectacular -- estates. Parker goes be-yond the labels, bottles, and ratings to present the land, the history, and the dedicated artisans practicing their craft. Though they form a wildly diverse group, all of these producers "share an inexhaustible commitment to their vineyards, a passion to produce as fine a wine as is humanly possible, and a vision that the joys of wine are infinite and represent the pinnacle of a civilized society." Parker begins with an overview of what makes a wine great -- the ability to please both the palate and the intellect, to offer intense aromas and flavors without heaviness, to improve with age, to reflect its place of origin as well as the skill of its producers -- and explains how he came to choose the profound wines he features here. He also offers insider tips for ordinary wine-lovers who want to get their hands on extraordinary bottles. The heart of the book contains profiles of the greatest estates of Argentina, Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. Each region is illustrated with a full-color map and accompanied by an introduction explaining the general wine history of the country. In his profiles of individual estates, Parker offers essential geographical information such as grape varietals, average age of the vines, and density of plantation; details about the estate's history and techniques and the wines it produces; visiting information for those who want to see the process up close; and tasting notes on the best recent vintages from each winery. Each profile also includes photographs of the vineyards and the people behind the wines, and labels from their best-known vintages. Complete with a list of up-and-coming wineries ("Future Stars") and a glossary of wine terms, The World's Greatest Wine Estates is a very special reference for amateurs and connoisseurs alike.
Journalist Maximillian Potter uncovers a fascinating plot to destroy the vines of La Romance-Conti, Burgundy's finest and most expensive wine. In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the Domaine de la Romance-Conti, the tiny, storied vineyard that produces the most expensive, exquisite wines in the world, received an anonymous note threatening the destruction of his priceless vines by poison—a crime that in the world of high-end wine is akin to murder—unless he paid a one million euro ransom. Villaine believed it to be a sick joke, but that proved a fatal miscalculation and the crime shocked this fabled region of France. The sinister story that Vanity Fair journalist Maximillian Potter uncovered would lead to a sting operation by some of France's top detectives, the primary suspect's suicide, and a dramatic investigation. This botanical crime threatened to destroy the fiercely traditional culture surrounding the world's greatest wine. Shadows in the Vineyard takes us deep into a captivating world full of fascinating characters, small-town French politics, an unforgettable narrative, and a local culture defined by the twinned veins of excess and vitality and the deep reverent attention to the land that runs through it.