Mike Veseth's Blog, page 26

Book Review: Getting to Know Saké

Brian Ashcroft (with tasting notes by Takashi Eguchi), The Japanese Saké Bible (Tuttle Publishing, 2020).

Saké has always been a mystery to me. I have only been served it a couple of times and never with much in the way of introduction. Lacking background and appreciation, I have generally defaulted to beer on occasions when Saké might have been the more interesting choice.

Getting to Know You

I never got over the first hurdle. The upscale supermarket down the street (the one that I wrote about...

Book Reviews: A Hedgehog and a Fox Walk into a Wine Bar …

So a hedgehog and a fox walk into a bar and they naturally fall into a debate about wine.

The clever fox, as anyone who has studied Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay will remember, knows many things and sees wine in terms of its complex contradictions. The hedgehog knows one big thing and returns to that again and again. The conversation ebbs and flows and many insights are revealed as the glasses are drained and refilled.

That’s the way I imagined this book review column developing although, as you ...

Book Review: Wine & the White House

Wine and the White House: A History by Frederick J. Ryan, Jr. (White House Historical Association).

President Trump doesn’t drink beverage alcohol and neither does Vice President Pence, and yet wine is a constant at White House state dinners and similar events.  What’s served is nice wine, too, according to records found in this rather fascinating new book.

A state dinner for French President Macron on April 24, 2018, for example, included Domaine Serene Chardonnay (Oregon), Domaine Drouhin Pino...

A Modest Proposal for American Viticultural Areas

Are there too many American Viticultural Areas (AVAs)? Or not enough? Herewith a modest proposal for maximizing the benefits of American wine appellations.

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Whenever a  list of newly-approved  American Viticultural Areas is released I find myself shaking my head in disbelief. Bah humbug! You see, I’m a true dismal science Scrooge and so my first reaction is always to think about the economic value of the new designations and sub-designations.

Only a few American appellations have substanti...

Wine Book Reviews: Three Faces of Global Wine

Here are brief reviews of three recent books that approach global wine from very different perspectives. Each makes a distinctive contribution to our understanding and appreciation of wine. Together they suggest what a complex world it is and why so many of us find it endlessly fascinating.

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Hugh Johnson, Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book 2021 (Octopus Publishing Group, 2020).

Hugh Johnson’s pocket guide to the world of wine has been a hugely popular standard reference ever since it was first ...

Book Excerpt: On the China Wine Trail

I thought you might enjoy using your imagination to travel to China along with Cynthia Howson and Pierre Ly via this excerpt from their new book Adventures on the China Wine Trail: How Farmers, Local Governments, Teachers, and Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the Wine World, which won the 2020 Gourmand Awards gold medal for wine tourism books.

Many thanks to Cynthia and Pierre and to Rowman & Littlefield for giving permission for publication here. This selection is from Chapter 2: Sea, Sand, and Shando...

Flashback to the Future? Wine & the Demolition Man Syndrome

Sue and I recently uncorked (or unscrewed, actually) our first wine of the 2020 vintage: a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc by Cathedral Cove.  2020 already? Wow. That’s quick turnaround. It didn’t take very long to go from vineyard to cellar to container ship to importer to distributor to retailer to our mid-August table. (It was great, by the way, paired with a flavorful Greek salad with veggies from our garden.)

There are lots of wines that generate quick cash flow for producers while providing re...

Book Review: The Wines of South Africa

Jim Clarke, The Wines of South Africa (The Classic Wine Library) Infinite Ideas, 2020.

Conventional wisdom holds that books with titles that begin “The Wines of …” are organized around what I call the “Three Ps” of wine: the people and their history, the places (geography, climate, terroir), and the plants (most important grape varieties). Good wine books provide interesting and informative accounts of each “P,” but the best ones find a way to rise above orthodoxy to give readers a taste of what...

Wine Economist Guide to Wine, Coronavirus Crisis & K-Shaped Recovery

The Wine Economist has published a steady stream of columns on wine, coronavirus, and recession in recent months. I thought it would be useful to assemble them into a kind of guide so that readers can more easily find analysis on different topics and also see how the crisis has evolved.

Although there was concern about the pandemic early in the year (there were hand sanitizer stations everywhere at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in early February, for example), it took a few weeks for the re...

Book Review: The Goode Guide to Wine

Jamie Goode, The Goode Guide to Wine: a manifesto of sorts. University of California Press, 2020.

The trouble with barbecue, at least here in the United States, is that everyone has their own particular idea of what it is and should be. Regional traditions and practices about what to cook (beef, pork, lamb) and how to cook it  and even how to cut (or chop) it have strong proponents. I suspect that duels have been fought (or fistfights, at least) over what is or isn’t barbecue.

Confronted with a ...