Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #113819 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780156033268
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
In this entertaining oenological salvo, wine blogger and journalist Feiring makes an argument for wine authenticity through adherence to old techniques. She's against what she calls Big Wine—viticulture as business and technology—and blames the shrinking appreciation for hand-vinified, long-aged Old World wines (like the Barolo that eventually led to her career) on, among other things, the UC–Davis School of Enology and Viticulture and the wine writings of critic Robert M. Parker Jr. (of the book's title). But what sets her sprightly polemic apart is that her argument is pinned to a personal narrative of wine tours through Europe and California. Rounding out the Syrah-and-the-City parallels are several female characters who receive noms de vin like Honey-Sugar and the air-kissing Skinny, and most entertainingly of all, the author's Carrie-like relationships. Parker looms like Mr. Big over all Feiring's oenological relationships; they finally have a couple of phone dates that distill the differences between them down to quantifying (Parker) versus qualifying (Feiring). The author, who already has fans through her blog and other journalism, can count on new ones with this publication. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
In the world of wine connoisseurship, Robert Parker’s evaluation of a bottle carries enormous influence. Winemakers bow to his opinion because Parker’s imprimatur can increase demand and thus the price a wine commands. Feiring resents Parker’s blatant hegemony, and she fights vociferously to convince both wine producers and consumers to consider other points of view. Feiring’s root concern is that Parker’s personal tastes govern how wines are now produced regardless of others’ equally informed perspectives and differing tastes. Increasing influence of corporations and big-business interests in what have been hitherto mostly small-family operations have magnified this tendency of the wine world to respond to just one arbiter’s preferences. Feiring traces the development of her own discerning palate and makes a passionate argument for individuality and personality in winemaking. Well-reasoned arguments such as this one over the aesthetics of wine attract a passionate audience. --Mark Knoblauch

Review
"Feiring is an unusually accessible wine writer, capable of conveying textures and scents and ancillary details without sounding as if she is conjugating the irregular verbs of a foreign language." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"I've always loved listening to Alice go on about wine, because she's so knowledgeable and passionate about it. Her book is like a long, nourishing talk with her." -- Frank Bruni, New York Times "Dining and Wine" blog

"Ms. Feiring is entertaining and passionate. And she knows a great wine when she tastes one." -- Eric Asimov, The New York Times

"Quirky and endearing... of herself, [Fiering] properly asks: "Oh, the quandary: When to speak up and when to hold my tongue?" Luckily for the reader, her tart tongue usually wins." -- New York Sun

"The great virtue of "The Battle for Wine and Love" is its unflinching look at what rings false in the wine world today -- the packaged, crinkle-cut uniformity of mass-production wines, the glossy allure of wine marketing and the sometimes tawdry ways in which producers believe their own hype." -- Los Angeles Times