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The Battle for Wine and Love: or How I Saved the World from Parkerization

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Author: Alice Feiring
Publisher: Harcourt
Category: Book

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Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

21 reviews
Sales Rank: 8926

Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.6 x 0.9

ISBN: 0151012865
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.22
EAN: 9780151012862
ASIN: 0151012865

Publication Date: May 19, 2008
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Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 6-10 of 21

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Very questionable- June 16, 2008
1 out of 8 found this review helpful

This book read like it was written by the few importers with whom she is obviously enamored. the entire book just read really poorly to me- she's on a high horse and represents the very worst in what people consider to be wine snobs. save your money people- this woman sees things very much in black and white. she should be giving half her money to parker- if his name wasn't in the title, i think about 5 copies of this terrible tome would have sold.

5 out of 5 stars

What's All the Fuss About? June 10, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

I just finished reading Ms. Feiring's "The Battle for Wine and Love." I loved it. I belong to a wine group that has been blind tasting wine since the 1970's. Over the past few years, we've all wondered, sometimes out loud, why gifted, talented and experienced (some more than others) tasters so often are unable to identify the grape varietal or blend. Ms. Feiring's book, in a well-balanced manner, offers many explanations. Locally, we've found that our beloved fruit, Pinot Noir, has become so extracted and over-oaked that we don't know what the hell we're tasting. There are, however, many local wine makers that get it - as does Ms. Feiring. The thought of a global palate, just like having all of our food taste identical (or nearly so) is just plain wrong. Cheers to Ms. Feiring for her passion, honesty and integrity.

4 out of 5 stars

Love/Hate Relationship With This Book June 8, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I first found out about this book from reading an article written by the author that appeared in the Los Angeles Times. In it, she seemed on the warpath, ready to offend anyone and anything as a means to get people to read her book to see what her outrageous statements were about. Myself, I thought this woman who criticized winemakers for manipulating wines into big, huge, bold styles in order to please Robert Parker and thus sell more bottles was guilty of the same thing, making outrageous statements and trying to create controversy in order to sell copies of her book.

However, I did agree in principle with what she was saying, that too often these days wines are manipulated into something that tries to please the consumer and they are losing their individuality. So I bought the book. Amazon's price makes it too attractive to pass up.

Pros: Ms. Feiring writes very well. She takes the reader around the globe in her adventures as we meet various winemakers on both sides of the fence, as she advances her argument against over-manipulation. I think most readers would be pretty surprised to find out what goes on in a lot of wineries in order to achieve the sort of wine they want to sell. It's a topic that does need to be more publicized.

Cons: Ms. Feiring sounds like she's taken out a contract on Robert Parker. She is so anti-Parker that it threatens the credibility of the book. She also tries to paint everything in black and white, as in small, family, old-fashioned winemakers = good guys and big, corporate, technology-utilizing winemakers = bad and evil guys. It's the same as people who automatically slam big corporations simply because they are big. She also tries to combine her romantic life with her discussion of the wines and I felt this added nothing to the book. In fact, I got tired of hearing about "Owl Man" and the others and was thinking, who cares?

If you can get past the chip (or boulder) that the author seems to have on her shoulder, this book is well worth reading. It will influence the way you perceive the next glass of wine you drink, as well as all the rest of them.

2 out of 5 stars

I desperately wanted to like this book.. May 31, 2008
15 out of 18 found this review helpful

To begin, I will mention that most of the bottles in my cellar would likely be bottles that Feiring would enjoy, and some of which I'd guess she'd love. It helps that my cellar is made up almost exclusively of Burgundy, but my guess is that she and I agree on many facets of the product of wine.

Because of this, and because we both dislike many seemingly unbalanced (read: fruit/alcohol bombs) wines, I felt pretty sure that I'd enjoy the book. Instead, I found myself feeling like I was listening more to a book of whine than a book on wine.

My issues:

+ Feiring goes on and on about her distaste for science's intervention into winemaking. On a couple of rare occasions in the book, she tries to convince the reader that she's not anti-science, but her arguments aren't convincing. There is nothing wrong with understanding wine scientifically, nor is there anything wrong with using that knowledge to make wines. Science goes into some of the best wines in the world -- perhaps not RO, but knowledge that isn't merely anecdotal helps to shape them.

+ This book has been compared to Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" in some reviews here. I couldn't disagree more. Pollan's book could be considered an opinion piece, but his stroke was much gentler. Additionally, he provided gobs more information on his topic. Feiring's material is almost all opinion and truly pushes the reader to believe what she's selling. I do realize that's the format of her book, but for those reasons I don't see the comparison to "The Omnivore's Dilemma".

+ Something about wine knowledge makes people rapidly become wine snobs. I'm guilty of it, and I think most are to some extent. However, I think one measure of a person's caliber is how they're able to educate without being condescending. On this, I give Feiring low marks (but not a failing grade).

+ Biodynamics is, essentially, religion. Natural farming is great, and components of biodynamics are natural, which likely help farming. However, Feiring's willing to make excuses for the oddities of biodynamics (cow dung buried in a horn, for example) where she's not willing to allow science the same leeway.

+ This one's a simple complaint, and for most can probably be dismissed, but please lose the subtitle. It's embarrassing.

All that said, there are some redeeming qualities to the book, those being that you may learn a thing or two about why romance is a big part of the package of wine for many enthusiasts. It certainly makes drinking more enjoyable for me.

5 out of 5 stars

delightful and insightful for connoisseurs and novices alike May 30, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Feiring's is one of the rare wine books that has equal appeal to both the oenophile and the weekend wine taster. 'Wine geeks' will feel vindicated by her manifesto that cries out against 'spoofalted' (unnecessarily manipulated) wine and praises the renegade wine makers who've turned to Biodynamic farming, or simply heeded the wine making wisdom of their great grandfathers. The less wine-savvy can still take delight in the love stories that mellow this tannic polemic. Feiring writes great characters as well as great wine reviews - for those of us who want to get to know the people behind our wine, Feiring satisfies with anecdotes of wine critics, wine scientists, and most of all the wine makers themselves. Highly recommended.

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