Julia Charles Archives

A look at some recently released and upcoming wine books that intrigue me for various geeky reasons.

For last month’s edition looking at some of the new releases from May and early June check out Wine Geek Notes 5/9/18 — New Wine Books to Geek Out Over.

How to Wine With Your Boss & 6 Other Tips To Fast Track Your Career by Tiffany Yarde. Released June 19th, 2018.

While not necessarily a wine book, the description and “look inside” preview caught my attention. Unlike other career advancing self-help books that tell you how “think rich”, “lean in” and develop habits of highly effective people, Yarde looks to be taking a different approach in utilizing wine education topics on tasting and varieties to apply them to business principles.

At least that is what the intro is describing, though the title How to Wine With Your Boss also seems to be advocating wielding your knowledge and confidence in the social lubricant of wine as a tool to advance your career. That is an approach that could be fraught with pratfalls with the associations of alcohol in the workplace in light of the #MeToo movement. While we, wine geeks, know that the point of sharing a glass of wine is not about nefarious intentions, I can’t begrudge a male manager or coworker from being reticent in accepting such an invitation.

Still, the idea of book teaching wine enthusiasts how to take their passion and knowledge of wine and apply it to business is intriguing–if that is such a book that Yarde has written. She does have a blog and website, Motovino, that describes more of her philosophy though, unfortunately, the blog is not frequently updated.

Practical Field Guide to Grape Growing and Vine Physiology by Daniel Schuster, Laura Bernini and Andrea Paoletti. To be released July 2nd, 2018.

This looks like some hardcore viticultural geekdoom here written by New Zealand wine grower Daniel Schuster, Tuscan viticulturalist Laura Bernini and winemaker Andrea Paoletti that will combine a mix of New World modernist and Old World traditionalist approaches to grape growing.

Oldies but goodies.

When I passed Unit 2 of the WSET Diploma level on Viticulture and Winemaking with Master of Wine Stephen Skelton’s Viticulture, Jeff Cox’s From Vines to Wines and the old school classic of A.J. Winkler and crew’s General Viticulture (under $15 used) were my primary study aids in the vineyard.

At around 146 pages, I can see the Practical Field Guide being an easily digestible compendium to the books I mention above and another great study tool for wine geeks seeking certifications in the WSET or Court of Master Sommelier programs.

Wine Marketing and Sales, 3rd Edition by Liz Thach, Janeen Olsen and Paul Wagner. To be released July 2nd, 2018.

I’ve had this book pre-ordered since February–so, yeah, I’m pretty excited.

While I was doing researching for my article Under the (Social Media) Influence, I realized that there was a dearth of resources for wineries and wine business students about how to effectively utilize social media. A huge reason for that is how quickly the industry and technology is changing so this updated edition of Wine Marketing and Sales was desperately needed. With how in-depth and perspective-driven the previous two editions were, I have no doubt that this and other modern topics and challenges of the industry are going to be addressed.

Dr. Liz Thach, MW is one of the most brilliant minds in the wine business whose writings in Wine Business Monthly and other publications are must-reads for anyone wanting to keep a pulse on the happenings in the wine business. In addition to Wine Marketing and Sales, Thach’s Wine: a Global Business is another resource that I’ve thoroughly gobbled up in highlighted notes and annotations.

The New Pink Wine: A Modern Guide to the World’s Best Rosés by Ann Walker and Larry Walker. To be released July 19th, 2018.

Has the “Rosé Revolution” jumped the shark yet? Who knows?

But The New Pink Wine is here to join a chorus of recently released rosé wine books in the last year and a half that includes Master of Wine Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan’s Rosé Wine (you can check out my review of it here), Victoria James and Lyle Railsback’s Drink Pink, Katherine Cole’s Rosé All Day, Master of Wine Elizabeth Gabay’s Rosé: Understanding the pink wine revolution and Julia Charles’ Rosé Cocktails that I highlighted in last month’s Wine Geek Notes.

If you want to go “old school hipster”, there is also Jeff Morgan’s 2005 work Rosé: A Guide to the World’s Most Versatile Wine which was on the Pink Train way back when Brangelina were still filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

What will the Walkers’ The New Pink Wine add to the conversation? At 224 pages, it’s not aiming to be a pamphlet. Both the Walkers do have lots of experience in the food and wine industry with Ann as a chef, educator, writer and frequent judge for the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Larry Walker has written for various food & wine magazine and is the editor for several of Williams-Sonoma’s Wine Guides.

I suppose as long as new bottles of rosé keeping hitting the wine shelves, we’ll keep getting new rosé wine books for the book shelf.

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Summer’s coming which for me brings visions of lounging in the sun with a nice glass of rosé and something geeky to read.

As I get my summer reading list in order, here are a few new wine books that are being released in May and June.

Rosé Cocktails: 40 deliciously different pink-wine based drinks by Julia Charles. Released May 8th.

Speaking of rosé, I must admit that I shudder at thought of “frosé” with its syrupy sweet slushie take on the Provençal classic. Soda-pop wine cocktails have never been my thing. But my curiosity is piqued at what talented bartenders can do crafting serious wine-based cocktail recipes. The popularity of Sherry cocktails has helped sparked new life and interest in the phenomenal wines of Jerez–taking Sherries out of your grandmother’s decanter and turning them into Adonis.

I fret that with the flood of really crappy rosés on the market, we may need to hit rock-bottom first with our brosé, frosé, 40 oz bottles and gummy bears before we’ll get a “renaissance” of taking rosé seriously again. Judging from the book’s description, Rosé Cocktails may not be a rudder steering us towards that seriousness (compared to say Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan’s Rosé Wine and Elizabeth Gabay’s Rosé: Understanding the pink wine revolution which have thankfully less liberal mentionings of “frosé”) but I’m hopeful that Charles’ book will at least offer the bros 39 other options apart from turning their rosés into wannabe frozen margaritas.

A Short History of Drunkenness: How, Why, Where, and When Humankind Has Gotten Merry from the Stone Age to the Present by Mark Forsyth. Released May 8th.

Considering this is written by the same guy (The Inky Fool) who wrote the uber-geeky The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language, I have a feeling that there will be a lot of fun word play and nerdy trivia in this 286 page “short history”.

Frankly a couple glasses of Madiera puts me in the mood more to cuddle with dogs than anything else.

In fact, I would LOVE to see a book focusing on the etymology of grape names and wine words. You can find bits and pieces of things in various books (like Jancis Robinson’s Wine Grapes) but even that doesn’t go quite into detail about things like how did the Esgana Cão (Sercial) grape of Madeira and Bucelas DOC get the name “dog strangler”?

Wine Grapes suggests that it was because of the grape’s “fiery acidity” but that makes more sense as an explanation for the Friuli red grape Tazzelenghe (tongue cutter) than it does for “dog strangling”. Then you have Mourvedre which has a similar synonym “Estrangle Chien” that is instead attributed to the grape’s high tannins and tough skins.

I’m not expecting A Short History of Drunkenness to clear any of that up but mostly I’m just excited by Forsyth’s foray into the world of wine and hopeful that he’ll keep applying his sharp wit and geeky gifts to more vinous volumes.

Tasting the Past: The Science of Flavor and the Search for the Origins of Wine by Kevin Begos. Release date June 12th.

Wine wasn’t necessarily “invented” but its ancient origins and how civilizations accidentally discovered it, time and time again, is a fascinating topic. Two must-reads for those wanting to geek out about wine’s origins are Patrick McGovern’s Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture and Hugh Johnson’s Vintage: The Story of Wine.

From the book’s description, it looks like Tasting the Past is going to focus on Begos’ personal journey through the modern remnants of ancient wine cultures in the Mediterranean, Middle East, Caucasus and the Americas–probably intermingling with historical details of wine origins in those places. That is an interesting approach that will be different from McGovern and Johnson’s work or even Paul Lukacs’ 2007 book Inventing Wine: A New History of One of the World’s Most Ancient Pleasures.

I’m particularly intrigued by Tasting the Past’s promise to explore “distinctive wines from a new generation of local grapes” which suggests plenty of geeky fodder involving unique grape varieties and characterful wines that depart from the “same ole, same ole”.