Product Description
"I want my wines to tell a good story. I want them natural and most of all, like my dear friends, I want them to speak the truth even if we argue,” says Alice Feiring. Join her as she sets off on her one-woman crusade against the tyranny of homogenization, wine consultants, and, of course, the 100-point scoring system of a certain all-powerful wine writer. Traveling through the ancient vineyards of the Loire and Champagne, to Piedmont and Spain, she goes in search of authentic barolo, the last old-style rioja, and the tastiest new terroir-driven champagnes. She reveals just what goes into the average bottle—the reverse osmosis, the yeasts and enzymes, the sawdust and oak chips—and why she doesn’t find much to drink in California. And she introduces rebel winemakers who are embracing old-fashioned techniques and making wines with individuality and soul. No matter what your palate, travel the wine world with Feiring and you’ll have to ask yourself: What do i really want in my glass?
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The Battle for Wine and Love: or How I Saved the World from Parkerization
- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Harcourt; 2008-05-19
- Label: Harcourt
- Studio: Harcourt
- ISBN: 0151012865
- Average Customer Review:
 based on 29 reviews
- Sales Rank in Books: #184249
Avg. Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Read 2009-01-07
Comment: This is an excellent book...if you don't like the huge Parkerized wines of the world. If you like natural wines you'll love what Ms. Feiring has to say. It's a very well written book and one that is not snobish or rude in any way. Read the book and then try some of the wines she mentions (they can all be had for less than $20).
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: The Battle For Wine and Love or How I saved the World from Parkerization 2008-11-17
Comment: Alice writes very well, although she has a distinct bias for old style wines with distinctive terroir, and not only dislikes Parker styled wines, but seemingly most modern wines, e.g Sandrone, Spinetta, etc.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Must Read for Wine Lovers 2008-09-13
Comment: A wonderful little book. Kudos to Feiring for some badly needed straight-talk. Robert Parker has been on a crusade to destroy terroir-driven wines. Feiring is a champion for those of us who love wine and hate what Robert Parker has done to wine. Buy this book and boycott Parker-rated wines!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: great read, great purpose. 2008-09-09
Comment:
I picked up this book because of the title. It sounded like it might be helpful with my own changing taste and evolution with wine. It did and it's a terrific book.
As a native Californian, when I started drinking wine in the late 60s it was California Cabs and I loved them. However, over time I eventually grew tired of buttery chards, and jammy reds. When I started to explore French and Italian wines it was confusing and a disappointment at first. But then the subtlety finally got to me and they began tasting elegant and unique. It wasn't long until the overly fruity and oaky wines were hard to drink. Furthermore, I slowly began to realize that the 1-100 point scale for wine that I once used religiously became an almost inverse guide--- if Parker or Wine Spectator, or Wine Advocate gave something a 90 plus rating, I would worry that it was way too fruity.
Kermit Lynch's terrific book--Adventures on the Wine Route, really opened my eyes--or taste buds--and helped in a historical context to more understand what fine, soulful wine is all about.
Alice Feiring's book takes it a step further and nails it for the wine world of today! This is a wonderful, funny, and insightful work. Her many different points of contact in the wine world reveal just how the current disincentive for authentic wine has occurred--everywhere in the world. Her personal references humanize the story making it more fun to read than the typical wine book. Within the fascinating stories, are remarkable, if not startling specifics of what to avoid and what to seek out in trying to find the unique, quality wines that are honest expressions of the area and not artificially doped-up and homogenized to a single commercial taste. All this is extremely important to anyone who really wants to improve their understanding and find truly good wine--old or new world. Fortunately, they do exist in both and his books points you in the right direction.
But perhaps most importantly, Feiring is a competent and courageous voice helping to get the world of wine back on track.
Bravo and carry on!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: It would be pointless to rate this on a 100 point scale 2008-09-06
Comment: As Alice Feiring sagely argues, that would be a silly thing to do with books, people, wine, or life in general. I thus find it difficult to "rate" this book, whether on a scale of one to five stars, 100 points or 20 points or otherwise. There is so much good about it. But for me it is something of a flawed diamond.
I wanted so much to be enthralled with this book, as others here have said. Alice Feiring has her head in the right place where wine is concerned. She's got a great blog. She knows what she's talking about. When I heard her book was coming out, it was a must have volume for me and I "pre-ordered" it. To be frank, the title was off-putting. It seemed like a marketer's strange marriage of "chick lit" (oh God, forgive me, Alice) and wine geek ((and I mean that in a good way), but I figured I could get past that, no problemo.
So then I sat down to read the book cover to cover, in a few ferry crossings between The Rock and Seattle -- and I did so with great expectations (little g, little e, not with the Dickens novel in my other hand). Here's the Plus and the Minus:
Plus: The book stakes out a strong and well reasoned argument for terroir, traditional (and by that I mean organic, possibly even biodynamic, non-interventionist, not careless and just plain bad) viticulture and winemaking. Alice plainly knows her stuff. And yes, she has the "cojones" to call a spade a shovel. Heck, anyone who will cross swords on the dais with the likes of Clark Smith certainly knows hold to hold her own in an argument.
While it isn't exactly new news, as tens of thousands of us by now probably feel the same way and may have said it often enough, it's gratifying to see someone pronounce Robert Parker, the Wine Spectator, Michel Rolland and others of that ilk something of a public menace -- and get published.
Minus: There's too much chatty, "personal backstory" stuff clouding the picture, for my personal taste anyway. Some may find Mr. Bow Tie, Owl Man, Honey Sugar and all the rest entertaining. To me, it's just in the way at best; unnerving, awkward and genuinely distracting at worst. When I got to the part about winemaker so and so's "deep, sexy voice" and his "tussle of brown curls and fleshy, sensuous earlobes," and read about the various exploits of "Skinny," I began to wonder whether I could finish the book.
The book definitely is worth finishing. But I do wish it stuck to what I hoped to find, and did in large part -- well-crafted and opinionated writing about wine. Maybe this really needed to be two books - one about wine, the other about, well, the other stuff. "Sex and the Single Wine Writer," perhaps?
Let's be clear. Alice is the real deal and she's a valuable advocate for real wine. As I said at the outset, this is a book I'd like to be able to give an unqualified five stars. I just can't, given the distractions that to me detract from the seriousness of the message.
Were I Robert Parker, I would give it an 88. OK, maybe a 90. Who the hell knows. That's what's wrong with the whole Parker School of wine criticism in the first place. But I imagine he might call it a fruity, quirky, wild cherry and chocolate laden hedonistic fruit bomb, with overtones of creosote and a whiff of pheromones; drink 2008 to 2010.
As it is, I give it four stars.
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The Battle for Wine and Love: or How I Saved the World from Parkerization
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