Mike got really excited about the book Wine Wars: The Curse of the Blue Nun, The Miracle of Two Buck Chuck and the Revenge of the Terroirists, so he’s writing in his own voice today with a short review:
I know we don’t regularly review books on OBG but we do leave ourselves that “anything that strikes fancy” loophole. So let me own the fact that a book by a wine economist on the global wine market that manages to educate in non-technical terms and names the names that anyone will recognize is one that I highly recommend and I will be purchasing for my own reading. So the Pasadena Public Library can expect their copy of Wine Wars back on time for a change.
Author Mike Veseth, a blogger at WineEconomist.com and a professor at University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, presents a worldview of wine that OBG readers will recognize as being whatever you want the stuff to be – daily beverage, special occasion or anytime – and that the market will respond to what the consumer wants and is very deliberate about going about doing it. So you should feel encouraged that the pursuit of your wine dollar by the owners of Trader Joes, Costco and other merchants will make them do anything you want.
Veseth’s book as it is an easy pick up and drop text or a great discussion topic for a “wine and wisdom” reading group. Veseth makes the dismal science a lot more enjoyable with or without a glass nearby. It’s a textbook disguised as a a balanced exposé of the global wine biz. I plan on buying it knowing full well that the revised future edition are likely given the speed at which things change. But we stress that wine is a moving target and that YOU know what tastes good to you. Veseth leaves the experiential part up to the reader. So would we if we were writing a book like this.