Crisis and Change: Rethinking California Wine

April 29, 2025 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, wine 1 Comment

Elaine Chukan Brown, The Wines of California (Académie du Vin Library, 2025).

California wine has a long history of facing what feel like insurmountable challenges. It also has a long history of people coming together to problem solve, innovate, and succeed once again. Honest examination of pressures on the industry can reveal ways the people of California might plan its future. (p. 303)

Elaine Chukan Brown’s terrific new book has just been released. It is not just a good book but an important one. It presents us with an opportunity both to think in new ways about the wines of California and to reconsider what we think about wine books in general.

The Wines of California does not present a static picture of California and its wine. It is all about change, and the overarching theme is resilience in the face of persistent challenges.

Some have written that what makes this book different is its attention to history and it is easy to see where that comes from. The first chapter, for example, focuses on California’s indigenous peoples for the very good reason that they are central to the state’s wine origin story. Grape vines were planted and grape wine was made for use in the Spanish missions. The indigenous peoples were both the intended consumers of the wine (sacramental wine) and the labor that was employed to produce it.

The book’s first section traces the history of California wine through Prohibition and its aftermath, the rise of industrial agriculture, and on to the present day. It is California wine in context like never before. The middle section analyzes California’s regions and its 154 AVAs along with a curated sample of wine producers. Gosh, I wish I knew as much as any of the AVAs as Elaine Chuckan Brown seems to know about all of them!

“What we’re facing” is the title of the final section of the book and it is noteworthy in its focus on the current wine industry crisis, which affects California and the world, too. Here all the interdisciplinary threads that you’ve been following are brought together in a discussion of how a resilient industry responds to what is its biggest challenge in a long time. If you want to understand the current wine crisis clearly but beyond bullet-point depth, this is what you want to read.

In this regard The Wines of California reminds me of another recent book, One Thousand Vines: A New Way to Understand Wine by Pascaline LePeltier. Both books challenge the reader to see connections beyond the obvious ones and to understand the complex dynamics that shape the wine industry and the liquid in our glasses.

Considering these two books together made me think of something that Ian Fleming supposedly said. Once is happenstance, according to Fleming, twice is a coincidence. Three times is enemy action! Is something going on in the world of the idea of wine? Are we in the second stage of a revolution in terms of how we understand wine?

Congratulations to Elaine Chukan Brown on a masterful contribution to the new wine literature. Wine book readers, be alert. Enemy action seems to be quietly mobilizing.

Wine Economist Flashback: Stumbling into Sherry in Madrid

April 14, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Spain, The Next Big Thing, wine, wine markets 1 Comment

Sue and I are traveling in Spain and one of our goals is to learn more about what’s happening in the Sherry industry. It is our first visit to Andalucia, but not our first exposure to the world of Sherry wines. I thought you might be interested in this “Flashback” column from 2017 that reports on our very successful search for Sherry in Madrid. This flasback might especially timely given a recent Financial Times article on “How Sherry Got Chic Again.”

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Can Sherry Be the Next Big Thing?

The Wine Economist / May 16, 2017

tio Can Sherry be the “Next Big Thing” in wine? I know what you are thinking. Sherry? C’mon! That’ll never catch fire in a big way. And you may be right, but give me a chance to make my case before you close the door on the Sherry cabinet.

One of the things that Sue and I wanted to do during our recent visit to Spain was learn more about Sherry. But the itinerary seemed to work against that. No time to jet south to Jerez de la Frontera in Andaluca, Sherry’s home. We would have to piece together our education in other wine regions. With a little luck and some helpful friends, we managed quite well.

Stumbling on Sherry in Madrid

Madrid is a long way from Jerez, but we found Sherry all around us, suggesting just how much it is a part of Spanish culture. Walking the aisles of the historic San Miguel market near the Plaza Mayor, for example, we stumbled upon a market stall called The Sherry Corner where dozens of different wines were offered by the glass at bargain prices. We had fun trying new Sherry wines and revisiting old favorites.

sherrycorner

The Sherry Corner offers a fun self-guided audio tour of Sherry wines. For €30 you get six glasses of different Sherries in a special carrier, coupons for six matching tapas from various market stalls, and an audio program available in six languages. It is quite a bargain when you do the math and it lets you both get to know the wines, experiment with pairings, and take advantage of the amazing tapas on offer at the market.

We found a completely different experience at the restaurant Zahara de Osborne in the Plaza Santa Ana, which was close by our hotel. The restaurant is owned by the Osborne wine group that is famous for its Sherry wines (you can see the Osborne bull staring down from hilltops all around Spain).

The idea of the restaurant was to bring the food and culture of Andaluca to Madrid. We challenged our waiter to create that experience for us and he did a great job choosing the dishes and helping us with pairings. Gosh, the Fino was delicious with a delicately fried whole fish!

Indigenous Sherry Culture

Not that Madrid does not have its own indigenous Sherry culture. There are Sherry bars in several parts of the city. Friends guided us to one called La Venencia, where the Sherry is served en rama, fresh and unfiltered, right from the barrel, which is a style I like a lot. My university colleague Harry uses La Venencia as his office when he is in Madrid (which is a lot) and he made introductions to José and Gabriel who worked the bar that day.

La Venencia has as much depth and character as the wines that are served there. If you have any pre-conceptions, you must check them at the door and accept the bar for what it is, which is true of Sherry wines, too. And then, well, it is a complete pleasure. Sherry really isn’t like anything else you will ever drink and La Venencia is just the same.

I have seldom been anywhere that was so totally itself and I will always associate that strong impression with the dry Manzanilla Sherry wines we enjoyed at La Venecia. osborne

A Little Help from our Friends

We got a little help from friends at Osborne and Gonzalez Byass wineries in our quest to learn more about Sherry. Santiago Salinas arranged for a tasting of Rare Old Sherries when we visited Osborne’s Montecilla winery in Rioja. These were wines for philosophers and poets. It is stunning to discover what great Sherries can become with time. We were inspired by Santiago’s passion for the wines and, of course, by the wines themselves.

Our visit to Finca Constancia near Toledo was organized around a rather extravagant seminar and tasting of Gonzalez Byass wines ranging from their signature Fino, Tio Pepe, on to a special Tio Pepe en rama bottling, and then carefully and thoroughly all the way through the line-up to the sweet, concentrated Pedro Xeménez.

Marina Garcia, our guide on this Sherry tour, was not afraid to draw out the complexities of the wines, which is great. As I told my audience at the General Assembly, sometimes complicated things need to be understood in complicated ways. Our favorite? We discovered the Palo Cortado Sherry style and it made us think. I love it when a wine does that.

Sherry doesn’t have to complicated … or sweet either, for that matter, although many people put the wines in that category. A chilled bottle of very dry fino or Manzanilla is pretty pure pleasure and will change many minds. But you’ve got to try it yourself to be persuaded and that’s a challenge. constancia

Sherry’s Moment?

If you look at the fundamentals, it is easy to conclude that this could be Sherry’s moment. The wines are great and well-priced. They come in a range of styles that variously make great aperitifs, pair well with food, or help unleash that inner poet. Apparently Sherry works really well as a cocktail base, too. Gotta check that out.

Tourism in Spain is on the rise and Spain’s tapas culture cuisine, which matches up so well with dry Sherry, is increasingly popular. Sherry, as much as any wine I know, is a product of time and place, and wears its authenticity proudly. Authentic, affordable, food-friendly. Aren’t these the things that wine drinkers are looking for today?

Sherry’s burden is its reputation as that sweet old wine that grandma drinks. There is so much more to Sherry for those who pull the cork. If enough curious wine drinkers pull enough corks, perhaps Sherry’s “Next Big Thing” potential can be realized!

Is Sherry going to be the next big thing? Probably not. But it doesn’t have to be. It is a timeless wine waiting to be re-discovered by a new generation of wine drinkers.

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Thanks to everyone who helped us with our Sherry research. Special thanks to Susana, Mauricio, Marina, Santiago, George, Cesar, Greg, Harry, Jensen, Gabriel, and José. Thanks to Sue for these photos of the big Tio Pepe sign in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, the menu at The Sherry Corner, the rare old Osborne Sherries, and the many hues of the Gonzalez Byass Sherry wines.

Wine Books: 20 years of Chateau Feely, 30 Years of Gourmand Book Awards

April 1, 2025 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, wine, wine awards 3 Comments

Today’s column celebrates two anniversaries: 20 years of Chateau Feely and 30 years of the Gourmand Awards. What connects these two events? Wine books, of course, and the stories they tell us about wine and about life.

Grape Expectations: 20 Years of Chateau Feely

Caro Feely, Grape Expectations: A Family’s Vineyard Adventure in France. (First book in the Vineyard Series of books about Chateau Feely).

This is the 20th anniversary of Chateau Feely, a small organic and biodynamic winery in South West France. Caro Feely writes that

“We bought our vineyard in South West France in 2005 following our dream to create great wines on fine terroir. Now, with the wisdom of many years of winegrowing we celebrate not a misty dream but years of hard work and the inspiration of working with nature and nurturing this farm back to the full health and flavour of a living biodynamic soil. In our risky endeavour we have felt a lot: sometimes fear, sometimes pain but mostly great joy and fulfillment.”

I haven’t visited Chateau Feely, but like many people, I have shared the Feely family’s journey through Caro’s four Vineyard Series books, starting with Grape Expectations, and progressing through Saving Our Skins, Vineyard Confessions, and Cultivating Change. When Grape Expectations first appeared I wrote that

Caro Feely is an economist and a dreamer and so there was bound to be a bit of cognitive dissonance when she and her husband Sean and their two daughters pulled up stakes in Dublin and moved to Saussignac to grow grapes, make wine, and live the dream instead of just dreaming it.

Cognitive dissonance? Yes, that’s the stress that you feel when you try to believe two contradictory things at the same time and there cannot be two thoughts that are much more in contradiction than the idea of taking over a dilapidated house and run down vineyard and cellar and making great wine and the notion that you will be able to pay the bills and support a family in the process.

I’m not quite sure if Feely’s 2012 book Grape Expectations was written as a creative outlet, a cheap form of therapy or to generate an additional revenue stream, but it is a delightful book that I recommend to all my friends. Feely tells her family’s story and the book could be placed on a shelf along with Under the Tuscan Sun or A Year in Provence because of its ability to give all of us a peek at expat daily life in a suitably romantic setting,

But while there’s enough romance in Feely’s book to make it attractive to someone looking for an escape, it is the reality of her situation that appeals most to me. Besides telling a good story about her family’s experiences, she also teaches us a great deal about the arts and craft of winegrowing and the economics of the wine business, with its peculiar challenges and opportunities.

Grape Expectations is one of my favorite wine books because it weaves all the natural, technical, social, business, and personal elements of wine into a compelling (and true!) story. The four volumes of Feely’s Vineyard Series provide a rare opportunity to experience the hardships and triumphs of winegrowing from the relative comfort of your armchair. Highly recommended.

30 Years of the Gourmand Awards

Edouard Cointreau founded the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in 1995. Over the last 30 years they have expanded in several dimensions snf now seek to honor the best food, wine, and drinks books, printed or digital, as well as food television.

It is truly a global celebration. More than 221 countries have been represented, which is more than the United Nations (193 member states) and the same as FIFA, the world soccer governing body (221 member associations).

Edouard writes, “We reward now all food and drinks content, in print or digital, paid or free, private or public, trade publishers or self published, big or small, with an equal chance for everyone.”

The 30th anniversary celebration takes place from June 18-22, 2025, at the historic Palace of Marques de Pombal in Oeiras, Portugal. It should be quite a party!

Gourmand is inspired by the Olympics. Wine and food books are organized by nation of origin and earn the equivalents of bronze, silver, and gold awards. Edouard reports that “For the past 30 years, we have rewarded the best drinks books. Wine books 59%, spirits 24% beer 6%, coffee 5%, tea 3%, others 3%. English 37%, French 22%, Spanish 12%, others 29%.” There has been a gradual decline in wine books over the years, he notes, as interest in other beverages has increased.

The decrease in wine books is notable in the U.S. and U.K., but interest is stronger in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Brazil. It is an interesting coincidence that an excellent Portuguese translation of one of my books was recently published in Brazil and that my colleagues Cynthia Howson and Pierre Ly recently published a Spanish translation of their book about adventures on the wine trail in China.

Edouard breaks down the awards by the numbers:

We have over 220 countries and regions participating every year since 2019. Founded 30 years ago, in 1995, it took us 12 years to reach 100 participating countries, 20 years to reach 200. Our number of countries and regions is slightly higher than the Olympics, because everyone eats, and not everyone can afford to have a sports team. The maximum number is around 250. There are 193 countries in the United Nations.
We now have a balance of origins for participating books between continents. North America plus Western Europe are equal to Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America. By languages, participating books are in English 41%, French 12%, Spanish 12%, other languages 36%.
Traditional trade publishers have decreased to 70%, with independently published rising to 20% and corporations a surprising 10%.
Internet now has quality food and drink books available free for downloads. They are screened by the Gourmand Awards for the best since 2016. They have their own separate parallel categories in the Gourmand Awards.
Today the top free publications are published 66% by public institutions, 19% by NGOs, and 15% by private interests.
United Nations and other big international organizations such as FAO, WFP, UNESCO, EU, CIRAD, OIV, have many food or drink publications, while local, or regional governments issue a large quantity of single titles more difficult to find.
For 20 years, women authors of food books have been stable over 60%,with men authors under 40%. It is the opposite for drink books, with men authors slowly decreasing at 75%, women rising at 25%.
For drinks books, on our lists, wine books are decreasing, now at 59%. All other drink books are up, with alcohol spirits books at 24%, beer at 6%, coffee at 5%, tea at 3%, others at 3%.
Food and drink culture is becoming global. It is not polarized. It is a gigantic puzzle where each piece is important and has its part.

Congratulations to this year’s winners. And thanks to Edouard Cointreau for three decades of hard work promoting wine books and supporting publishers and authors (like me).