Here at Wine Economist World Headquarters we have started counting down the days until the release of Wine Wars II: The Global Battle for the Soul of Wine. The book’s official release date is July 1, 2022, but it is not too soon to put in your pre-order at Amazon.com or Rowman & Littlefield. Wine Wars II will be available in paperback, e-book format, and (eventually) audio-book, too.
Wine Wars II is a major revision of my best-selling 2011 book Wine Wars. I’ll be honest — I wasn’t really planning to revise Wine Wars, but I couldn’t help myself. I re-read the book last year on its 10th birthday and there were some parts that really made me smile — they held up very well over the decade since release.
But there were other parts that made me shake my head. I wouldn’t write that today, I thought, either because so much has changed in the global wine industry or because I have changed — learned so much from all the people we’ve met on our global travels.
So there was nothing to do but write a revised book, which went into Rowman & Littlefield’s production pipeline last year and will come out in a few weeks.
I asked a few colleagues to read the book and write “blurbs” to help promote it. Here’s what they have to say.
Judy Chan, CEO of Grace Vineyard China:
10 years ago, when I first read Wine Wars, I was excited to see finally someone wrote about the business aspect of wine. As a wine producer in China who was new to the industry (and the industry was also very new in China), the book gave me a global perspective to look at my local market. With the updated information in this edition, it would be refreshing for someone who wants to see how the industry has and has not changed.
Elin McCoy, author of The Emperor of Wine, global wine critic for Bloomberg News and U.S. Editor of The Wine Conversation podcast
No one makes the powerful economic forces behind a bottle of wine more fascinating than Mike Veseth. Yet his easy-going, down-to-earth approach to these complex topics also brims with entertaining stories and humor – who else would analyze the appeal of wine brands named Secret Squirrel or Tussock Jumper? This new, 10-years-later, version two of his classic Wine Wars is filled with pithy insights about the world of vino today, such as ‘identity trumps authenticity.’
If you want to understand the future of wine, this book is a must read. It will convince you that climate change, economic risk, and stronger-than-ever global wine brands threaten the soul of wine itself. Are we headed for a dark age? Spoiler alert: Wine Wars II ends on a slightly optimistic note, in Portugal.
Andrea Robinson, Master Sommelier and author, Great Wine Made Simple
What a timely book for business leaders and their advisers! While the book’s context is the wine and wine grape growing industries, the challenges and opportunities pinpointed and deftly parsed easily apply to so many industries and brands. Globalization, climate change, the economic challenges of labor, supply chain, brand-building and brand equity preservation in a digital world—Mike Veseth’s synthesis of their present-day coalescence, and the ‘so what’ of that, seems almost clairvoyant. Wine Wars II is also a fun, punchy read, ripe with storytelling, along with some cool comparative wine tastings to illustrate the points. As an economics and finance-trained banker-turned-sommelier, I found this book to be invaluable for my work with clients and wine industry stakeholders of all sizes and stripes, as well as a delight to read.
Alessandro Torcoli, Director, Civiltà del bere
I’ve always been amazed by Mike’s ability to clearly describe wine dynamics in a global perspective with a deep understanding of local forces. Wine Wars II is a must-read book to anyone who want to feel like a real expert on our marvelous, but a bit tricky world of wine.