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An Ideal Wine: One Generation's Pursuit of Perfection - and Profit - in California
FromDavid Darlington, author of the acclaimed Angels’ Visits (published inpaperback as Zin ), comes an inside look at howa handful of visionary winemakers has transformed—and been transformed by—theCalifornia wine industry over the past four decades. In the tradition of TheWidow Clicquot and The Billionaire’s Vinegar ,Darlington’s An Ideal Wine is afascinating, lively tale of vision and daring, of business and politics, ofnature and culture, and of the unlikely birth of a multi-billion dollarindustry.
- GenresWineNonfiction
368 pages, Hardcover
First published June 28, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 25, 2011
I must admit that I enjoy drinking wine but would hardly call myself a wine connoisseur. That being said, "An Ideal Wine" is not written for someone who wants a simple overview of the business of making wine in Napa Valley. "An Ideal Wine" is much better suited for someone with an in-depth knowledge of wine who wants to read about the background of a few Napa Valley Wine Producers.
"An Ideal Wine" gives an in-depth look into the Napa Valley wine industry from the anecdotes and views expressed by Randall Grahm and Leo McCloskey. David Darlington tells a story about the factors that determine a wine's taste, such as the terrain where the grapes are grown and the timing for grape picking. He also discusses different techniques for growing grapes, aging wine, and the synthetic techniques used by many wine manufacturers to introduce different flavors into wine that the American public favors.
I found the discussion about Enologix, a California corporation that designs and markets uality analysis and models for predicting the taste of wine, to be particularly interesting. Before reading the book, I had never realized that many wine manufacturers have their wines chemically analyzed for taste.
Overall, though, I was disappointed in the book. I found it poorly organized. The chapter sequence did not flow well and the folksy nature of David Darlington's writing made it hard to follow the story that he attempted to tell. Furthermore, I would have liked the book to give more weight to a "generation's pursuit of perfection--and profit" and less to the individual anecdotes of McColsky and Grahm.
"An Ideal Wine" gives an in-depth look into the Napa Valley wine industry from the anecdotes and views expressed by Randall Grahm and Leo McCloskey. David Darlington tells a story about the factors that determine a wine's taste, such as the terrain where the grapes are grown and the timing for grape picking. He also discusses different techniques for growing grapes, aging wine, and the synthetic techniques used by many wine manufacturers to introduce different flavors into wine that the American public favors.
I found the discussion about Enologix, a California corporation that designs and markets uality analysis and models for predicting the taste of wine, to be particularly interesting. Before reading the book, I had never realized that many wine manufacturers have their wines chemically analyzed for taste.
Overall, though, I was disappointed in the book. I found it poorly organized. The chapter sequence did not flow well and the folksy nature of David Darlington's writing made it hard to follow the story that he attempted to tell. Furthermore, I would have liked the book to give more weight to a "generation's pursuit of perfection--and profit" and less to the individual anecdotes of McColsky and Grahm.
July 13, 2011
David Darlington's reporting and the storytelling in "An Ideal Wine" are impressive. So much of what we see about wine these days – so much of what we see about any topic – is mere opinion or reaction to what someone else has written. Regurgitation. So few people are out there digging and finding fresh stories. This book is fine journalism, brimming with great tales from an extraordinary time in California wine history. And it is beautifully crafted, another thing that distinguishes it from so much wine writing we see today. I loved reading it. That said, I'm not sure the “one generation’s pursuit” idea in the title quite coalesced. The material didn't quite come together that way - perhaps the industry and the idea itself are too amorphous for that to happen? I wrote in the margin at one point: “A book about Bonny Doon/Grahm – or about real vs. spoof? – masquerading as something else? Randall vs. Leo? Randall = Leo?” Suffice it to say, Randall Grahm dominates the book, and so his legions of fans will no doubt want to read it, and will enjoy it. But I wondered whether he really deserved to be there. Certainly he has a way of insinuating himself into the discussion, but has he really been the leading protagonist in shaping the California wine industry in the past 30 years? Or has he simply beguiled and charmed a lot of people, from consumers to writers? No matter, really. As someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about California wine for the last couple of decades, I say hat’s off to Darlington for capturing so much important, delicious stuff, and so vividly. His book is fascinating and indispensable to anyone interested in California wine.
November 8, 2011
Once upon a time, in the fabled Land of Milk and Honey (1970's California), the Knights (and a few Maidens) of Vitis Vinifera vowed to champion beautiful wines that would express the true nature of the golden slopes and coastal valleys they called home. They armed themselves with degrees from the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology, they pulled stints in wine shops and wineries, they met to taste the great wines of the world, sharpening their palates on Bordeaux and Burgundies, Rieslings and Champagnes. They shared and stumbled together, battling the dragons of weather, pestilence, fungus, financial woes, burnout and poor judgment to create a stunning array of wines that would be celebrated across the world (I write of the legendary Judgment of Paris, at which a host of California wines bested French labels in a blind tasting in 1976).
Then one day a great shadow fell over the land. A cunning sorcerer - bearing the benign moniker of Robert Parker - and his sipping sycophants - writers for Wine Spectator - sidled on to the scene. Slinging arrows in the shape of 100-point scale scores, these sorcerers cast a spell over the land, causing the people to believe that quality wine was plush, plummy, velvety, overripe, oak-laden, high-alcohol jam that bore no distinguishing characteristics of the terroir from whence it came. The people were deceived and began to shell out premium coin for ripe and fruity plonk. The Knights of Vitis Vinifera fell to their knees, proclaiming allegiance to the Dark Lords of High Scores. They were rewarded with riches beyond imagination.
The Court Jester, Randall Grahm, and the Court Wizard, Leo McCloskey become the central characters in this tale. The former, the iconic proprietor of Bonny Doon Vineyard and erstwhile owner of Pacific Rim, Cardinal Zin and Big House wines, took a tangled route through the California wine industry. He baffled and beguiled his counterparts, critics and devotees by reaching for the sun with his wings barely glued to his back. He grew everything, everywhere, experimenting with varietals, sites and techniques in an astonishing display of fearlessness. His odd pockets of vineyards grew into an empire of brands and Grahm - through his prolific newsletters and showboat style- became the tail that wagged the dog. A master of marketing which grossly overshadowed the quality of his wine in the heady days the 90's, Grahm at last returned to his original, earnest goal of creating artisanal wines that speak of the true terroir of California. He is now a champion of biodynamic processes, committed to restoring winemaking to a craft of nature respectfully managed- not manipulated- by man.
Leo McCloskey, a contemporary of Grahm's, was a young, gifted scientist and winemaker who guided storied Ridge Vineyards to worthy acclaim. He pursued a doctorate in chemical ecology at UC Davis and Santa Cruz, and earned his reputation as a skilled winemaker and consultant. McCloskey recognized early that the rapid and massive growth of the California wine industry needed savvy businesspeople to manage the aspirations of idealistic entrepreneurs. He studied the ascending importance of Robert Parker, editor of The Wine Advocate and the world's most renowned wine critic, and of the luxury magazine Wine Spectator, which copied Parker's 100-point rating scale. McCloskey's genius revealed itself in the creation of a service that winemakers had no idea they needed: Enologix. Enologix is founded on the principle that wine quality can be measured empirically, therefore crafted chemically. He has created a metric which takes into account the tastes of Robert Parker and critics from Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and other noted wine and spirits publications. The algorithms analyze a wine's flavor components at every stage of production, from growing, harvesting, and fermentation to aging and bottling. Used in conjunction with a market analysis, the Enologix metric is designed to ensure a wine will reach a target price, volume and critic score.
In An Ideal Wine, David Darlington pours out a sweeping history of the modern California wine industry, the one that began with idealists in blue jeans in the late 60's, through today's corporate megalopolises. Dozens of winemaking and kingmaking scions are introduced, though the two principals- Grahm and McCloskey- are featured as the Yin and Yang of the vast and complicated pursuit of the "Ideal Wine."
Darlington is comprehensive and fair, respectful of the access McCloskey and Grahm provided to their businesses and personal lives. He does not spare us Grahm's cringe-worthy self-absorbed silliness nor does he glide over McCloskey's obvious love of beautiful wine. But despite his journalist's quest for balance, it is clear which approach he favors: the artisan's, over the industrialist's.
And it is not hard to determine why. To the industrialist, the vine and its fruit are commodities. Remedial techniques, such as micro-oxygenation, spinning cone, reverse osmosis, and oak chips are regularly employed to correct what nature has wrought. The artisan has a "less is more" approach, adapting viticultural and oenological processes to the prevailing climate and terrain.
Of course, nothing is so black and white- there are no true villains or heroes. If one hopes to make a living making wine, business principles that recognize consumer demand must be respected. The wine artisan's quixotic mission is to refine the consumer's palate; the wine industrialist admits that an American populace raised on high-sugar treats that are silky with fat will clamor for a wine that offers these qualities, year in-year out. Many will pay top-dollar if popular critics tell them so; otherwise bulk juice bottled by discount retailers or mammoth wineries will suit just fine.
An Ideal Wine is a ripe blend of anecdotal, wizard-revealing dish-outs and technical information, which will satisfy the wine geek without overwhelming with jargon. Sadly, it is probably too intense and in-depth to appeal to the consumer targeted by Enologix- the one who wants to be pleased without having to reflect on how the substance in their glass came to be.
I toast Darlington for revealing the reality behind the romance of winemaking, for underscoring the idea that winemaking is an incredible marriage of art and science, perhaps the greatest collaboration of man and nature that we know. It is also a partnership still in its infancy in the United States. Winegrowers and winemakers are yet in the early days of exploring the micro-climates and micro-terrains of California and the Pacific Northwest and defining and working within the terroir of each. Exciting, beautiful wines are being crafted throughout the region and there is a slight but growing shift away from the mammoth mouthfuls advocated by popular critics.
During a trip to the Languedoc region of southern France last spring, my husband and I spent a couple of days with biodynamic farmer and winemaker, Jean-Pierre Vanel (Domaine LaCroix-Vanel). We visited two vineyards that he had just purchased. The vineyards had been conventionally farmed and resembled moonscapes: the soil was brittle and dead, the vines were tired, flat, and gray. Jean-Pierre caressed the vines, lamenting over their poor state like a nursemaid with a cherished charge. We then visited vineyards he has tended biodynamically for several years. They were green and lush in the early days of their ripening. Grasses grew underfoot, the soil was thick and richly-colored, flora and fauna abounded in harmony. Vanel's wines- blends of the region's signature grenache, mourvedre, syrah, cinsault, carignan (reds) and grenache blanc, roussanne, terret (whites) are fine and pure, with angles and tannins, acids and structure: wines that fully express their terroir. Vanel's vision is to be a steward of his land, to allow the vines to create the wine. Not unlike the vision of that long ago, once upon a time, California.
Then one day a great shadow fell over the land. A cunning sorcerer - bearing the benign moniker of Robert Parker - and his sipping sycophants - writers for Wine Spectator - sidled on to the scene. Slinging arrows in the shape of 100-point scale scores, these sorcerers cast a spell over the land, causing the people to believe that quality wine was plush, plummy, velvety, overripe, oak-laden, high-alcohol jam that bore no distinguishing characteristics of the terroir from whence it came. The people were deceived and began to shell out premium coin for ripe and fruity plonk. The Knights of Vitis Vinifera fell to their knees, proclaiming allegiance to the Dark Lords of High Scores. They were rewarded with riches beyond imagination.
The Court Jester, Randall Grahm, and the Court Wizard, Leo McCloskey become the central characters in this tale. The former, the iconic proprietor of Bonny Doon Vineyard and erstwhile owner of Pacific Rim, Cardinal Zin and Big House wines, took a tangled route through the California wine industry. He baffled and beguiled his counterparts, critics and devotees by reaching for the sun with his wings barely glued to his back. He grew everything, everywhere, experimenting with varietals, sites and techniques in an astonishing display of fearlessness. His odd pockets of vineyards grew into an empire of brands and Grahm - through his prolific newsletters and showboat style- became the tail that wagged the dog. A master of marketing which grossly overshadowed the quality of his wine in the heady days the 90's, Grahm at last returned to his original, earnest goal of creating artisanal wines that speak of the true terroir of California. He is now a champion of biodynamic processes, committed to restoring winemaking to a craft of nature respectfully managed- not manipulated- by man.
Leo McCloskey, a contemporary of Grahm's, was a young, gifted scientist and winemaker who guided storied Ridge Vineyards to worthy acclaim. He pursued a doctorate in chemical ecology at UC Davis and Santa Cruz, and earned his reputation as a skilled winemaker and consultant. McCloskey recognized early that the rapid and massive growth of the California wine industry needed savvy businesspeople to manage the aspirations of idealistic entrepreneurs. He studied the ascending importance of Robert Parker, editor of The Wine Advocate and the world's most renowned wine critic, and of the luxury magazine Wine Spectator, which copied Parker's 100-point rating scale. McCloskey's genius revealed itself in the creation of a service that winemakers had no idea they needed: Enologix. Enologix is founded on the principle that wine quality can be measured empirically, therefore crafted chemically. He has created a metric which takes into account the tastes of Robert Parker and critics from Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and other noted wine and spirits publications. The algorithms analyze a wine's flavor components at every stage of production, from growing, harvesting, and fermentation to aging and bottling. Used in conjunction with a market analysis, the Enologix metric is designed to ensure a wine will reach a target price, volume and critic score.
In An Ideal Wine, David Darlington pours out a sweeping history of the modern California wine industry, the one that began with idealists in blue jeans in the late 60's, through today's corporate megalopolises. Dozens of winemaking and kingmaking scions are introduced, though the two principals- Grahm and McCloskey- are featured as the Yin and Yang of the vast and complicated pursuit of the "Ideal Wine."
Darlington is comprehensive and fair, respectful of the access McCloskey and Grahm provided to their businesses and personal lives. He does not spare us Grahm's cringe-worthy self-absorbed silliness nor does he glide over McCloskey's obvious love of beautiful wine. But despite his journalist's quest for balance, it is clear which approach he favors: the artisan's, over the industrialist's.
And it is not hard to determine why. To the industrialist, the vine and its fruit are commodities. Remedial techniques, such as micro-oxygenation, spinning cone, reverse osmosis, and oak chips are regularly employed to correct what nature has wrought. The artisan has a "less is more" approach, adapting viticultural and oenological processes to the prevailing climate and terrain.
Of course, nothing is so black and white- there are no true villains or heroes. If one hopes to make a living making wine, business principles that recognize consumer demand must be respected. The wine artisan's quixotic mission is to refine the consumer's palate; the wine industrialist admits that an American populace raised on high-sugar treats that are silky with fat will clamor for a wine that offers these qualities, year in-year out. Many will pay top-dollar if popular critics tell them so; otherwise bulk juice bottled by discount retailers or mammoth wineries will suit just fine.
An Ideal Wine is a ripe blend of anecdotal, wizard-revealing dish-outs and technical information, which will satisfy the wine geek without overwhelming with jargon. Sadly, it is probably too intense and in-depth to appeal to the consumer targeted by Enologix- the one who wants to be pleased without having to reflect on how the substance in their glass came to be.
I toast Darlington for revealing the reality behind the romance of winemaking, for underscoring the idea that winemaking is an incredible marriage of art and science, perhaps the greatest collaboration of man and nature that we know. It is also a partnership still in its infancy in the United States. Winegrowers and winemakers are yet in the early days of exploring the micro-climates and micro-terrains of California and the Pacific Northwest and defining and working within the terroir of each. Exciting, beautiful wines are being crafted throughout the region and there is a slight but growing shift away from the mammoth mouthfuls advocated by popular critics.
During a trip to the Languedoc region of southern France last spring, my husband and I spent a couple of days with biodynamic farmer and winemaker, Jean-Pierre Vanel (Domaine LaCroix-Vanel). We visited two vineyards that he had just purchased. The vineyards had been conventionally farmed and resembled moonscapes: the soil was brittle and dead, the vines were tired, flat, and gray. Jean-Pierre caressed the vines, lamenting over their poor state like a nursemaid with a cherished charge. We then visited vineyards he has tended biodynamically for several years. They were green and lush in the early days of their ripening. Grasses grew underfoot, the soil was thick and richly-colored, flora and fauna abounded in harmony. Vanel's wines- blends of the region's signature grenache, mourvedre, syrah, cinsault, carignan (reds) and grenache blanc, roussanne, terret (whites) are fine and pure, with angles and tannins, acids and structure: wines that fully express their terroir. Vanel's vision is to be a steward of his land, to allow the vines to create the wine. Not unlike the vision of that long ago, once upon a time, California.
March 8, 2018
I tried twice to get into this book, but it seems to follow no good organizational framework. We're introduced to characters who the author tries to portray as interesting or as mavericks, but they just seem like irreverent people who can't express themselves without using expletives. Furthermore, the underlying message about the California wine industry is depressing, even if it's information you already know: driven by science, no soul, it's meant to create wine that can be measured by numbers, not pleasure, complexity, or profundity.
March 19, 2017
I really liked the stories of Randall Grahm and Leo McCluskey, used as a frame for a broader story of wine in northern CA. All around fascinating.
November 9, 2011
One would think from the title that this book is about someone’s effort to find a wine that, upon tasting it, sends ones taste buds into the stratosphere. Not so. The ideal wine is one achieves high sales volume – “simple, soft, rich, fruity, and familiar to palates reared on ketchup and Coca-Cola.” It’s the story of growth of the California wine industry, particularly during the fast-paced developmental years from the 1970s into the 1990s. Wine pioneers create methods to predict market performance, price, volume and taste scores. The book is really more than I care to know about wine. I’m not a connoisseur. Nevertheless it’s an absorbing and engaging read, mainly because the author utilizes direct quotations from major participants in the booming business. Finding an ideal vineyard site seems to be a never-ending task. There’s debate about bio-dynamics and use of filters and/or reverse osmosis. When it comes to marketing and sales motivation, is subjective judgment of any use at all or is it all about use of an objective 100-point scoring system. Overall, book characters tie together an engaging story.
September 25, 2011
This book is about the players in the vineyard boom in California that started in the 1970s. If you were an insider, my guess is that it would rate 4 or 5 stars. From my perspective, too many wine industry people were interviewed or covered superficially, so I got a clear sense of only a few of them, particularly in the first part of the book where the author must’ve mentioned every person who enrolled in the UC Davis V&E program during the decade. The one constant “character” is Randall Grahm, the big personality behind Bonny Doon. Entertaining anecdotes, many of which show how the industry gradually changed from collaborative to cutthroat; eye-opening explanations about the ways in which wine is amended to make it more appealing to consumers, offset by the recent trend toward biodynamic viniculture.
March 13, 2012
Interesting read. It was quite surreal to read about people that I know (the UCD faculty). What I took away is that some people don't want there to be magic in wine and others want it to be all almost wholly magical. I did, however, enjoy getting to learn about RG's formative wine years. He to me seems less like a visionary and more like someone searching for an answer, any answer, to his question about what makes wine special. He's willing to try anything, which is refreshing.
February 17, 2013
When read with The Judgment of Paris, Darlington's book gives a rich anectdotal history of the "second" generation of great California winemakers, who got their start after the iconic victory of California wines over French wines at a blind tasting in Paris in 1976. Darlington does a good job of highlighting the complex relationship between science, mysticism, and profit that has spurred California winemaking over the last several decades.
August 14, 2011
Fantastic book. Similar in many ways to Carl Wilson's book about Celine Dion (which I also loved). Raises issues about what we mean by authenticity, and whether authenticity is necessary for art, not to mention the relationship between art and commerce. Well worth reading for anyone with even a small interest in wine.
May 11, 2012
Fascinating, if a bit scattered portrait of conflicting personalities/technologies in the world of California wine. As someone who prefers old-world, food-friendly terroir-focused wines, I found this book to be an amazing gateway into the trends, goals and focus of new world wine. I'll never drink a CA cab the same way again...
August 16, 2011
Wonderfully entertaining bi-op of California's early and idealistic winemakers, including Bonny Doon's Randall Grahm - the "court jester and bleeding conscience" of California wine. A behind-the-scenes glimpse into the fun and the game-changing commitment these guys had. Great read.
April 4, 2012
Only about a 1/3 of the way in, but so far so good. It's not overly wine-geeky technical, it's more about one particular facet of mostly recent wine history in California. But you'll definitely enjoy it more if you're really into wine, especially California wine.
September 26, 2012
A facinating read for enophiles, not much interest for the general public. If you care about Rhone Rangers, malolactic fermentation, anthocyanins, and how nuclear bomb technology is being used to make wine, this book is for you.
September 22, 2011
Interesting perspective on wine industry
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews