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Root Cause
Can you imagine a world without wine?
Corvina Guerra is a flying winemaker who dreams of one day settling down in her native Italy on her family's vineyard. On a visit to a vineyard in Italy, Corvina makes a startling Phylloxera, a menacing plant louse that devastated vineyards in Europe more than a hundred years ago, has infested the vines.
The deeper Corvina and Brian search, the more they become convinced that Universal Wines holds the answer to everything, and the harder they pursue their investigation the more surprises pile up for both of them.
In spite of devastating consequences, Corvina and Brian vow to continue their investigation and do what they can to contain the spread of the infestation - but time is running short and they always seem to be a step behind. Unless they can find a way to stop the Philomena - vineyards around the world will be ruined for decades; potentially causing the collapse of the wine industry. Can Corvina and Brian get to the root cause and save the international wine industry from ruin?
Corvina Guerra is a flying winemaker who dreams of one day settling down in her native Italy on her family's vineyard. On a visit to a vineyard in Italy, Corvina makes a startling Phylloxera, a menacing plant louse that devastated vineyards in Europe more than a hundred years ago, has infested the vines.
The deeper Corvina and Brian search, the more they become convinced that Universal Wines holds the answer to everything, and the harder they pursue their investigation the more surprises pile up for both of them.
In spite of devastating consequences, Corvina and Brian vow to continue their investigation and do what they can to contain the spread of the infestation - but time is running short and they always seem to be a step behind. Unless they can find a way to stop the Philomena - vineyards around the world will be ruined for decades; potentially causing the collapse of the wine industry. Can Corvina and Brian get to the root cause and save the international wine industry from ruin?
368 pages, Hardcover
Published February 19, 2019
5 people are currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Steven Laine
6 books4 followersSteve is a French, Italian, Spanish and Canadian Wine Scholar, the only North American invited to join the Champagne Academy in France and is a member of International Thriller Writers. He has visited hundreds of wineries in the world's major wine regions.
During the pandemic, he worked the 2020 harvest to learn the winemaking process firsthand from the winemakers at Mission Hill Family Estate Winery in British Columbia. In 2021, he worked at Trius Winery in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario where he put his winemaking and forklift-driving skills to use once again as a cellarman.
Kirkus Reviews called Steven Laine's first wine thriller, Root Cause, “An entertaining, wine-soaked mystery.” The Washington Post wrote; “If Michael Pollan and Dan Brown sat down over a bottle of Barolo and brainstormed a novel based on the neuroses of the natural wine movement, they might have come up with something like ‘Root Cause’.”
During the pandemic, he worked the 2020 harvest to learn the winemaking process firsthand from the winemakers at Mission Hill Family Estate Winery in British Columbia. In 2021, he worked at Trius Winery in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario where he put his winemaking and forklift-driving skills to use once again as a cellarman.
Kirkus Reviews called Steven Laine's first wine thriller, Root Cause, “An entertaining, wine-soaked mystery.” The Washington Post wrote; “If Michael Pollan and Dan Brown sat down over a bottle of Barolo and brainstormed a novel based on the neuroses of the natural wine movement, they might have come up with something like ‘Root Cause’.”
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 15, 2018
Corvina Guerra, a flying winemaker, worked for a multinational wine distributor, Universal Wines. The company owned over 175 wineries and represented another 500 wineries. Corvina was based in Barcelona and was sent to a vineyard in Italy to inspect it and make suggestions for improvement. While there, she discovered a disease called Phyllorexa that was spread by aphids. The aphids destroyed the roots of the vines and the only known solution was to rip up and burn all the vines in that vineyard. After new vines were planted, it would take a few years before a new vintage could be produced and eventually sold . The last infestation had spread throughout Europe and wiped out many vineyards.
Corvina rushed back to Barcelona to tell her bosses. Then she flew to corporate headquarters in San Francisco to get permission to investigate and see if other vineyards are wine growing areas around the world had been infected. A friend suggested that she partner with Brian Lawless, a wine expert & blogger who had been denied admission to the Master of Wines exam due to an indiscretion. Brian had many connections in the industry and was able to get permission for her to attend exclusive wine maker functions where she hoped to follow leads to who was responsible.
They travelled to wineries and to consult with wine experts in an effort to find out how the disease had been introduced and spread so quickly around the world. A professor in Canada and a researcher in South Africa both have clues to the suspect.
A San Francisco Chronicle reporter, Malcolm Goldberg started writing feature stories about the infestation and a panic began. The spell check in the article renamed the disease Philomena. A suspect was identified and Interpol in London took over the search. Then Corvina was named as a person of interest in the case and she lost her job. However she and Brian continued searching on their own. Besides concerns for the world wide impact of the infestation, she was concerned about her parents who owned a small vineyard and would lose their livelihood if the aphids reached it.
This book will appeal to wine lovers and mystery enthusiasts alike. There is a wealth of information about the growing of grapes and winemaking. However that is not a distraction from the search for the culprit or culprits.
Corvina rushed back to Barcelona to tell her bosses. Then she flew to corporate headquarters in San Francisco to get permission to investigate and see if other vineyards are wine growing areas around the world had been infected. A friend suggested that she partner with Brian Lawless, a wine expert & blogger who had been denied admission to the Master of Wines exam due to an indiscretion. Brian had many connections in the industry and was able to get permission for her to attend exclusive wine maker functions where she hoped to follow leads to who was responsible.
They travelled to wineries and to consult with wine experts in an effort to find out how the disease had been introduced and spread so quickly around the world. A professor in Canada and a researcher in South Africa both have clues to the suspect.
A San Francisco Chronicle reporter, Malcolm Goldberg started writing feature stories about the infestation and a panic began. The spell check in the article renamed the disease Philomena. A suspect was identified and Interpol in London took over the search. Then Corvina was named as a person of interest in the case and she lost her job. However she and Brian continued searching on their own. Besides concerns for the world wide impact of the infestation, she was concerned about her parents who owned a small vineyard and would lose their livelihood if the aphids reached it.
This book will appeal to wine lovers and mystery enthusiasts alike. There is a wealth of information about the growing of grapes and winemaking. However that is not a distraction from the search for the culprit or culprits.
January 31, 2019
Root Cause by Steven Laine is a globetrotting ‘beach-read’ thriller set within the world of wine.
Corvina Guerra, a flying winemaker for one of the world’s biggest wine brands, discovers the devastating aphid Phylloxera in an Italian vineyard. Even worse, this strain is resistant to the grafted rootstock that saved European wine production in the 1800s. Corvina partners with Bryan Lawless, a disgraced Master of Wine candidate, to find the ‘root cause’ of this outbreak. They will quickly discover that this is an malevolent attack and the entire world’s wine production is at stake!
This is a truly global adventure with sequences in California, France, Italy, South Africa, Hong Kong, Chile, London, Canada, and more. The action is fast paced and suspenseful, but always stays light and fun.
Steven Laine has also seeded this novel with large amounts of wine knowledge that will excite any reader with a casual interest in wine. For sommeliers and wine experts, you aren’t going to learn anything new here, but you’ll likely have a great time reading it.
“I rate this book 88 points on the 100 Point Wine Rating Scale popularized by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and others.”
I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.
Corvina Guerra, a flying winemaker for one of the world’s biggest wine brands, discovers the devastating aphid Phylloxera in an Italian vineyard. Even worse, this strain is resistant to the grafted rootstock that saved European wine production in the 1800s. Corvina partners with Bryan Lawless, a disgraced Master of Wine candidate, to find the ‘root cause’ of this outbreak. They will quickly discover that this is an malevolent attack and the entire world’s wine production is at stake!
This is a truly global adventure with sequences in California, France, Italy, South Africa, Hong Kong, Chile, London, Canada, and more. The action is fast paced and suspenseful, but always stays light and fun.
Steven Laine has also seeded this novel with large amounts of wine knowledge that will excite any reader with a casual interest in wine. For sommeliers and wine experts, you aren’t going to learn anything new here, but you’ll likely have a great time reading it.
“I rate this book 88 points on the 100 Point Wine Rating Scale popularized by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and others.”
I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.
September 23, 2019
Being somewhat of a wine geek who regularly reads non-fiction wine books to further my knowledge and understanding of the grape, this fictional novel was an absolute treat to read as the main characters took me on a global tour of the world's best wine-making regions, all while solving the mystery of finding the eco-terrorist who bio-engineered a devastating threat to the world's vines.
Flying wine maker Corvina Guerra comes from a wine making family and has dreams of eventually settling down and making wine from her family's own vineyard in Italy. She has spent years travelling the globe for huge wine conglomerate Universal Wines, making wines for many of the company's portfolio of wineries.
When Corvina discovers Phylloxera eating away at vines that have been grafted and should be resistant to the pest that decimated vineyards world wide in the mid 1800's, she knows that something has to be done to avoid a repeat of the same global devastation to the her industry. No one at her company seems to think the threat is real, however, and Corvina, has to convince her CEO to let her investigate.
She enlists the help of a disgraced former Master of Wine candidate, Bryan Lawless. At first Corvina has Universal Wine's blessing and financial backing on their journey to discover the cause of this new form of Phylloxera, but as they discover that the bug was genetically engineered and being spread on purpose by an eco-terrorist, Universal Wines fires Corvina and the two continue the investigation on their own.
The two eventually do solve the mystery, all while taking the reader on an adventurous global tour of well known wine making regions.
The book is an easy read that kept me engaged. I thought the eco-terrorist aspect was an absolutely genius plot and it makes the book feel current and believable. I also appreciated that while there is obvious tension between Corvina and Brian, it does not become the overriding subject of the book.
From Italy to London, and Chile to South Africa, and finally in France, the books offers and engaging look into the world of wine. I would recommend this book to anyone from industry pros to someone who never even drinks it wine. The book is a well crafted story that keeps you turning pages.
My only complaint is that early in the book, a reporter that ends up assisting in the investigation publishes an article with Phylloxera inadvertently auto-corrected to "Philomena." Apparently no one, in the entire world, knows any better and starts calling it Philomena throughout the entire book. I found this to not be plausible and therefore a bit of a distracting annoyance, that I believe will be easier to ignore if you know about it going in.
Flying wine maker Corvina Guerra comes from a wine making family and has dreams of eventually settling down and making wine from her family's own vineyard in Italy. She has spent years travelling the globe for huge wine conglomerate Universal Wines, making wines for many of the company's portfolio of wineries.
When Corvina discovers Phylloxera eating away at vines that have been grafted and should be resistant to the pest that decimated vineyards world wide in the mid 1800's, she knows that something has to be done to avoid a repeat of the same global devastation to the her industry. No one at her company seems to think the threat is real, however, and Corvina, has to convince her CEO to let her investigate.
She enlists the help of a disgraced former Master of Wine candidate, Bryan Lawless. At first Corvina has Universal Wine's blessing and financial backing on their journey to discover the cause of this new form of Phylloxera, but as they discover that the bug was genetically engineered and being spread on purpose by an eco-terrorist, Universal Wines fires Corvina and the two continue the investigation on their own.
The two eventually do solve the mystery, all while taking the reader on an adventurous global tour of well known wine making regions.
The book is an easy read that kept me engaged. I thought the eco-terrorist aspect was an absolutely genius plot and it makes the book feel current and believable. I also appreciated that while there is obvious tension between Corvina and Brian, it does not become the overriding subject of the book.
From Italy to London, and Chile to South Africa, and finally in France, the books offers and engaging look into the world of wine. I would recommend this book to anyone from industry pros to someone who never even drinks it wine. The book is a well crafted story that keeps you turning pages.
My only complaint is that early in the book, a reporter that ends up assisting in the investigation publishes an article with Phylloxera inadvertently auto-corrected to "Philomena." Apparently no one, in the entire world, knows any better and starts calling it Philomena throughout the entire book. I found this to not be plausible and therefore a bit of a distracting annoyance, that I believe will be easier to ignore if you know about it going in.
April 19, 2019
Corvina is the name of a grape variety. It is also the name of the heroine in this story. She is is a flying winemaker but throughout the tale she does much more flying than winemaking. She needs to catch the villain before the world's grapes are wiped out by a new strain of the vine louse that attacks the roots of the vines. She manages to visit most of the world's wine regions during her mission dropping incidental notes about wines as she goes.
If you started reading this book as a non wine drinker I'm sure it would spark your interest in one of the finer pleasures of life.
If you started reading this book as a non wine drinker I'm sure it would spark your interest in one of the finer pleasures of life.
March 9, 2019
Steven Laine delivers a fun read for wine lovers and creates a longing for a sequel. The suspense is well constructed and the characters come to life. My favorite part of the story is the Canadian ice wine scene. The book is full of wine factoids, historical wine bits, and unsuspecting tasting notes.
September 3, 2019
If you like wine, traveling and a little mystery on the side. This is the book for you. I felt like I was on a world wide trip through all these wineries I wish I could have tasted the wine mentioned in the book. I felt like I was right along side with Corvina the main character as she is trying to figure out who poisoned so many wineries. It was a fun read!
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February 23, 2019Root Cause , A novel by Steven Laine, Turner Publishing, RRP $19.99
Review by Joelle Thomson
It’s easy to escape into Steven Laine’s new book about Philomena – the intentionally mis-spelt name for the vine louse, phylloxera, which wiped out two thirds of Europe’s vineyards in the late 1800s.
It’s a novel concept to bring back phylloxera as a new, more deadly threat to the global wine world, and the author does a good job, even if I have spotted a couple of typos in the uncorrected proof sent for review. Laine gives one of his lead characters a strong billing as the man who would have become the world’s youngest ever Master of Wine, aged 27, but he obviously doesn’t know New Zealander Stephen Bennett, who took that title in the mid 1990s aged even younger. Minor niggles such as this aside, Root Cause is a surprisingly good read which succeeds where no other wine novels have, for me at least. It has mystery, romance, humour and is accurate about indepth wine facts. And it’s a fun read. I love fiction that weaves quirky facts into the story, something Laine does well in Root Cause, such as when he talks about the challenges of harvesting grapes in Canada for ice wine. Don’t wear gloves or anything to keep your fingers warm because it will melt the ice on the grapes. There’s plenty in here to keep the reader interested and it’s easy to chomp through these words. An easy read equals good writing, in my book.
Highly recommended.
Review by Joelle Thomson
It’s easy to escape into Steven Laine’s new book about Philomena – the intentionally mis-spelt name for the vine louse, phylloxera, which wiped out two thirds of Europe’s vineyards in the late 1800s.
It’s a novel concept to bring back phylloxera as a new, more deadly threat to the global wine world, and the author does a good job, even if I have spotted a couple of typos in the uncorrected proof sent for review. Laine gives one of his lead characters a strong billing as the man who would have become the world’s youngest ever Master of Wine, aged 27, but he obviously doesn’t know New Zealander Stephen Bennett, who took that title in the mid 1990s aged even younger. Minor niggles such as this aside, Root Cause is a surprisingly good read which succeeds where no other wine novels have, for me at least. It has mystery, romance, humour and is accurate about indepth wine facts. And it’s a fun read. I love fiction that weaves quirky facts into the story, something Laine does well in Root Cause, such as when he talks about the challenges of harvesting grapes in Canada for ice wine. Don’t wear gloves or anything to keep your fingers warm because it will melt the ice on the grapes. There’s plenty in here to keep the reader interested and it’s easy to chomp through these words. An easy read equals good writing, in my book.
Highly recommended.
Read
March 11, 2019If you're a wine nerd and love a good suspense fiction, Root Cause is definitely one to put on your reading list! What I love most about this book is that it takes the reader on a wild ride across the globe, but doesn’t skimp on the important this we need to know about the world’s most beloved wine regions. Grab a glass of your favorite wine, cuddle up on the couch and enjoy!
June 5, 2019
A wonderful fictional read that nay wine-lover will enjoy! I couldn't put this one down. Enjoy it with a nice glass of wine! ;)
August 29, 2022
“...we eat not so much for pleasure as we do to ward off an awful feeling...The fear of hunger is deeply rooted, and food manufacturers know well how to push the buttons that evoke this fear”.
Said Michael Moss and exactly what I felt this novel by @steven.laine is deeply rooted on.
It begins with the protagonist Corvina, a flying winemaker’s discovery of an aphid Phylloxera infesting her father’s friend’s winery and the history of its infestation in Europe before alarms her that it might affect the other wineries and destroy them too including her father’s.
Being an employee of Universal Wines, she sets on a mission with Bryan (a wine blogger) to find out who’s the culprit behind the genetically modified aphid, how was it being spread, why was it being spread and how it could be stopped.
Make a wine drenched journey along with Corvina and Bryan boarding plane after plane from one country to another focusing on suspects from
Carlos as a revenge of the year of the grape scare,
David Slater -a student studying the rootstock of every varietal imaginable could be the developer of the aphid
Stacey - lobbying against the adverse effects of alcohol
Chinese Billionaires- collectors of patents including aphid phylloxera
And many more. The list of accused goes on and on yet it keeps you hooked.
Even more unexpected is when Corvina and Bryan themselves are being seated in the lists of interests by the Interpol. How ironic!
The novel runs lengthy and invites the readers with complete attention as it is grafted with a lot of characters and the twists that unfurl at every phase of the investigation will keep you thrilled. Every chapter is clearly plotted with the accurate locations making it intriguingly imaginable for the readers.
The authors proficiency in the encyclopaedia of grapes will make you feel lost for words. The last chapters wherein Corvina has the neurotoxin in the tunnel almost makes you skip a beat fearing the culpable might catch hold of her. I was literally waiting for her to unite with Bryan and Claude. I also enjoyed chemistry between Corvina and Bryan.
A mystery that will keep you thrilled to bits.
Said Michael Moss and exactly what I felt this novel by @steven.laine is deeply rooted on.
It begins with the protagonist Corvina, a flying winemaker’s discovery of an aphid Phylloxera infesting her father’s friend’s winery and the history of its infestation in Europe before alarms her that it might affect the other wineries and destroy them too including her father’s.
Being an employee of Universal Wines, she sets on a mission with Bryan (a wine blogger) to find out who’s the culprit behind the genetically modified aphid, how was it being spread, why was it being spread and how it could be stopped.
Make a wine drenched journey along with Corvina and Bryan boarding plane after plane from one country to another focusing on suspects from
Carlos as a revenge of the year of the grape scare,
David Slater -a student studying the rootstock of every varietal imaginable could be the developer of the aphid
Stacey - lobbying against the adverse effects of alcohol
Chinese Billionaires- collectors of patents including aphid phylloxera
And many more. The list of accused goes on and on yet it keeps you hooked.
Even more unexpected is when Corvina and Bryan themselves are being seated in the lists of interests by the Interpol. How ironic!
The novel runs lengthy and invites the readers with complete attention as it is grafted with a lot of characters and the twists that unfurl at every phase of the investigation will keep you thrilled. Every chapter is clearly plotted with the accurate locations making it intriguingly imaginable for the readers.
The authors proficiency in the encyclopaedia of grapes will make you feel lost for words. The last chapters wherein Corvina has the neurotoxin in the tunnel almost makes you skip a beat fearing the culpable might catch hold of her. I was literally waiting for her to unite with Bryan and Claude. I also enjoyed chemistry between Corvina and Bryan.
A mystery that will keep you thrilled to bits.
January 2, 2023
As a wine lover who is a currently in the midst of studying for my next wine exam, this was a wonderful book to just pick up and read for the sake of reading an entertaining book. It gave me the opportunity to read a wine book that I didn’t need to study. I must say, Steven Laine did his research and got a lot of information correct when it comes to wine regions, grapes and the main villain of the book… the pesky root louse called phylloxera that almost completely decimated the entire wine world back in the late 1800’s. The first indicator that it would be a perfect fit for me was the line “what would it be like living in a world without wine?” Hooked! I couldn’t imaging it! But this adventure was a lot of fun to read and I would recommend it as an entertaining book for all of my friends, including the snobby wine geeks like me!
March 17, 2021
Fast paced thriller based around my own personal love of wine. To say it was a page turner would be an understatement, as we rapidly moved from vineyard to Vineyard, country to country, and twist to turn.
The author knows his wine and wine regions, with impeccable details, and anyone with knowledge of the history of phylloxera and vines, will have been on nervous tenterhooks as the story develops.
The author knows his wine and wine regions, with impeccable details, and anyone with knowledge of the history of phylloxera and vines, will have been on nervous tenterhooks as the story develops.
November 7, 2022
I’m a sucker for wine fiction. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have finished this if it wasn’t about wine, but it was, so I did. The dialog is choppy and inconsistent, some of the characters are completely ridiculous, and a few of the plot twists are outlandish. That said, it’s still an interesting story and ultimately a fun read.
January 16, 2023
Someone interested in wine and mystery would probably like this book about the worldwide spread of a wine vine-destroying aphid. Someone I expected to be the culprit ended up not being, and Laine left you guessing about a few characters. The writing was not that good, but I rounded up from 'it was ok' for the theme (and thought it was neat the pivotal events took place somewhere I had visited).
December 29, 2020
Definitely one for those interested in wine or have visited wine regions around the world. Was remarkably accurate about those regions I’d visited
Fast paced, flying around the world, trying to save the world’s vineyards from a genetically modified outbreak of phylloxera with a few twists and turns. I thoroughly enjoyed it
Fast paced, flying around the world, trying to save the world’s vineyards from a genetically modified outbreak of phylloxera with a few twists and turns. I thoroughly enjoyed it
July 6, 2019
Interesting wine-based story of how genetically altered insects could cause economic ruin worldwide.
Lots of suspense, wine facts, jet setting travel, and a touch of romance.
Lots of suspense, wine facts, jet setting travel, and a touch of romance.
November 16, 2021
This book was so bad I stopped reading it!
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews