Alice writes very well, although she has a distinct bias for old style wines with distinctive terroir, and not only dislikes Parker styled wines, but seemingly most modern wines, e.g Sandrone, Spinetta, etc.

A wonderful little book. Kudos to Feiring for some badly needed straight-talk. Robert Parker has been on a crusade to destroy terroir-driven wines. Feiring is a champion for those of us who love wine and hate what Robert Parker has done to wine. Buy this book and boycott Parker-rated wines!

I picked up this book because of the title. It sounded like it might be helpful with my own changing taste and evolution with wine. It did and it's a terrific book.

As a native Californian, when I started drinking wine in the late 60s it was California Cabs and I loved them. However, over time I eventually grew tired of buttery chards, and jammy reds. When I started to explore French and Italian wines it was confusing and a disappointment at first. But then the subtlety finally got to me and they began tasting elegant and unique. It wasn't long until the overly fruity and oaky wines were hard to drink. Furthermore, I slowly began to realize that the 1-100 point scale for wine that I once used religiously became an almost inverse guide--- if Parker or Wine Spectator, or Wine Advocate gave something a 90 plus rating, I would worry that it was way too fruity.

Kermit Lynch's terrific book--Adventures on the Wine Route, really opened my eyes--or taste buds--and helped in a historical context to more understand what fine, soulful wine is all about.

Alice Feiring's book takes it a step further and nails it for the wine world of today! This is a wonderful, funny, and insightful work. Her many different points of contact in the wine world reveal just how the current disincentive for authentic wine has occurred--everywhere in the world. Her personal references humanize the story making it more fun to read than the typical wine book. Within the fascinating stories, are remarkable, if not startling specifics of what to avoid and what to seek out in trying to find the unique, quality wines that are honest expressions of the area and not artificially doped-up and homogenized to a single commercial taste. All this is extremely important to anyone who really wants to improve their understanding and find truly good wine--old or new world. Fortunately, they do exist in both and his books points you in the right direction.

But perhaps most importantly, Feiring is a competent and courageous voice helping to get the world of wine back on track.

Bravo and carry on!

As Alice Feiring sagely argues, that would be a silly thing to do with books, people, wine, or life in general. I thus find it difficult to "rate" this book, whether on a scale of one to five stars, 100 points or 20 points or otherwise. There is so much good about it. But for me it is something of a flawed diamond.

I wanted so much to be enthralled with this book, as others here have said. Alice Feiring has her head in the right place where wine is concerned. She's got a great blog. She knows what she's talking about. When I heard her book was coming out, it was a must have volume for me and I "pre-ordered" it. To be frank, the title was off-putting. It seemed like a marketer's strange marriage of "chick lit" (oh God, forgive me, Alice) and wine geek ((and I mean that in a good way), but I figured I could get past that, no problemo.

So then I sat down to read the book cover to cover, in a few ferry crossings between The Rock and Seattle -- and I did so with great expectations (little g, little e, not with the Dickens novel in my other hand). Here's the Plus and the Minus:

Plus: The book stakes out a strong and well reasoned argument for terroir, traditional (and by that I mean organic, possibly even biodynamic, non-interventionist, not careless and just plain bad) viticulture and winemaking. Alice plainly knows her stuff. And yes, she has the "cojones" to call a spade a shovel. Heck, anyone who will cross swords on the dais with the likes of Clark Smith certainly knows hold to hold her own in an argument.

While it isn't exactly new news, as tens of thousands of us by now probably feel the same way and may have said it often enough, it's gratifying to see someone pronounce Robert Parker, the Wine Spectator, Michel Rolland and others of that ilk something of a public menace -- and get published.

Minus: There's too much chatty, "personal backstory" stuff clouding the picture, for my personal taste anyway. Some may find Mr. Bow Tie, Owl Man, Honey Sugar and all the rest entertaining. To me, it's just in the way at best; unnerving, awkward and genuinely distracting at worst. When I got to the part about winemaker so and so's "deep, sexy voice" and his "tussle of brown curls and fleshy, sensuous earlobes," and read about the various exploits of "Skinny," I began to wonder whether I could finish the book.

The book definitely is worth finishing. But I do wish it stuck to what I hoped to find, and did in large part -- well-crafted and opinionated writing about wine. Maybe this really needed to be two books - one about wine, the other about, well, the other stuff. "Sex and the Single Wine Writer," perhaps?

Let's be clear. Alice is the real deal and she's a valuable advocate for real wine. As I said at the outset, this is a book I'd like to be able to give an unqualified five stars. I just can't, given the distractions that to me detract from the seriousness of the message.

Were I Robert Parker, I would give it an 88. OK, maybe a 90. Who the hell knows. That's what's wrong with the whole Parker School of wine criticism in the first place. But I imagine he might call it a fruity, quirky, wild cherry and chocolate laden hedonistic fruit bomb, with overtones of creosote and a whiff of pheromones; drink 2008 to 2010.

As it is, I give it four stars.

Wine journalist Alice Feiring had a long affection for complicated wines - and was horrified when she discovered all kinds of wines were beginning to taste alike. Her search for originality in the wine world led her on a journey through ancient vineyards of France, Spain and more as she searched out old-fashioned wines and artisan winemaking over corporate production techniques. "The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization" is a fine blend of wine culture and travelogue, perfect for any library strong on wine appreciation.

Forget about the title and get over Bow-Tie Man, the Owl Man, etc. Alice Feiring (pronounced Fire-ing) has a right to air her personal stuff. After all this is her book. And as to complaints that the second part of the title is silly and designed to help sell books. So what? Somebody had to have the cojones to take on Robert Parker, whose IMHO 'silly' reviews have helped wipe out the demand for many truly authentic wines and have promoted the facile, manipulated wines of the new rich and enriched any number of his favored status importers and formulaic consultants--who are not wine tailors, they are knock-off artists.

Alice is the real deal and so is Neal Rosenthal, who Confessions of a Wine Merchant comes on the heels of Alice's book, echoing themes about the authenicity and sense of place in truly great wines and railing against the tragic (for real wine lovers) imposition of industry homogeneousness and wine manipulation over the real thing.

Both these books are deep--not frivolous, as some people would like to paint Alice Feiring's book--complex and filled with nuances that everyone who really cares about great wine should know and appreciate. Neither book is jammed with appreciation for overripe fruit, residual sugar, palate numbing alcohol levels and, Thank God, neither comes in a horrid new oak binding (barrels where supposed to be aging vessels, not gross flavoring agents that override grape varieties, terroir, etc.).

My prediction is that these two books are going to have an enormous impact on young (and not so young) sommeliers, wine directors and wine buyers (especially non-retail types, who don't use Parker scores to flog wines), because they both espouse the greatness and distinctiveness of terroir-driven, authentic, artisan wines that have a sense of place. Since these are not mass market Parkerista wines, I think this philosophy will not have an immediate effect on the Parker consumer, but it will have on restaurant wine lists run by younger sommeliers, who believe it or not have been fed up with tasting Parkerista wines for quite some time. They will seek terroir-driven wines to lend distinction to their lists and push these wines as those which help set their wine lists and restaurants apart.

Restaurant goers will discover these wines and begin to look for retail stores that carry them. It will not be long before the already choppy anti-Parkerista waters build into a very big wave, which, pardon me, copycat American wine journalists will soon see as a bandwagon to jump on, at least those who still have a palate left after tasting all the overripe, sweet, over-oaked, alcoholic junk that they have been barraged with over the past decade or so. And with greening and organic movements growing stronger in response to environmental changes, more and more conscientous wine drinkers will begin to question the manipulation of wines.

Alice Feiring: ". . . At stake is the soul of wine. This is giant corporation vs. independent winemaker. This is international and homogenous vs. local and varied. This manipulated and technical wine vs. natural and artisanal. . .wine is being reduced to the common denominator. . .I visit producers who make wines that inspire love and devotion. . . I unmask the modern way--the reverse osmosis, the tannin addition, the yeasts, the enzymes, the cold soaks, the sawdust, oak chips, the barriques, the micro- and macro-oxygenation, the rotor fermenters, and the cherry drops. There will be scientists and consultants, who help create cookie-cutter wines for the mass palate. I will deal with those who say terroir (the magic that brings soil, climate, vintage, and winemaker together in a bottle of wine) and natural winemaking are simply excuses for making bad wine."

Neil Rosenthal: ". . . proof that there is some seriously fine terroir to be found in California and elsewhere, terroir that merits being left to express itself rather than being dominated and destroyed by human manipulation in the form of superextraction or immersion in new oak barrels or any of dozens of other laboratory tricks that "correct" what nature gives us."

Alice Feiring and Neal Rosenthal are heroine and hero!!! Buy both these books and take a trip through the world of real wine, you will never turn back.

Gerry Dawes
Blog: Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel.

ANYONE INTERESTED IN WINE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK.

Who knew that a book about wine could be such a fascinating, engaging, page turning book? I really enjoyed reading this book from the first page. Not only was the book interesting, it also brings to light some critical issues regarding the current trends in wine making, wine rating systems, and distribution.

Don't think of not reading this controversial and exciting book (about wine!?!). Alice's frank honesty is refreshing and bold. Here is a person who says what she thinks and never holds any punches. Clearly this isn't industry generated public relations garbage.

Alice's view about wine is that it should be made in a manner that truly honors place and the grapes used to make the wine. This is achieved by using traditional, natural, honest winemaking techniques. Sadly, this seems to be rarely done anymore. Most of todays "natural" and Organic" wines are still the product of heavy manipulation. People may protest that it isn't so, but the truth is in the bottle.

THIS BOOK IS A CRITICAL PART OF ANY DISCUSSION ABOUT WINE.

SAVE AUTHENTIC WINES!!

This is a worthwhile book which states the case for traditional winemaking in a forceful and at times entertaining manner. Unfortunately, it is a bit repetitive and in adopting an absolutist position, Feiring is guilty of the same sins she pins on Parker.

My favorite part of writing an Amazon review is composing the title, and I think this might be my best of all time. However, I struggled mightily choosing between this one and "Drink, Bray, Love." I'll do what I can to explain the relevance of each over the course of this review, starting with what seems to me to be a blatant thematic rip off of Eat, Pray, Love.

What is it about these wine writers/reporters who think we give a rotten grape for tales of their personal life? Alice Feiring (that's the Feir in my other title) has plenty to say about what she likes and doesn't like about wine, but gag me with a spoon, I found her constant attempts to interweave non-wine-oriented details of her love life, friendships, and various psychological and physical ups and downs into the narrative positively nauseating. Like Sergio Esposito's Passion on the Vine: A Memoir of Food, Wine, and Family in the Heart of Italy, this book isn't really about wine as much as it is her life story. It forces us into an endless meet and greet of her relationships and mood swings so we get the whole Elizabeth Gilbert treatment. And while Alice Feiring despises commercially successful, formulaic wines, it's clear to me she's not the least bit shy about cloning a commercially successful, formulaic book format. It's a lousy graft job, to continue the vine metaphor, and this particular book would have been far better off if it kept its focus on wine. She tells us so many times that she's a diminutive, homely, red-haired, sickly woman (who looks like Woody Allen and is obsessed with dowager's humps) that I finally realized she must be the Alexander Pope of wine writers, at least physically. That doesn't stop her from saying that men are constantly trying to pick her up (twice in the first 17 pages), which if true, can only be understood in this context as an occupational hazard of hanging out with drunken wine geeks. I can almost hear the pitch in the editor's office: "It's Mondovino meets Eat, Pray, Love. Do you think we can get Nicole Kidman to play me? After all, Russell Crowe just did a wine movie!"


As you delve deeper into the sticky recesses of her personal life, you'll encounter a series of non-wine characters literally named Honey-Sugar, Skinny Food Writer, Bow Tie Man and Owl Man, among others. I'm on record myself here at Amazon with anti-Robert Parker rhetoric dating back to 2003, but nothing I've ever read from Parker or the Wine Advocate is more fruity or over-extracted than this pumped up memoir. I also defy you to patch together a chronology while you're reading the book. It's almost impossible to know when events related to wine are actually taking place, which is a big drawback when you're trying to put her wine-related observations in context, especially when she makes the bold claim that she saved the world from Parkerization. Just when did she do that? I have no idea, but it seems to me Jancis Robinson among others publicly took up the crusade long before Alice published this victory speech.

There's a lot of good stuff in here when she can keep her mind on the subject of wine. She appears to be a fairly bold journalist who isn't afraid to bait a lion in his own den, as she does repeatedly in citadels of science or commercialism like UC Davis or Moet & Chandon (Get it? Loathing on the Champagne trail?). It's Alice the Terrible storming the gates of soulless winemaking. She makes convincing, though not terribly original arguments for terroir-based, non-interventionist vineyard and cellar practices in a number of different areas of The Old World (France, Spain, Italy). She lavishes her praise and affection on the producers whose wine she likes, and here at least the descriptions of what happens at the properties, even when not wine-specific, contribute to the overall gestalt of life on the farm.

On the other hand, she obsesses over obscure Loire Valley grape varieties like Cot (malbec elsewhere) and pineau d'aunis, which only the most committed and/or like-minded wine drinkers are ever going to encounter on a retail shelf. As such, she's preaching to a tiny choir who would have access to this stuff or want to venture that far off the beaten path. Yet, in other places in the book she makes stunningly condescending comments like one to the effect that wine drinkers don't understand the difference between wines from the Northern and Southern Rhone. Or that the terroir of Long Island is only suitable for growing cabbages! Even Parker, who has elsewhere been dubbed The Emperor of Wine, would never make such a sweeping, imperious, and ignorant comment. Someone better warn the North Fork before she sends a fleet of bulldozers to plow it over. Maybe this review should have been called "Feir Factor?"

I always wonder when I read stuff like this, composed in such slapdash fashion, if the book is in fact a compilation of previously published material that has been stitched together to give the appearance of a continuous narrative. In this case, as one of my former bosses used to say, the result is a chocolate mess.

Perhaps the most perplexing aspect of the entire book is the author's seemingly ambivalent relationship towards Robert Parker himself. I suspect you'd need to be a psychotherapist to unravel her love/hate attitude towards him. She'll trash him and everything he stands for, but when she has him on the hook in email exchanges or telephone interviews she gets inexplicably coy. Even in the book's conclusion she's dying to taste with him.

Let's sum it up. I found the experience of reading this book so uneven that it practically made me seasick. Perhaps I'm being too harsh in my criticism of how she dwells on her personal life, which might have been caused by my completely misinterpreting the original title. When she says it's about wine and love, maybe I should have realized she meant she was going to talk about HER LOVE LIFE, not HER LOVE OF WINE? But what about making the world safe from Parkerization? That's way too specific to be about anything but wine. So read this if you want to stir some PG-rated, decidedly unglamorous, Sex in the City, middle-aged neurotic angst oak chips into your wine education.

Hey wait a minute. I just thought of two great alternative titles. "Cot? Ask Alice. I think she'll know." Don't like that one? Then how about "We're off to see the Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Schnozz?"

Alice Feiring has crafted an imaginative work on the intricacies of the wine trade.
She writes with wit and a knowing eye to those niceties that make drinking wine an adventure to delight the nose and palate.
There is humor and sass in her travels to unravel the mysteries of the grape, and many a tale of unexpected discovery.
For the ardent wine lover, an enticing read......

I loved the book. It was so interesting I wanted to highlight parts! I have tried several of the wines she talked about. Great book!! It was a great way to learn about wine without getting bored. Buy the book and help save the world (wine) from Parkerization!

Ms. Feiring has been bemoaning the state of the wine world for quite some time, and now she has beautifully codified her feelings and her reasons in this smart, entertaining book.

Of course, if you actually prefer over-managed, scientifically manipulated vino, this book is not for you. Very probably you're also not interested in the environment, organically-grown food, natural remedies, etc. and consider GMO a new car from General Motors...

For the rest of us, though, this book is a treat. It reaffirms the idea that caring and respect for the land--and what comes out of it--provides a particularly sensuous, 'natural' pleasure. In other words, there's something wonderful and a touch mysterious about drinking an un-enhanced wine, whether it be in a posh restaurant or an open field. That's what Alice Feiring understands, and you can almost feel the warmth of her favorite wines suffusing your own body even as it does hers.

The book is also funny, especially when she quotes some of the absurd adjectives that are bandied about as wine descriptors (largely, but not exclusively, by Mr. Parker). And a colorful cast of passionate vintners round out a well-told, intercontinental story.

And a word for the reviewers who insist she is on a 'high horse:' I have met Alice Feiring. I've even attended a wine tasting she sponsored (none of which colors my review, thank you very much). While she does have opinions and beliefs, as do we all, she has no designs on the kind of power and pomposity she correctly detects and despises in the current state of wine affairs. She's not on a high horse; you are more likely to see her on a bicycle.

And that's a perfect metaphor for her beliefs as well: simple, powered by human intention, with only basic mechanics to move it forward.

The book, and the wines favored, are tasty. Take a sip!

This book read like it was written by the few importers with whom she is obviously enamored. the entire book just read really poorly to me- she's on a high horse and represents the very worst in what people consider to be wine snobs. save your money people- this woman sees things very much in black and white. she should be giving half her money to parker- if his name wasn't in the title, i think about 5 copies of this terrible tome would have sold.

I just finished reading Ms. Feiring's "The Battle for Wine and Love." I loved it. I belong to a wine group that has been blind tasting wine since the 1970's. Over the past few years, we've all wondered, sometimes out loud, why gifted, talented and experienced (some more than others) tasters so often are unable to identify the grape varietal or blend. Ms. Feiring's book, in a well-balanced manner, offers many explanations. Locally, we've found that our beloved fruit, Pinot Noir, has become so extracted and over-oaked that we don't know what the hell we're tasting. There are, however, many local wine makers that get it - as does Ms. Feiring. The thought of a global palate, just like having all of our food taste identical (or nearly so) is just plain wrong. Cheers to Ms. Feiring for her passion, honesty and integrity.

I first found out about this book from reading an article written by the author that appeared in the Los Angeles Times. In it, she seemed on the warpath, ready to offend anyone and anything as a means to get people to read her book to see what her outrageous statements were about. Myself, I thought this woman who criticized winemakers for manipulating wines into big, huge, bold styles in order to please Robert Parker and thus sell more bottles was guilty of the same thing, making outrageous statements and trying to create controversy in order to sell copies of her book.

However, I did agree in principle with what she was saying, that too often these days wines are manipulated into something that tries to please the consumer and they are losing their individuality. So I bought the book. Amazon's price makes it too attractive to pass up.

Pros: Ms. Feiring writes very well. She takes the reader around the globe in her adventures as we meet various winemakers on both sides of the fence, as she advances her argument against over-manipulation. I think most readers would be pretty surprised to find out what goes on in a lot of wineries in order to achieve the sort of wine they want to sell. It's a topic that does need to be more publicized.

Cons: Ms. Feiring sounds like she's taken out a contract on Robert Parker. She is so anti-Parker that it threatens the credibility of the book. She also tries to paint everything in black and white, as in small, family, old-fashioned winemakers = good guys and big, corporate, technology-utilizing winemakers = bad and evil guys. It's the same as people who automatically slam big corporations simply because they are big. She also tries to combine her romantic life with her discussion of the wines and I felt this added nothing to the book. In fact, I got tired of hearing about "Owl Man" and the others and was thinking, who cares?

If you can get past the chip (or boulder) that the author seems to have on her shoulder, this book is well worth reading. It will influence the way you perceive the next glass of wine you drink, as well as all the rest of them.

To begin, I will mention that most of the bottles in my cellar would likely be bottles that Feiring would enjoy, and some of which I'd guess she'd love. It helps that my cellar is made up almost exclusively of Burgundy, but my guess is that she and I agree on many facets of the product of wine.

Because of this, and because we both dislike many seemingly unbalanced (read: fruit/alcohol bombs) wines, I felt pretty sure that I'd enjoy the book. Instead, I found myself feeling like I was listening more to a book of whine than a book on wine.

My issues:

+ Feiring goes on and on about her distaste for science's intervention into winemaking. On a couple of rare occasions in the book, she tries to convince the reader that she's not anti-science, but her arguments aren't convincing. There is nothing wrong with understanding wine scientifically, nor is there anything wrong with using that knowledge to make wines. Science goes into some of the best wines in the world -- perhaps not RO, but knowledge that isn't merely anecdotal helps to shape them.

+ This book has been compared to Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" in some reviews here. I couldn't disagree more. Pollan's book could be considered an opinion piece, but his stroke was much gentler. Additionally, he provided gobs more information on his topic. Feiring's material is almost all opinion and truly pushes the reader to believe what she's selling. I do realize that's the format of her book, but for those reasons I don't see the comparison to "The Omnivore's Dilemma".

+ Something about wine knowledge makes people rapidly become wine snobs. I'm guilty of it, and I think most are to some extent. However, I think one measure of a person's caliber is how they're able to educate without being condescending. On this, I give Feiring low marks (but not a failing grade).

+ Biodynamics is, essentially, religion. Natural farming is great, and components of biodynamics are natural, which likely help farming. However, Feiring's willing to make excuses for the oddities of biodynamics (cow dung buried in a horn, for example) where she's not willing to allow science the same leeway.

+ This one's a simple complaint, and for most can probably be dismissed, but please lose the subtitle. It's embarrassing.

All that said, there are some redeeming qualities to the book, those being that you may learn a thing or two about why romance is a big part of the package of wine for many enthusiasts. It certainly makes drinking more enjoyable for me.

Feiring's is one of the rare wine books that has equal appeal to both the oenophile and the weekend wine taster. 'Wine geeks' will feel vindicated by her manifesto that cries out against 'spoofalted' (unnecessarily manipulated) wine and praises the renegade wine makers who've turned to Biodynamic farming, or simply heeded the wine making wisdom of their great grandfathers. The less wine-savvy can still take delight in the love stories that mellow this tannic polemic. Feiring writes great characters as well as great wine reviews - for those of us who want to get to know the people behind our wine, Feiring satisfies with anecdotes of wine critics, wine scientists, and most of all the wine makers themselves. Highly recommended.

Presumably, you are reading this review to decide whether you should buy the book. Yes, you should!

I read it on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, sitting outside on a sunny, but chilly Vermont day with enough a breeze to keep the black flies at bay and the scent of lilacs and recently mown lawn in the air. (I won't say what I was doing in Vermont since it might cause readers to doubt my judgment, but I had the daytime hours all to myself and could guiltlessly while them away with a good read.) Here it is four days later and I am still having "What would Alice say?" moments every few hours. The first came about 27 hours after I finished the book. I was on a flight from Boston to London on my way to Birmingham. In business class, American was offering a choice of two red wines. One was a standard Médoc. The other was a Rhone wine described with a paragraph full of words like "biodynamic," "organic," and "natural." The old me would have ordered the Médoc. Bordeaux were my first introduction to serious wine and I still return to them time after time. When the flight attendant said "The Bordeaux or the Burgundy?" I went for the one that wasn't from Bordeaux. (It wasn't from Burgundy either, but I only knew it was a Rhone wine because I had read the menu. I guess he hadn't had time to do that.) For a moment, I thought I was following Ms. Feiring's advice, but then I remembered: She doesn't stoop to airline wine; she pops ambiens instead.

I don't want to be Alice Feiring. I have actually gone looking for a wine I was first served on an airplane. (A trocken Riesling served by Lufthansa business class on a flight from Frankfurt to Cape Town.) It sounds hard to not be able to eat most food. (She's kosher and vegetarian). It sounds hard to not to be able to enjoy wine on the airplane. It sounds hard to spend life looking for love. . .

In the days since reading this book, I've had several imaginary dates with the author. On these imaginary dates we pleasantly argue many of the points she makes in her delightful memoir-cum-polemic while sipping some superb, biodynamic wine she has picked out. In preparation for the date, I have changed my shower routine fearing that some trace of the strongly-scented Dr. Bronner's soap I usually use will cling to me and affront the author's exquisitely sensitive nose. I do not argue about the wine; I am way too intimidated by her superior knowledge and superior air. If I secretly don't like it, I consider that a fault in my untrained palate. I have learned to appreciate the burnt sneaker taste of an Islay single malt so, with effort, I can learn to like this too. Not that I can really imagine not liking a wine after hearing Ms. Feiring describe it. Her descriptions of wines, people, and places are fun and compelling; they are one of the reasons I liked the book so much. The other reason is that fanaticism is entertaining, and Alice Feiring is clearly a fanatic.

A few things I would argue:

* Whether the existence of mass-market products makes artisanal versions go away. Craft breweries are thriving in the shadow of SAB-Miller-Anhauser-Bush. There is still a market for bespoke suits and hand-made shoes. Great chefs are as famous as talk-show hosts.

* The great man theory of history. The times were ripe for ratings. If one "great man" hadn't done it, another one would have. This one succeeded because many unsophisticated people like me like the wines he likes.

* Whether a vegetarian can really make wine pairing recommendations for meat dishes, no matter how keen her sense of smell. Smelling is not the same as tasting. Think of smelling coffee grinding versus drinking coffee. Taste is all about texture and mouth feel and chewiness. No wonder Ms. Feiring can't see the appeal of big, jammy California wines! It is when I am searing a steak over a hot wood fire that I think of the few remaining bottles of Silver Oak Cabernet in my cellar. It is when I am slow smoking a leg of lamb that I think of opening my Lytton Springs Zin. I love a delicate, pale, aged Burgandy, but I also really like the wines that Robert Parker likes. And I don't care how they are made or how little they express terrior.

I have so many more, but you will want to come up with your own topics for your own imaginary dates.

About the whole battle for love thing: It really doesn't get in the way too much. The author is surprisingly gentle with her ex-boyfriends who, like Big in Sex and the City, never get real names. And, like the boyfriends in Sex and the City, they are not the main point. Read this for the vineyard scenes, the wine trade characters, and, of course, the wine.

Like I said, I don't want to *be* Alice Feiring (that sounds hard!), but I thoroughly enjoyed a few hours with her.

The other reviews on this site say it very well. Ms. Feiring gives voice to a minority in the wine world: the poor, downtrodden, forgotten traditionalist -- the old fashioned, fuddy-duddy who still believes that 200 years of experience in a vineyard can give 10 generations of a wine growing family sufficient knowledge and confidence to make good wine from their land, planted to the appropriate varieties, and made simply and unpretentiously. If you've gotten close to any new world winemakers, there is one thing you might have learned: with mortgages to pay, these wineries must make it happen NOW, and have no time for trial and error. So what to do? Better find out what people are buying and make some of that! They would have my sympathies if they weren't, as Alice says, often charging ridiculously high prices for wines they've "designed" to fill the Parkerized demand. I wonder how many of them actually drink the stuff they make?
For me the truth is simple - the best wines are nuanced, made with indigenous yeasts, not high-teched, and often affordable as a result. Randall Grahm calls them "wines with life force." Ms. Feiring does us all a great service by telling the story in her superb, engaging, often quite personally revealing style, against an industry tide of wealthy, new world winemakers. How's this for good writing: (pg.100)
"I was staggeringly tired when I landed in the spring-bright sun, and I slept soundly during the one-hour drive from Bilbao to Haro, where I awoke to the sight of the old Tempranillo vines just coming to life. The fresh leaves pushing from splintery stumps looked like hands reaching for the sun. The silver-tipped Cantabrian Mountains lit up the background. The sandy soil looked like crushed coral. I felt I was standing in the basin of a drained-out sea. Perhaps that's why I found a sea-like savory salinity in so many older Riojan wines." Good stuff, Alice. Thanks.

I love David and Goliath stories, and here's two at once. Independent wine producers making natural wines as David, large corporations making spoofalated wines as Goliath. Short cute female wine critic Alice as David, tall male wine critic Robert as Goliath. A really good story, an easy read, even for someone like me who doesn't drink wine.

...the secret of "The Battle for Wine and Love" is quite simple: drink wine. In exactly the same sense as Michael Pollan says, eat food.

For both of them, the best flavors, the best sensibilities, the best ways to live, come from eating and drinking simple, unmanipulated food and wine. That comes "from" somewhere. That's made with reverence for tradition (defined as food and drink your grandfather would recognize as food and drink.

Pollan doesn't like his foods augmented and sophisticated with unpronounceable additives. Feiring doesn't like her wines spoofulated. They're both saying the same thing. It's great and simple and profound advice. Advice to live by, and to savor, slowly.

I have been collecting, drinking and learning about wine since the late 60s. Recently was browsing books to see if there was anything new as far as pairing wine with some of the newer and more exotic cuisines. That I did not find but in browsing stumbled upon "The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization" by Alice Feiring. I had never heard of Alice but the title caught my eye because Robert Parker, who popularized the 100-point wine rating scale, is such a powerful figure in today's wine world. It also probably did not hurt that she is a self-described Jewish, Russian, redhead, wine geek with a finely tuned palate or that her jacket picture radiates a combination of intelligence, mystery, insight and determination. Once started I could not put the book down and read it during one cloudy Saturday afternoon. Since brevity is not the norm for wine books was pleasantly surprised at how much I learned. In a lively 268 pages she takes us behind the scenes for an insiders view of wine making, wines, techniques, producers and some of the controversies raging within the wine world. Intertwined with all the information is a lively and engaging story that makes it easy to digest the mountain of information. Feiring, an accomplished storyteller, combines her personal odyssey in the world of wine with serious and relevant issues that confront today's wine world.

This is a very important book -- it will stir a lot of emotions, and hopefully we will all be able to keep those emotions in check and have a much needed debate (that is probably asking the impossible).

Think for a moment about food. The stuff you get at the grocery store or at a restaurant....chances are that much of it is not "authentic" food. Is it any surprise that technology and "the market" are doing the same thing with wine? Add into the mix that the market is heavily influenced by the opinions of a select few critics (especially Parker) and we know face wines made by technology and market demand, leaving out authenticity, place, artistry and tradition.

A difficult pill to swallow for those of us that love to ponder the aromatics of a wine, and all of the complexities and nuances of the flavor profile -- and now wake up to find that much of that is chemistry rather than a wonder of nature.....

But the reality is that there are still some gems that are wonders of nature and artistry -- and those are the wines Alice Feiring champions -- they are at least worthy of your consideration. At the end of the day, you can let your palate decide -- but you should know what you are drinking....

All pretty heavy things to ponder, but the book is filled with great stories and a terrific sense of humor and joy for life. The words really are an extension of her voice -- and it is one of those books you don't read, but the story is almost spoke to you (as if that makes any sense).

It is one of the most important books I have read in years....at the end of the day, I may not be in complete agreement with her on all points (I might consider irrigation as negotiable in terms of "natural") -- but her perspective is precious.

Enjoyed the book so much that I am awaiting the sequel;"How Robert Parker Begged me To join his Staff". This book was a humorous and intelligent ride through Ms. Feirings life and her views on the tainting of wine by technology.
It poses some serious questions in the debate between "natural wine" vs. the New World creations; traditional vs. tech wines. Does it boil down to taste or are we brainwashed by the ratings?
Hopefully the last chapter was left open in anticipation of a follow up. A must buy.

"a la recherche du vin perdu": a recent reviewer of Feiring's new wine travelogue/memoir/introduction to natural wine 101 suggested this apt and insightful Proustian title for her book. In a time when most wine-themed books are either lightly veiled advertisements published by wine importers or salespersons (or even worse, snake oil peddlers), Feiring's book is a much-needed breath of fresh air. While so may books either dumb down the subject matter beyond the lowest possible common denominator or fly so high that only the eno-anointed can follow along, Battle reminds (or perhaps informs) the reader that the story of wine is a human story, a tale that needs to be told in human terms. Feiring's madeleine was a wine that first revealed to her the magic of fermented grape juice (in this case a Barolo). She generously invites the reader on her journey -- a deliciously rewarding but sometimes bumpy road -- to discover how wine and the wine industry have evolved over the last few decades. The news is not always good: the palates of many who make wine have been tainted, she writes, by a Goliath otherwise known as Bob Parker. But there is also hope, she tells us: along the way, we meet a colorful cast of natural winemakers, old and young, religiously devoted to protecting the tradition of "real" winemaking.

Alice Feiring's debut memoir is frank, funny, witty and completely engaging - and I don't even drink!

I picked this book up because I thought I would learn something about wine, and it seemed like a faster, more fun read than most wine books. (I am a hedonistic amateur, I love wine, but I really don't know that much about it.) Was I ever right! I couldn't put it down, and feel like now I can geek-speak with the best of them. The author gives a really engaging portrait of the different wine regions, and also the quirky wine makers she meets along the way. She also explains the debate about naturally made versus manipulated wine, which I knew nothing about before reading, but that's really made me think about how wine is and should be made. I'm dying to taste the wines she describes, now I need to track them down. They sound amazing.

The subtitle should in my opinion never have seen the light of day but once past that this is a heartfelt and informative book about a timely topic. I am definitely in Feiring's camp when it comes to a preference for naturally-made wines, and she addresses the subject with evident passion (while remaining perhaps a little light on analytical objectivity). There is a real sense of narrative here, not just a debate, and it is fun and interesting to tag along on her visits to winemakers, whether they do or don't engage in the manipulation of their wines. The "love" angle to the text is certainly distinctive. If you sympathize with her observation that "the passion of these growers and the power of their commitment started to make me believe in my future as well," then you may be particularly open to her perspective.