Rating: 
Summary: Not just about wine
Review: Wine is the pretext the author uses to question what really constitutes "taste." The narrator enters what is purported to be the pinnacle of the modern wine world to learn why their products carry such an exalted cache. He and the other common people he encounters have trouble identifying the tastes that the experts (i.e. judges of what is and is not tasteful) have reported. He can't even recollect the Lafite he sampled. What he does recall are the places and the settings of wines he enjoyed. Read the book to learn more about the winemakers and judges who try to dictate what you are suppossed to like, but come away from it with the knowledge that "taste" resides within the individual. I'll be re-reading this one in the next few weeks after the ideas brought up in it have had time to percolate through a bit.
Rating: 
Summary: you already know everyone's in it for the money...
Review: you already know everyone's in it for the money... this writer too.The author meets men and visits places you and I will never ever have the opportunity to experience. He enjoys a privileged life in the wine world all the while complaining that it's just posturing... no kidding. I agree with the author but I didn't need to read his ramblings to do so.
I don't need to read wine reviews to know whether I like a wine. You don't need to read this book to know that you have your own opinion.
There are too many good books out there to waste your time (or money) on this one. Try a book from Kermit Lynch or Hugh Johnson. Or better yet enjoy a personal story from Bill Bryson or Peter Mayle.
Rating:
Summary: High Chthonic
Review: YouÕre perfectly right to ask me what in the world the title of this review means. With any luck, you guessed that it was a horrible pun with a vaguely scatological reference. To be honest, I had no clue what chthonic meant either until I encountered it in The Accidental Connoisseur and then looked it up. The review title is my revenge on the author, who mucks up what is otherwise a great book about the current state of the wine world by constantly attempting to show off how learned he is.
Lawrence Osborne travels from California to France and to Italy to interview prominent wine figures and to ostensibly learn from them the secret of what makes a really great wine. Along the way, he discovers a lesson that he might have gleaned sooner had he spent more time watching TV and less time studying classical civilization. To paraphrase Charlie the Tuna, Lawrence doesnÕt want wines with good taste, he wants wines that taste good. His quest is about defining the taste of great wine: what words describe it; how do you make it; how do you botch it. He interviews the experts to find out. The quest is often funny. He acts like he doesnÕt really know whatÕs going on (hence the ÒaccidentalÓ part of the title), but heÕs dialed into the wine scene big time so he knows just how to deadpan his way through an interview to let a subject bait his own trap.
Osborne bounces around the wine world like a drunken Diogenes, his glass held aloft in search of honest wines. He eventually finds his prophet in the person of Neal Rosenthal, a prominent American importer based in New York. Rosenthal has one of the most respected portfolios of any importer in the US, one he has built from scratch based on an unwavering commitment to allowing a winemaker to make the wine that the grapes and the land want him to make. I know this probably sounds like I just had or need my own chthonic, but itÕs a theme explored elsewhere in Andrew JeffordÕs The New France (also reviewed by me on Amazon), and Kermit LynchÕs Adventures on the Wine Route, among other places. What Osborne, Rosenthal, Jefford and Lynch all share is a profound respect for wines that taste like the places they come from. They revile manipulated wines, manufactured wines, wines made to please focus groups, scientific, technology driven wines, branded wines, high score inspired fruit bomb wines, wines embalmed in new oak, in short, anything that isnÕt the expression of a passionate wine maker allowing his grapes and his land to speak for themselves. Nothing wrong with modern methods, just as long as they assist rather than hinder elucidation of the innate character of a place-based wine. In fact, the role of an inspired importer like Lynch or Rosenthal can be to persuade a wavering grower torn by the howling winds of market forces to avoid selling his soul to The Devil from Monkton, MD (He who must not be named!), and to continue making distinctive wines that give pleasure and taste good with food. Having recently tried a half dozen or so of the wines imported by Mr. Rosenthal, I think IÕm beginning to catch the messianic fervor myself!
Anyway, Lawrence Osborne says this stuff and a whole lot more about the contemporary wine scene in an infinitely more informative and entertaining way than I can. An endearing aspect of the quest is that he often freely admits just how daunting and difficult it is to say anything intelligent about the taste of a wine, especially while someone else is waiting and watching expectantly. ItÕs also intriguing to see how he manages not to kill himself with all the drinking and driving he does. Seems like every place he goes where his host is simpatico he drinks too much and then has to get back to a hotel across some treacherous mountain roads ripped to the gills and with a trunk load of bottles to start fresh the next day. Nice work if you can get it.
So pop open a bottle of something authentic imported by Rosenthal Wine Merchants (Neal RosenthalÕs company), grab a comfy chair and a good encyclopedia, and enjoy this book. By the way, my dictionary says chthonic (pronounced thon-ic) comes from Greek mythology and means Òof or relating to the underworld.Ó Now itÕs up to you to see what you chthink.
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