Paul Lukacs
American Vintage
The Rise of American Wine
Winner of the James Beard Foundation,
International Association of Culinary
Professionals, and Clicquot Wine Book
of the Year awards
HOW DID A COUNTRY with no winemaking traditions
of its own suddenly become a world
leader? Paul Lukacs offers a full history, from
seventeenth-century experiments to the fall of wine
during the dark days of Prohibition through its
remarkably rapid upswing in recent decades. The tale
is replete with quirky heroes and visionaries who
changed the course of wine history: from Nicholas
Longsworth, a diminutive, nineteenth-century real
estate tycoon and the founding father of American
wine, to the Mondavis and Gallos, the powerful first
families of American wine in the modern era.
"Lively, original, provocative, and a good read."—
Gerald Asher
"Authoritative and immensely readable."—
Anthony Dias Blue, wine editor, Bon Appétit
"Wisely avoids technical data, wine industry jargon,
and the tasting notes that pass for so much wine
writing. This is social history; it deals with people
and, in Mr. Lukacs's hands, a fascinating lot they
are."—New York Times
PAUL LUKACS is the wine columnist for the
Washington Times and the Washingtonian and the
chair of the English department at Loyola
College in Maryland. He lives in Baltimore.
|
|
