Crush

My Year As an Apprentice Winemaker

Nicholas O'Connell (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

248 Seiten

2025
Potomac Books Inc (Verlag)
978-1-64012-631-2 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

In Crush Nicholas O’Connell provides a behind-the-scenes look at the daily operations of some of the world’s most prestigious wineries on the West Coast. This insider’s view of the wine world includes the intense competition for the best grapes, the bizarre lingo of the tasting rooms, and the visionary winemakers who magically transform grapes into high-end wine. It is a world that includes not only romance and refinement but long hours, backbreaking labor, mind-numbing repetition, and fanatical dedication to quality. Such devotion resulted in the 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet that won the best red wine at the 1976 Judgment of Paris and transformed the U.S. wine industry.

O’Connell’s quest to master the art of wine making begins in his garage. From there he embarks on an apprenticeship at Betz and DeLille Cellar and other great wineries in California, Oregon, and Washington. He provides a first-person, ground-up view of a business not yet fully explored despite record interest in wine. O’Connell also includes conversations with some of the world’s most gifted vintners, including Warren Winiarski, former owner of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.

Wine is surrounded by a seemingly impenetrable cloud of descriptors-“wet dog,” “kumquats,” “cat pee”-and a fog of pretention. Crush pierces this fog with colorful, concrete storytelling, in-depth portraits of famous winemakers, and a lively, down-to-earth description of the process by which wine is made: not in the critic’s mind but in the winery and vineyard.

Nicholas O’Connell is based in Washington State and is the founder of the Writer’s Workshop. He contributes to media outlets such as Newsweek, Food & Wine, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and National Geographic Adventure. O’Connell is the author of five books, including The Storms of Denali: A Novel and On Sacred Ground: The Spirit of Place in Pacific Northwest Literature.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Part 1. Crush
1. Garagiste
2. Ciel du Cheval: A Wine Lover’s Idea of Heaven

Part 2. Washington
3. The Founding Fathers of the Washington Wine Industry
4. Betz Family Winery
5. DeLille Cellars: The Art of Blending
6. Decision-Making at Canoe Ridge
7. Picking Grapes
8. Fermentation and Fruit Flies
9. Tom Cooks
10. Pressing: The Merlot Mobile

Part 3. Oregon
11. Learning the Secrets of Making Killer Pinot Noir
12. Beaux FrÈres: Avoiding Getting Lee-ed
13. Tony Soter: Pinot Noir as an Expression of Place
14. Ken Wright Visit: Wine as Fundamentally Spiritual

Part 4. My Wine Journey
15. Falling in Love with Wine
16. On Hallowed Ground: Visiting Bordeaux and the Great Growths

Part 5. California
17. Robert Mondavi: Transforming the Tastes of the Nation
18. Stag’s Leap: The Search for an American Arcadia
19. Opus One: The Place Made the Wine
20. Cain Vineyard and Winery: Letting the Land Speak

Part 6. A Question of Balance
21. Taking Stock: Should I Go Pro?
22. Wine with Dinner
23. The Connoisseur: Dan McCarthy
24. The Heart of Hospitality: Searching for the Spirit of Domaine Tempier
25. Bottling Party

Bibliographic Essay
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	07.05.2025
Zusatzinfo	18 photographs, index
Verlagsort	Dulles
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Essen / Trinken ► Getränke
	Reiseführer ► Nord- / Mittelamerika ► USA
ISBN-10	1-64012-631-7 / 1640126317
ISBN-13	978-1-64012-631-2 / 9781640126312
Zustand	Neuware