When talk turns to Napa Valley royalty, Robert Mondavi and the Mondavi family indisputably qualify as the ruling monarchy of the Napa Valley –and frankly the US- wine industry. With an almost biblical or Shakespearean flair, the Mondavi family story of the last 100 years is one of passion, pettiness, family squabbling, wild success, dramatic failure, and of course, wine. In her new book, The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty, author Julia Flynn delivers a masterful narrative on the Mondavi clan. IntoWine.com recently had the privilege of chatting with Julia about the book and the evolution of the Mondavi family story.
The first book to chronicle the rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr., the world's most influential and controversial wine critic, who, over the last twenty-five years, has dominated the international wine world and embodied the triumph of American taste.
In 1965, after a notorious family feud, Robert Mondavi-then fifty-two years old-was
Hugh Johnson, the preeminent wine writer of our time, now brings to his fans around the world his first major new book in a decade: this stylish, intimate, and delightfully opinionated autobiographical tour through the world of wine. A Life Uncorked weaves Johnson's wide-ranging ruminations, memories, and observations on his remarkable life together with information on every aspect of wine--from its technical production to its cultural significance. In luminous, utterly engaging prose, he taps into his enormous experience to consider topics such as tasting, cellaring, choosing, understanding, comparing, and buying wine, as well as wine's more ephemeral and personal pleasures, lures, and mysteries.
Unquestionably unique, demonstrably delightful, Michael Broadbent's
The enormous variety of wines available today can be baffling even to an experienced buyer. Anyone who enters a wine store is immediately confronted by rows and rows of racks filled with a myriad of choices. Where do you begin when all you want is a reasonably priced quality wine to serve with dinner? Jancis Robinson can make anyone an expert, or at least an informed buyer, in short order.