Customer Reviews

Cabernet: A Photographic Journey from Vine to Wine

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The important point here is the subtitle, which specifies "a photographic journey." This is a picture book and no more, but the pictures are fine and they are welcome. Most wine books, after all, skimp on photos (which are expensive to produce), and those they use are often pedestrian. Thus we seldom get a chance to see how beautiful is the world of wine-making. Here the photographer Charles O'Rear has traveled to many of the regions where the Cabernet grape is grown--Bordeaux, California, Chile, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Spain--to record and glorify the making of Cabernet from vine to bottle. There are plenty of panoramas here; vast views over endless vineyards are the bedrock of wine photography. But there are also lots of rewarding detail shots of pickers and their tools, winery interiors, grafting, and even the tally tokens used to record how much each picker has harvested. At one vineyard they are colored baskets; at another, plastic discs; at still another, ordinary clothes pins. All different, but all with the same meaning: They determine how much each picker is paid. These homely details, when added to the faces of the workers, invite you into the world shown in the vineyard panoramas. They're far more appealing that the inevitable "art" shots of wine glasses and barrel halls and ranks of bottles in a cobwebbed cellar.

The photos are generally so expressive it's not necessary to read the captions, which is a good thing. It seems to be a rule in picture books that captions must be made confusing and inconvenient wherever possible for the reader. Also, anyone who wants to actually read about wine is advised to go elsewhere. In picture books, the text is usually scanty and used as mere filler, and that is the case here.

--Bill Marsano

This is one of the most beautiful books on wine that I have ever seen. The photographs are simply outstanding. There is not a lot of text throughout the book, but the author correctly calls the text a photographic journey. This is a beautiful coffee table book that will be a hit with you and your guests.

A great way to travel from vine to wine for all wine lovers