The Accidental Connoisseur: An Irreverent Journey Through the Wine World (Hardcover)

by Lawrence Osborne (Author) "The mansion of Antonio Terni sits among his family's craggy mulberry trees a few miles inland from the resort of Sirolo..." (more)
Key Phrases: accidental connoisseur, terroir wine, wine riot, New York, Robert Parker, Robert Mondavi (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The number of serious wine books published in recent years can be counted on one hand—which makes Osborne's funny and erudite tale all the more welcome. Structured as a traditional quest, it stems from an insecurity of the author's English childhood: "I do not trust my own taste." So he embarks, Quixote-like, on 11 adventures in the wine world, jetting from France to California, then Italy, hoping to plumb the mystery of why someone would spend $600 on a bottle of fermented grape juice. At every step, Osborne, who's written for the New York Times Magazine, Lingua Franca and other publications, trains his reporter's eye—previously honed in books like American Normal—on both the big picture and telling details. At a comical lunch with viniculture icon Robert Mondavi, Osborne swiftly gets at the importance of his contribution to the industry, while also squeezing in the apt observation that Mondavi's wife, Margrit, reminds him of German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, "at once coquettish and dominant." Despite the miles logged, Osborne's journey is primarily an intellectual one, and his writing will be appreciated by high-minded readers: "Wine is always the lightning conductor of an irrepressible and often iniquitous cosmopolitanism." By the last chapter, Osborne can't say exactly what Chateau Lafite Rothschild tasted like, and he has just encountered the foulest bottle of his life. But he also sounds strangely contented, because he's found the rare world where aesthetics still matter—even if the terminology and the people who employ it can be maddening.
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From Booklist
Ruminating on the origins of taste, Osborne delves into the current state of the Northern Hemisphere's wine industry. Traveling through Europe and California, Osborne meets both earnest small-vineyard proprietors and powerful wine barons who set the pace for the rest of the industry. Along the way he learns not only the aesthetics of wine but also the economics of it all: how California now sets the standards and how small vineyards prosper only insofar as they position themselves adroitly in the vast worldwide marketplace for wine. The characters Osborne meets are more indelible than zinfandel spilled on white damask: Robert Mondavi, who went to dinner in France and had an epiphany; an Italian nuclear engineer who returned to his family manor, became a vintner, and applied chaos theory to his well-regarded bottlings. But mostly Osborne discovers that taste has succumbed to the exigencies of capitalism's obsession with brands and product synergy. Odd and fascinating facts about wine pepper Osborne's lighthearted yet deeply informed text. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: North Point Press (March 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865476330
• ISBN-13: 978-0865476332
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #371,483 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An irreverent and humorous approach to wine, July 20, 2005

By	Lyne Noella - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Accidental Connoisseur: An Irreverent Journey Through the Wine World (Paperback)

This book is easy to read--a common-sense book that looks at the puffery of the wine scene. I bought additional copies and gave them to a couple of wine-loving friends. Wish I could read a book of this caliber each month.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gem of a book, June 15, 2005

By	pairinghound (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

Under the quixotic travelogue disguise lurks a gently insightful, open minded and intelligent assessment of how we think about wine. For those who care about wine, this is a gem of a book.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What inspired the raves?, September 29, 2004

By	Joseph R. Lentini III "urikhai" (Springfield, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was disappointed in this book, given some of the rave reviews it has received. I was looking for an entertaining book about enjoying wine. I enjoyed Bacchus & Me more, and I'm enjoying Noble Rot far more, and learning a lot more, too.

In some ways, this book plods along as the author goes from interview to interview asking what winemakers and personalities think of terroir... Do they believe in it? Does their wine exhibit it? Should we care about it? But none of the answers really go anywhere and the author never seems to draw a conclusion.

Like another reviewer, I felt like the author was showing off his vocabulary. I wish he had shown it off whenever one of his interviewees asked him for his opinion about a wine. His response seemed to be endlessly that he kept his mouth shut and waited to hear what he should be thinking about it.

Because the book focuses on ruminations about terroir... It lacks what could be entertaining or interesting stories about where he is... or adventures I could get absorbed in. Brief descriptions of the architecture and how it matched or didn't match the wines, and descriptions of how he got drunk then drove away (deplorable) weren't doing it for me. I wish the author had described how he arranged these tastings, too.

When the author moves to Italy, the storytelling improves, and in fact, the authors final stop in Southern Italy to visit an older British woman is quite memorable. The last couple of paragraphs were wonderful and earned an extra star for what was otherwise a dry book about wine.