A Short History of Wine

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
In October 1999, plans for a state visit to France by the president of Iran were disrupted because of a dispute over wine. The president of Iran, a Muslim, said he could not even sit at a table where wine would be served. The French declared that a state dinner without wine on the table was unthinkable. And so, the visit had to be changed to a "state visit" without an official dinner.

This incident, points out Rod Phillips, demonstrates the power of wine in divergent societies. Muhammad banned wine for the Muslims in the early seventh century, because he saw that excess wine made his followers destructive. The French have long regarded wine as an emblem of national identity and a facilitator of social relationships and alliances, thus mandatory for every important occasion.

Wine has long been considered something more than a simple beverage -- whether it is seen as a sacred drink, an inebriant, or the work of the Devil. Phillips, a Canadian history professor who teaches a course in the history of alcohol, reminds us that Bacchus presided over wine-friendly Rome and that Christ's first miracle at the wedding of Cana involved turning water into wine.

Phillips examines the flow of wine through history, from the earliest days in the Fertile Crescent to ancient Greece and Rome and through the Middle Ages and the Napoleonic wars to the early days of viticulture in the so-called New World -- California, South Africa, and Australia. He devotes a chapter to the Time of Troubles, which began with the phylloxera crisis of the late 1880s and continued with the advent of Prohibition in America. Phillips peppers his history with lively anecdotes even as he traces the advances in viticulture (where and how to plant the vines) and viniculture (how to extract juice from the grapes, age it, store it, and deliver it to the public). His somewhat scholarly history will be welcomed by any avid wine lover. (Ginger Curwen)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Variously regarded as a sacred, religious drink, an inebriant, and even the work of the Devil, wine has always been much more than a commodity. Spanning the globe, from Hunter Valley to the Rhine, from Napa Valley to Burgundy, A Short History of Wine is an astonishingly enjoyable guide to the social, cultural, and economic worlds inside a bottle.

Phillips recreates each of the great eras of wine consumption, with their very different values and palates, and vividly conveys the sheer formidableness of much that has been drunk and enjoyed. Packed with fascnating stories and unexpected insights, A Short History of Wine is sure to appeal to anyone who treats wine with the ardor it deserves.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The consummate companion to any good glass of wine, this engaging book delves into the robust history of the beverage and investigates its vitality as what Phillips calls "a product, a commodity and an icon." An opening anecdote regarding the cancellation of a recent Iranian state visit to France (the French demanded dinner wine; Muslim law forbids alcohol consumption) perfectly frames both the range of cultural dispositions toward wine and the complex role it has played on the stage of world history. Investigating archeological and botanical evidence, Phillips, a professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, travels 7,000 years into the past to uncover the historical roots of wine-production and, by detailing the earliest bacchanals and trade routes through which wine entered public life and value systems, he investigates the role of wine as a commodity. In addition to studying the shifting economic and cultural importance of wine throughout history, Phillips also closely analyzes the effects of alcoholism and drink-induced violence. Wine, he poetically suggests, can be both a yield of the gods and the fruit of the devil, a commodity that paradoxically crosses borders while establishing lines between classes, and a product "of society more than of nature." Phillips's work wonderfully reveals all the histories readers might only have guessed at while thumbing through Chaucer, Boccaccio or Rimbaud, and his book provides a comprehensive reading of Western civilization through the bell of a wine glass. (Nov. 1) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Phillips, a history professor and author of several other books, including Society, State and Nation, looks at the various sociological, economic, political, and religious forces that have shaped the supply and demand for wine from ancient times to the 20th century. Phillips does a good job of illustrating how such factors as storage methods, means of transportation, changing tastes, and taxes have influenced what wines are produced and consumed in various parts of the world, but the broad scope of his work limits the amount of space devoted to any one particular wine-producing region in a given time period. The author's dense, scholarly writing style may deter readers in search of a quick, popular overview of this subject, for which Hugh Johnson's Vintage: The Story of Wine (1989. o.p.) would be a better choice, but academic and large public libraries in need of this type of historical survey should consider this for their collections. John Charles, Scottsdale P.L., AZ Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews