My geography skills are so appalling that it's almost laughable. Which is ironic, being married to a truck driver's kid (who inherited a better-than-average sense of direction and an almost preternatural sense of knowing when he's been some place before). So when my best friend gave me Brian Sommers' The Geography of Wine as a gift, I started reading it while covetously eying her copy of The Billionaire's Vinegar, which (being historical) is more my style.
If we--meaning my husband and I--have enough of the appropriate real estate to grow some of our own wine grapes, the first part of the book will definitely merit a second reading--one admittedly more intensive than the first. But they otherwise didn't make as great an impression on me as they should have.
The really meaty parts of the book--meaning the reasons why it (IMO) merits banging on about--revolve around the economic dimension of the wine industry.We'd like to believe that consumers and producers act in rational ways, yet the history of winemaking solidly demonstrates the fallacy of this assumption. Moreover, the economic "dimension" is itself incredibly multi-faceted. Colonial imperialism, communism, war, nationalism, disease, fashion, and mere accidents of geography have left deep marks on why so many assumptions are bottled with that liquid.
It's those niches of economic history that I think make the book valuable, even if you personally consider wine complicated, ovenuesver-romanticized, and possibly even snooty. Because fads, counterfeiting, trademark squabbles, incomprehensible regulatory fiat (think Prohibition), globalization, marketing gimmicks, commoditization, distribution channels, etc. affect far more industries than the one that peddles fermented grape juice. For that reason alone, its 272 pages are an edifying read, and I can recommend them to folks who aren't even half so nerdy about the stuff as I am.
