Celebration of the triumph of Italian winemaker Angelo Gaja, who has raised the once cheap and obscure Barbaresco wines to award-winning world status. Steinberg, a consultant for the European Community, conducts wine tastings at a leading Roman wine shop. Wine from fruits other than grapes may score well with wine writers, but these wines, Steinberg says, ``should be drunk within a year of harvest and will not live to develop the complexity that is part of greatness.'' Steinberg focuses on the people involved in winemaking as richly as he does on vines and the processes of fermentation and maceration, the making of casks, the selection of custom-made bottles, the search for cork, and so on. He sticks largely to Gaja and to the making of his single-vineyard Sori San Lorenzo of 1989 vintage. Barbaresco wines come from vineyards in northwest Italy and—aside from single-vineyard wines—are a hierarchy of blends from this district as devised by Gaja. Gaja first bottled Sori San Lorenzo in 1967. In 1987, the Barbaresco vintages failed to meet his standards; to keep his prestige, he bottled only half his normal amount of Barbaresco—and in 1984 none at all: ``That decision about the 1984 was very painful,'' Gaja says. Not only winemaking but barrel-making receives Steinberg's keenest eye, as does the battle between steel and oak barrels. Page after page impresses with the complexity of wine and winemaking— the bottomless thought that goes into microclimates among leaves, into yeasts, acids, and balancing out minute quantities of substances that make each wine distinct. Great human warmth bathes a wine-lover's delight: one of the best yet about wine.
Pub Date: Oct. 18, 1993
ISBN: 0-88001-284-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1993
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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