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A Life Uncorked, by Hugh Johnson
Download PDF A Life Uncorked, by Hugh Johnson
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Hugh Johnson, the preeminent wine writer of our time, now brings to his fans around the world his first major new book in a decade: this stylish, intimate, and delightfully opinionated autobiographical tour through the world of wine. A Life Uncorked weaves Johnson’s wide-ranging ruminations, memories, and observations on his remarkable life together with information on every aspect of wine—from its technical production to its cultural significance. In luminous, utterly engaging prose, he taps into his enormous experience to consider topics such as tasting, cellaring, choosing, understanding, comparing, and buying wine, as well as wine’s more ephemeral and personal pleasures, lures, and mysteries.
At the heart of A Life Uncorked is the idea that wine is more than a drink; its characteristics link it directly to memory, to locations around the world where grapes are grown and wine is made, and to the dining rooms, restaurants, bars, and gardens where we consume it. Johnson takes us to all of these places and many more in this delightful and revelatory memoir. Peppered with anecdotes throughout, A Life Uncorked simultaneously educates and entertains with its absorbing perspective on the complex and fascinating world of wine from one of its most well-known and well-liked aficionados.
- Sales Rank: #1199586 in Books
- Published on: 2006-03-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 10.00" h x 1.50" w x 7.00" l, 3.07 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 384 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Writing about wine is only one of British author Johnson's (The World Atlas of Wine) many incursions into the high life, as he recounts in this impressive 40-year journey. World travel, gardening, glassmaking and grape growing (at his own vineyard in Bourbonnais, France) have alternately warranted his attention since he began his career as a journalist in 1960 as British Vogue's first wine writer. Under the tutelage of legends André Simon and Elizabeth David, the young editor came of age, and he tracks his career milestones in terms of notable vintages, e.g., 1975 was a great year for Bordeaux, and the year he began his monthly column as pseudonymous Tradescant in the British journal The Garden; 1982 was the year of "marvelous clarets," and when Johnson helped launch Cuisine magazine as its wine editor. Convinced that great wine and glassware evolved together (in the 17th century), Johnson was even a purveyor of glass and silver for wine drinkers from his shop in London. His memoir proceeds following broad categories of wine—bubbly, white, red and sweet—each chapter replete with memories of remarkable trips, vintages, vineyards and people. Johnson opens his notebooks and the oenophile's lifetime experience richly spills forth. (Mar.)
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From the Inside Flap
"Vintage Johnson—lively, graceful, and satisfying. An engaging read."—Gerald Asher, author of The Pleasures of Wine and Vineyard Tales
About the Author
Hugh Johnson, widely regarded as the world's foremost wine writer, is known to millions through his internationally best-selling wine books, including his annual Pocket Wine Book, The World Atlas of Wine, Wine, The Story of Wine, and How to Enjoy Your Wine. A highly respected editor and broadcaster, Johnson has been president of the Sunday Times Wine Club since 1973 and of the Circle of Wine Writers since 1997. He has appeared in several television series. Johnson was the first wine editor of Vogue and is an editorial advisor to The World of Fine Wine. Johnson, who is also passionate about gardening and trees, is author of The International Book of Trees and Principles of Gardening: The Practice of the Gardener’s Art. For thirty years, he has written the monthly Tradescant’s Diary column for The Garden magazine.
Most helpful customer reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
A corking good read!
By Joshua E. London
I recently published a brief review of this wonderful book in the print edition of The Washington Examiner newspaper ([...] -- April 29 & 30th Weekend Edition). Here is that review:
Recently, I had the opportunity to catch up with world-renowned wine writer Hugh Johnson as he breezed through town promoting his new memoir on the inner workings of the wine world, A Life Uncorked. This is a deeply personal book. Yet, as Johnson admits, it is not an autobiography. Rather, this memoir is a personal journey, as much about wine as it is about his life.
For Johnson, wine is essentially "a social game" not merely an interest or a hobby. Wine is "about human relations, hospitality, bonding-all the maneuvers of social life-and all under the influence, however benign, of alcohol." Who can argue with that?
This social experience is richly transformative: "However good a wine may be, sentiment can make it better" and "with the right companion, a single wine can be a continuing conversation." In person, as in his writings, Johnson comes off as witty, personable, and charming, and his approach to wine is wonderfully infectious.
Never one to shy from a fight, Johnson (a Brit) takes issue with Robert Parker, the preeminent American wine critic. Johnson criticizes Parker's wine scoring system, which treats wines "like American high school students"-50 points just for showing up, 60 = dreadful, 70 = pretty poor, 80 = not bad, etc. Johnson decries the effect this approach has had on the wine industry, where wines are Parkerized to get higher scores.
Ultimately, Johnson's unpretentious and highly enjoyable attitude towards wine appreciation is compelling. As he plainly explains, "It depends on whether you see wine primarily as a drink or as a recreational substance. In a drink you look for something refreshing and satisfying without too loud a voice, not too intrusive on your food or your thoughts each time you take a sip." So take a page from Hugh's book, and enjoy a jolly good read with glass in hand.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
The Ideal Wine Mentor
By Flippy
This book is meant to be savored. It is all things wine and the appreciation of wine. Johnson's actual presence, his life's tale wanders in and out of the narrative. We learn about his schooling, his early university days, about his wife, his early work and publications but that's just part of the beauty of reading this book.
Imagine if you had a friend who not only spoke eloquently but who could talk at great lengths about a subject he held dear to his heart. Imagine this friend to be well-traveled, with many connections and stories to tell. Hugh Johnson might be that ideal friend. He doesn't talk down to the reader, he doesn't namedrop the way some wine writers do, glorifying personalities in the wine trade. Johnson is certainly living a comfortable life but his presentation of facts, experiences and meetings with great wine and great winemakers is lively and surprisingly modest.
The book is divided into several sections: Prospects, Bubbly, White, Red and Sweet. Throughout these sections he explores past episodes of his life, the people he met and the wines he encountered. His style is direct, light, poetic and friendly, an approach in prose that both informs and involves the reader. You never feel like you're being lectured to, mostly that he is here to mentor, to share and express his love of the great fermented grapes of the world.
I would recommend this book to all kinds of readers, especially the wine lovers. If you're starting out or know the difference between a Pouilly-Fusse and Pouilly-Fume, then read this. For wine writing, this work is a treasure. I wish there were more writers like Johnson working in the industry.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
An engaging wine story
By GTLAmerica
As the title suggests, this tome is as much a combination of anecdotes as it is a tour around some of the world's greatest wine appellations. Drawing on his decades of wine writing experience, author Hugh Johnson manages to bring the reader into his world. Imagine your sexagenarian uncle reclining into his armchair with a glass of red wine: he sniffs; he drinks and satisfyingly says "ahh", then starts telling you all the experiences in his life that led him to the point of enjoying this wine right now, and what you should know about it if you are to be included in his will.
The book's almost 400 pages are ordered like a tasting: bubbly, white, red, sweet. Johnson sets the stage with a question about wine, then answers it: "What does the reasonable, perfectly balanced person need to know? That wine is not one thing, but many. To appreciate it you don't have to swallow an encyclopedia, but you do have to pay attention. A good memory helps, but a clear focus on what you are drinking is indispensable". Then he follows up with another (unanswered) question: "If it turns a drink into a recreation, who can complain?" Indeed, he poses a lot of questions throughout the book in an effort to draw the reader in and make him think. Why drink inter-state? Why does this drink have bubbles? Are Burgundians all neurotics? Would Chablis be asked for everywhere if it were called Pernand-Vergelesses?
The structure of the book bequeaths on each chapter its own world tour. Bubbly (he co-names the chapter "the social drug") obviously begins in the Champagne district in northern France before moving into California. He begins the White chapter in Australia, blitzes through a tasting date in Japan and plunges into the German Rheingau. That said, there is a heavy focus on France which is not surprising given he's an Englishman born at the time when the only decent wine available was more than likely French. Chablis, Bordeaux, the Loire and Burgundy all have their embellished chapters, while Italy, Spain and the New World come up in secondary chapters under subheadings or chapter titles like "the Bordeaux persuasion".
He has a soft spot for Australia. This, I imagine, is one of few wine memoirs that donates more pages to Australia than to Spain and Italy combined! Having lunch in Margaret River, he opines that it could be the Medoc and Graves of Australia. But there are still "infinite possibilities" for experimentation in both location and wine making style. On Aussie Chardonnay, which he notes was not even grown in the country until the 1960s, he claims to find no pattern across the regions other than "succulence in restraint, fruit that is sweet but not sugary, acidity that starts your saliva, and a touch of smoke to make you sniff again". Though he does decry the direction of bulk wines, remarking that Australia has become "caught up in the conflict between conglomerates for supermarket space" and prophets "who see the future as applying taste to terroir as the French have done".
I found the most enjoyable section to be his experience with his own hobby vineyard in France, which is the prism through which he explains the wine making process. The setting is old stone barn in Bourbonnais. The aim: plant and harvest 750 Chardonnay and 1,000 Sauvignon Gris vines across 175 acres. The enemy? The weather plus a small herd of destructive rabbits. After the picking, crushing and pressing, it comes time to add the sulfur in order stop oxidation. Johnson buys the sulfur "in a plastic jerry-can in a concentration that demands head-spinning calculations to achieve the recommended dose. No one is watching: I use a modest splash". It is anecdotes like these that breathe a little humor into wine writing, poking fun the science at the same time as recognizing the painstaking effort that it takes to achieve mastery.
By the time one reaches the end of the book, it seems there is practically nothing Hugh Johnson hasn't done. He has almost capsized in an unseaworthy vessel trying to do a "claret run" through the Bay of Biscay; created a haiku content for fifty Japanese geishas trying to learn wine; sat on the board of Chateau Latour only to be "fired for non-attendance"...the list goes on. Perhaps that is the vaunted life of the international wine aficionado. At the same time, avid descriptions of the settings in which he has experienced wine do the trick of bringing each bottle to life. When each individual and each wine meet, it is that context which makes interesting reading. "You can, of course, like a college examiner, submit every sample to the same critical appraisal and accept or reject it", he writes - a jab at Robert Parker. "Or you can embrace the identity, enjoy the circumstances, be transported to other times".
It is interesting to note how much Japan figured into his wine ventures - in the late 20th century the country's rich elites seemed to be yearning for a greater understanding of wine, whether to look good or make the right investments as much as it was for enjoyment probably. There are parallels to China today, whose colossal focus on Bordeaux (it beats the UK and Germany as the leading export market by value for Bordeaux wines) has become a welcome financial beacon for the elite French chateaux. I guess it will be for the current generation's global wine expert, who today probably visits Beijing and Shanghai more than annually, to write the China chapter as it unfolds. In the mean time, you can be satisfied with Hugh Johnson's memoir of experiences that traverses some major wine trends of the second half of the twentieth century. For other reviews, see my blog: [...]
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