Pressing Matters - by Alan Ramey (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Wine is a much loved but often contentious subject with many strong opinions on both sides of all of the debates that rage through the industry. Alan Ramey looks at these arguments to see what can be learnt objectively from experts.

Pressing Matters explains the fundamental debates in wine, from terroir, production and farming, to tasting, wine's cultural significance and the economic value of wine. By focusing on wine through the prism of the key fights within each topic, the book presents readers with a story that includes the messiness, human fragility and disagreement about core principles that so often gets skipped at the outset of wine knowledge. The book fairly showcases all sides of the most important debates in wine today, giving the available evidence as well as commenting on what we don't know. Aimed at those just starting on their wine journey, Pressing Matters is a lively and thoroughly researched history of all the key current wine controversies, written by an author with wine making in his blood, who knows the wine business from the inside.
- Lays out the key current wine controversies in a way that is easily accessible for the non-scientist and those new to wine literature.
- Examines the evidence from experts on both sides of each argument to allow readers to make up their own minds on current hot topics in wine.
- Goes behind the label to explain the buzz words, trends and wine speak used by the wine media.
- Helps readers see clearly today's bigger wine picture in order to make better informed wine-buying decisions.
-Author is active within the wine scene in California and beyond, and a popular speaker at wine events.

About the Author

Alan Ramey comes from a vintner family in the Sonoma/Napa area north of San Francisco, California. He is currently co-president of the family winery. He learned wine making as an apprentice to his father, one of the most famous winemakers in the US, and has also studied wine making and apprenticed in Chile and France, including harvests at Veramonte in Casablanca and Méo-Camuzet in Burgundy. While studying for his MBA at Cambridge University he was selected to join the blind wine tasting team, competing around Europe. He is a board member for the California Wine Institute and is active in the wine community. Alan was on his high school and college debate teams and during his study abroad year at Oxford he won the 'best new debater of the year' competition. (Instagram @rameywinecellars, 6,351 followers)