May 19 2008
I have been eagerly anticipating Alice Feiring’s book, “The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization.” Then, however, I started reading it.
And, while the book is eminently readable, it is very memoir-ish and very much in the mode of “chick lit.” It is not at all the erudite dis-mantling of “Parker’s palate” that I that I was expecting. It is smart, but also personal with much allegorical reference between her love life (not that interesting) and wine.
My personal tastes in non-fiction aside, I do have to diverge from Feiring’s agent provocateur approach to book promotion. With her op-ed pieces in the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle whereby she paints the entire California wine industry with the same brush, I have to note the hypocrisy in doing so.
How can you rail against homegenization in New World wine, leveraging Parker as your foil, and then write op-ed pieces in California’ two largest daily newspapers deriding virtually the entire California wine industry?
It’s a very subtle point here. But, if you’re going to attack Parker for his influence in creating a “house style” for wine, touting nuanced wine in France, for example, you better damn be sure you’re not pimping your own book in a fashion that is similarly dogmatic in opinion.
It’s like she’s saying, “Parker’s palate be damned. Hail my similarly one-sided opinion, and I’m taking California down with me.”
It rings a little hollow for me. Instead of rattling cages, it might be better to cite chapter and verse in well-reasoned opinion.
Isn’t there a difference between reasoned analysis that leads to provocation and broadside slanted opinions? I think so. That’s where Feiring is falling short. She may be able to write, but she needs a better publicist.
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