| 
 enlarge | Author: Sergio Esposito
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $12.46
You Save: $12.49 (50%)
New (36) Used (10) from $10.19
Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 14797
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0767926072
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.0130945
EAN: 9780767926072
ASIN: 0767926072
Publication Date: April 22, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
 A wonderful book about Italian food, wine and life May 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Sergio Esposito, Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich started Italian Wine Merchants in 1999, a retail shop that sells fine Italian wines. There are many interesting wines on offer, the staff is knowledgeable and helpful, and the weekly and monthly emails provide a wonderful education on Italian wines and wine in general.
The emails are written by Esposito, and this wonderful book is a perfect example of Esposito's warm and educational style of writing. He starts his memoir with a description of an idyllic childhood in the slums of Naples: he remembers that "women lowered baskets from their balconies to buy the fish straight from the sea and grapes straight from the vine."
When he was a child, his family moved from Naples to Albany, New York. Esposito writes movingly about the transition: The pasta they ate in Italy had been laid in the middle of the street, "so that the unique combination of Mediterranean and mountain winds would dry it in just the right way, to produce the perfect texture when it was boiled." His first pasta in Albany was "mushy ...like glue in my throat."
Esposito describes his travels as a student and as a wine merchant with great enthusiasm. Wine geeks will love passages like these, this one about Friulian winemaker Josko Gravner:
"Gravner is a proponent in the use of open-top wood vats, extended maceration on the grape skins, no added yeasts, no sulphur dioxide, and no temperature control--purely natural winemaking. This is Josko's current position, and he employs both amphorae and large oak barrels to make his three wines; Collio Breg, Ribolla Gialla, and Rosso Gravner. The grapes for these wines come from his 18 hectares of vineyards in Gorizia (Oslavia) that straddle the Italian-Slovenian border. It is here that he exercises his current approach to wine: 'I am convinced that wine is a product of Nature, not of Man, whose role therefore is to accompany its maturation process while avoiding any artificial intervention.'"
Any reader with the least interest in Italy will love his descriptions of the food and vintages he consumes on his adventures. For example, in one Roman restaurant, a white wine "smelled of apricots, white flowers, dried honey, nuts ... [I] got the sensation that I was being seduced in a Pompeii brothel before the volcano erupted."
Bill Buford is glowing in his praise: "Without qualification, the best book about Italian wine today, if only because Sergio Esposito understands that its mysterious greatness is in its poetry--the earth, its diurnal magic, the ghosts of great-grandfathers. A beautiful, boldly sentimental memoir."
As a long time reader of Esposito's prose, I couldn't agree more. Wine, of course, food, family, travel, more -- an absolute delight.
Robert C. Ross 2008
BUY IT May 23, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I loved this book. Wine, food, gossip, history - who could ask for more. Page 128 has a story of a wedding that will have you rolling on the floor with glee. The only drawback is trying to find a bottle of Vestini Campagnano Pallagrello Bianco - which Mr. Esposito describes as, '..being seduced in a Pompeii brothel before the volcano erupted.'
Pop the cork and read this book May 12, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
If you have any interest in wine, food, travel, culture, history, family, and people as I do, then I recommend you read this book - I enjoyed all of it. Basically, it's a memoir of the author's move from Italy to the U.S. as a boy, and how his interest and love of wine and food inspired him to learn more about wine, open an Italian wine store in New York, and through his travels, continue his wine education.
He describes his travels throughout Italy in quest of the finest wines produced in that country (and the world) and understanding what motivates and inspires the people who make them. Along the way the reader gets taken for the ride through the beautiful wine making regions of Italy, and introduced to some of the iconic figures (some a bit eccentric) of Italian wine making. The author describes in detail his meetings, conversations, and tastings with these producers, and we get an inside perspective of how some of these icons have passionately and steadfastly respected history, terroir, and nature in crafting memorable wines they believe in. You'll visit their wineries, meet their families and partake in meals the author shared with the wine makers. Together they discuss the importance of food and wine pairing, and how, when done well, enhance each other and represent one of the essential aspects of an enjoyable and elevated quality of life.
I imagined myself as a secret participant of the winery cantina visits and mealtime conversations he describes in the book. As a person who appreciates good wine and food, they were absolutely riveting for me as it enabled me to learn more by getting a peek inside the minds of these great wine makers.
When you open this book and begin to read, it is much like a bottle of fine wine that develops and evolves over time. It has varying layers of characteristics that enhance your enjoyment, promote thinking, and will stay with you even past the last drop, or the last page.
Will make you want to drink Italian wine with breakfast, lunch and dinner every day!!! May 12, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a FANTASTIC read!!! Anyone that loves good food, good wine, good friends and/or travel must buy this book! I have forced myself to go slow and savor but much like with a great glass of wine that is very hard to do! Everyone on my gift giving list is getting a copy. One of the best books I have read in a very long time to be sure.
Instant Classic May 8, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Sergio Esposito is a terrific and engaging writer-it is impossible to put this book down! Filled with humorous anecdotes from his numerous trips to Italy,"Passion on the Vine" will become a must read for all lovers of Italian wine, food and culture.
|
|
|
