For many years, wine dictionaries and encyclopedias have unknowingly been misleading consumers on the history of “America’s wine,” Zinfandel. In Zinfandel, A History of a Grape and Its Wine, Charles Sullivan, an accomplished viticulture researcher, challenges the popular belief that the grape was originally brought to America by a Hungarian immigrant. Sullivan explores the history of wine to bring forth intriguing facts that prove the popular belief to be wrong. With the help of University of California’s (UC’s) Carole Meredith, a new idea is thoroughly explained describing the true ancestry of Zinfandel.
For those not familiar with the wine it is important to note that Zinfandel, according to Sullivan, was the first and most successful American wine. Typically, wines from France and Italy prove to be more superior in taste than the American counterparts. However, with Zinfandel this is not the case. Unlike aged and dry wines, the young, fruity flavor of the Zinfandel makes for a more enjoyable flavor that appeals to a greater number of people’s tastes.
Sullivan does an excellent job keeping the book enjoyable by providing readers with intriguing side notes. For example, here he tries to illustrate the extreme passion that the Californians had for Zinfandel.
“So great was the Napa passion for this grape that one of the tiny railroad stations below St. Helena was renamed “Zinfandel.” By the 1880s Zinfandel Lane crossed the valley, and the steamer Zinfandel plied the bay waters between San Francisco and the wharves of Napa City.” (Sullivan, 2003)
This passage is a perfect example of why this book was enjoyable for me.
However, there are times during the book where Sullivan becomes longwinded when it comes to explaining certain points. Long paragraphs embedded with, at times, insignificant graphics and charts make the book a hard and slow read. Yet, my curiosity and desire to learn helped me overcome the craving to close the book.
The desire I did have to close the book may have been attributed to the amount of “wine lingo” found within the text. The excessive amount of references to other wine varieties made it extremely tiresome, as I had to repeatedly look up in dictionaries and encyclopedias the characteristics of a certain wine he was describing. I believe that a person more educated in the subject of wine would enjoy this book more than an uneducated person like me. If a reader is not familiar with wine, the book can be quite discouraging at times.
The diverse alternation of point of views also provides the story an effective way to reach out to readers and be felt. The characterisation is effectively done and applied as Sam, Grace, and the other supporting characters play individual, crucial roles in the course of the story. All the elements of a typical young adult novel, consisting of a gap-filled relationship between children and parents, emotion-driven teenagers, and a unique conflict that makes the book distinct from fellow novels, combined with the dangerous consequences of the challenges the couple encounter, make the book different from all other of the same genre. The plot unfolds slowly giving readers enough time to adjust and anticipate the heavy conflict when it arises. It has gotten us so hooked but the only thing we could possibly dislike about it was the slow pace of plot. The anticipation was too much to handle and we were practically buzzing and bouncing to know how the story turns out as we read. It builds the anticipation, excitement, thrill, sadness, grief, loss, and longing in such an effective way to entice and hook readers further into the world of Sam and
Tom Standage has described the beginnings of six beverages: beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola and has found many connections, and information helpful in finding out history of the drinks themselves but also their impacts on the growth of civilization as a whole. This book connects everything with society both past and present, it makes learning about history and the way drinks connect fun and interesting. Like learning without even realizing you are. A History of the World in Six Glasses is more than just talking about each beverage as a single but as a whole, it’s connections, uses, relations, and growth they started.
about what was going on, sometimes with no real relevance. The author also stopped often to contemplate the meaning of life from the perspective of Pike. This was distracting, and made the book a very boring read. The book definitely could have used some more organization and a less complicated plot.
major problem is that the book seems to drag on and on the closer you get to the
Economic returns in the global market place have been influenced by trends in wine consumption. Figure 2 shows a trend of decreasing wine consumption from 2007 - 2011 in most old world countries while new world countries were increasing their consumption. This is due to the diversification of alcoholic beverages in the old world countries and the growing wine popularity in the new world
In the span of only a few pages, L.B. Church has given us an overview of the winemaking process. He has done so with sufficient detail for those in the chemistry community to follow along, yet still in a cursory enough manner as to not bog them down with the unnecessary. Written as if it were the procedure of an experiment, he has given enough information for the experiment to be repeated, tested, validated and improved upon. And that is almost assuredly his goal from the very beginning, as it must be for any published author in the chemistry community.
...t the book was at times, the stories skipped around so you were thrown into Burnham’s situation, and then right back in Holmes’ situation in the same chapter, so that made the book a bit hard to follow. Also, since there were so many names of people involved in both stories, it was difficult to remember who each of them were and what they did to be a part of the story.
Romeo And Juliet, alongside Hamlet, is probably Shakespeare’s most performed play and has also been adapted in many forms. In Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet killed themselves due to the conflicts between the Capulets and the Montagues, Romeo and Juliet’s families. Regardless of the differences in reactions regarding the conflict between the two families, both Romeo and Tybalt are characters that act before they think, causing an unfortunate effect on the tragedy of the play.
In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, two teenagers, in the fair town of Verona, known as Romeo of the Montagues and Juliet of the Capulets, fall in love. Through a dramatic chain of events, they end up killing themselves and inadvertently causing the death of four other people. A single character’s anger and belligerence caused all this to happen. Juliet’s cousin Tybalt is to blame for the tragic ending of Romeo and Juliet.
Robert G. Mondavi, the son of poor Italian immigrants, began making wine in California in 1943 when his family purchased the Charles Krug winery in Napa Valley where he served as a general manager. In 1966, at the age of 54, after a severe dispute over control of the family-owned winery, Robert Mondavi used his personal savings and loans from friends to start the flagship Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley with his eldest son, Michael Mondavi. Robert's vision was to create wines in California that could successfully compete with the greatest wines of the world. As a result, Robert Mondavi Winery became the first in California to produce and market premium wines that were expected to compete with premium wines from France, Spain, Italy, and Germany.
As already shown, both Romeo and Juliet are horrified to discover that they were family enemies. Despite of this, they both choose to devote their love for eachother. Given this point, it is unrequited love that brings Romeo and Juliet together. But this also means that they would have to get over the fact that their families hate each other. This eventually leads them to forgiving the rival family for all the hateful acts that have occurred against one another. This is not the only forgiveness that is experienced in this play. Tybalt is a Montague with a fiery attitude. After catching Romeo at a party he was not supposed to be at, Tybalt had it out for Romeo. Just after Romeo and Juliet’s wedding, Tybalt comes looking for him wanting to fight. Romeo does not want to fight because he now loves Tybalt since he is family to him, but neither Tybalt or anyone else knows this reason. Quickly Mercutio steps in and tells Tybalt that he will fight him in honour of Romeo. Sadly this leads to the death of Mercutio. Romeo is angry and in need of revenge, which creates an intense fight between Tybalt and Romeo. Romeo wins this battle, killing Tybalt. He leaves in a hurry, only to discover that he would be banished from Verona. The death of Tybalt is absolutely devastating to Juliet. Her cousin was murdered by her husband. But she did not hesitate to forgive Romeo, she did so right away. She knew that Romeo had a reason for this incident and decides to
Green drags the reader right into the text from the very beginning, and very skilfully keeps the reader engaged to the end of the introduction. With varied techniques to convey his message, Green is able to summarize the novel and grab attention in the few opening pages.
...readers on their toes from what was going to happen next. When Colin was depressed that he had lost yet another girl he loved, Katherine nineteen, Hassan showed up to commiserate with him. However, Hassan was not there simply to sympathize with Colin, he was there on a mission. “You have a very complicated problem with a very simple solution” Hassan said (Green 11). The reader had to keep reading to see what Hassan meant about the solution to Colin’s problem. The solution ended up being a road trip.
Generally speaking, other alcoholic beverages can be viewed as being a substitute for wine. However, specific substitution of wine in the New World is low because most individuals prefer to purchase wine from a retail facility instead of producing their own. Where as in the Old World the option of producing wine...
The novel progresses at rapid rate and the irregular pace can be likened to that of a drug addiction novel. As if the author himself in select chapters in the book has decided to 'shoot up on smack' before typing away on his keyboard. The other way the n...