Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country, by Robert V. Camuto
Picked up a copy of this at Chambers Street Wines last week and just finished reading it. Each of the book's twelve chapters deals with one or more alternative French winemakers and their philosophies, all quite different. Camuto doesn't write like a wine geek, but his curiosity is seemingly drawn towards makers of geek wines, mostly mavericks and iconoclasts, guardians of traditional practices or proponents of less interventionistic new practices. In trying to make the most honest wines, one gets the impression that these winemakers at least make some of the most fascinating. There was much for me to learn here (I had never heard of, say, chatus, and some of the other more obscure varietals and out-of-the-way appelations mentioned) and there is also much food for thought concerning winemaking ethics. If you're not interested in natural winemaking, this may change that. If you already are, this might add new directions (the book added half a dozen places to my list of potential wine destinations). Never a shrill missionary, Camuto is unpretentious and grinds his axe so lightly that you almost don't feel it's there. He clearly absorbed harangues from his blowhard interviewees but relays them in a measured way. Well worth reading.