The Road to Burgundy

May 27, 2013
Drinking wine and talking about it is pretty much a given when you live in California’s Bay Area, near multitudes of vineyards. Nevertheless, Walker inherited a disdain for wine from his parents who proclaimed it a drink for snobs. But during a trip to Italy with his fiancée, Walker tasted a new world. “I took a bite of my spaghetti, working the tender noodles and rich tomato, herb and olive oil around in my mouth, and then swished with a sip of wine. It was alchemy.” His curiosity about wines blossomed, then grew into a full-blown obsession, until he found himself living out his dream in the vineyards of Burgundy and making a wine of his own. In this rich account, Walker chronicles his five-year journey from Northern California to the French countryside with self-deprecating humor and earnestness. Whether he’s learning French from cable television, convincing his wife of the validity of his plan, deconstructing the terroir of Burgundy, or negotiating a price for some of the “most precious grapes in the world,” Walker fearlessly plunges in. Wine geeks will enjoy Walker’s blow-by-blow account of the winemaking process. Those less inclined to appreciate wine’s back story can revel in his descriptions of Burgundy’s food and lifestyle. Walker’s tale evokes the exquisite thrill of finding and following your passion, no matter how crazy it might seem. Agent: Sharon Bowers, Miller Bowers Griffin Literary.

August 15, 2013
A family man recounts the improbable journey that made him a critically acclaimed winemaker in France. Walker never understood the fuss over the drink around which an entire culture and industry was built in his native California. It wasn't until a trip to Italy on which he proposed to his wife, a grounded and supportive voice throughout the story, that he fell in love with a restaurant's house wine. The experience turned him into a self-proclaimed wine geek who bought gadgets, joined online forums and desperately tried to enjoy Bordeaux. Upon accidentally discovering Burgundy wines at a store tasting, Walker and his wife promptly fell in love with this special wine that tasted like "something living and undisturbed in nature." With a baby on the way, Walker quit his stifling job in finance to pursue his dream of making wine. Like the Burgundy monks of centuries past, he sought to shepherd grapes into wine that reflected terroir, instead of overemploying modern techniques. He gained a few months' experience at small California wineries before contacting courtiers (grape brokers) and making two trips to Burgundy, the second of which landed him a deal for grapes from Chambertin, one of the world's most sought-after vineyards, from which no American had ever produced. Walker acknowledges the somewhat miraculous nature of this event, given his inexperience and outsider status, with self-deprecating thrill. From here, the book shakes its initial navel-gazing drag and becomes far more engaging and educational as it acquires characters, plot and pace (even if the writing remains pedestrian). Through diligence and luck, Walker navigated the ins and outs of the local culture and wine business, raised money, protected his wines from the jealous sabotage of another winemaker, processed grapes from three harvests by himself and transferred the wine into caves in a literal race to the finish. An appealing success story and a wide-eyed homage to Burgundy.

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June 1, 2013
Walker wasn't just indifferent to wine, he actively disliked it. But the chance tasting of a light red wine while vacationing in Italy triggered an obsession. A few months later, he quit his finance job to work a wine-grape crush in his native Bay Area. Unwilling to climb the wine-job ladder, he went to Burgundy, France, to buy grapes and make wine. With charm, hustle, and too-good-to-be-true financial backing, he became the first non-Frenchman to make wine from some of the tiny land parcels that form the world's most exalted vineyards. Walker's energy and warmth lift this book, but he fails to anticipate inevitable demand for details on how he cast a spell over the French. How, in a matter of months, despite never having actually made wine, and speaking guidebook French, did he penetrate such a storied locale? Told from the perspective of Walker's platitude-flinging early days, the opening chapters are discouraging. Walker learns much, but his sea-parting good luck and narrow focus on a subject as multidimensional as wine might leave readers skeptical.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)