Post by Mary Baker on Aug 2, 2008 14:04:39 GMT -5
Eric Arnold, Forbes lifestyle editor, has agreed to participate in a Q&A! I hope you will greet him warmly.
Eric's book website: crusheric.com
and
Interview with Gary V.
Please post your reviews, comments, and questions below.
-----------------------------------------------------
First Big Crush: The Down and Dirty on Making Great Wine . . . Down Under
Author: Eric Arnold, News Editor, Wine Spectator Magazine
In First Big Crush, Eric Arnold combines a nine-year-old’s disgust for females with the sex drive of an orangutan and the intellect of a potentially brilliant and funny journalist, in a raunchy, high energy adventure in New Zealand wine country.
Arnold hires on as a crush intern at Allan Scott Wines & Estates in Marlborough, New Zealand. Throughout his experience Arnold reports on the inner workings of an internationally distributed winery. Arnold’s journey is arranged more by topic than as a journal, and his story is a progression told in three stages: harvest, winemaking, and then the vineyard. His personal journey also takes him from buoyant, obnoxious, clueless crush help to a more settled and professional outlook. Although Arnold uses his innocent curiosity as a springboard to explain the issues of crush and harvest, he never dumbs down the material, and manages to convey a lot of information and insight in few words, seriously peppered with collegiate language, colorful characters, and hilarious anecdotes.
Being myself a veteran of having to endure crush interns, I am familiar with the “winemaker’s buddy.” Generally they suck as interns, showing up to run the equipment or drive the forklift, and then disappearing as soon as it gets cold, dark and wet and it’s time to clean, scrub and sanitize. But Arnold apparently embraces his position as low man on the totem and works energetically throughout wind, rain and crush distemper. This gives him an accurate insider’s perspective on the emotional demands and rhythms of crush.
Working closely with the winemaking team of Josh Scott and Jeremy McKenzie, Arnold learns the ropes, frequently the hard way. After nearly imploding a tank on his first day, greeting a grapefruit-sized gonad, and breaking his toe, he begins to grasp the logic and language of crush. In addition to some phonetic portraits of New Zealandese, Arnold includes a footnote or two on popular crush slang. “In case you’re American and don’t know what ‘wank’ means, it’s British slang for a daytime nap. When an English person seems tired or yawns, it’s generally considered polite for you to ask him if he could use a good wank. Especially if he’s a stranger.”
His self-deprecating humor and eye for visual action are entertaining. He is a master of fast, raunchy analogies, reducing the complexity and tedium of many winemaking and vineyard chores into something readily understandable and even funny.
He also tackles some unknowable questions that plague us all, like: “At what point is a winery too big for the winemaker to be hands on?” Arnold interviews winemakers from Cloudy Bay, Wither Hills, Whitehaven, and Huia for answers. In “Seriously Screwed,” Arnold tackles the subject of screwcaps vs. corks, interviewing five different winemakers and owners with widely diverging views. By the end of the book, Arnold’s reporting becomes even clearer and more detailed. He tackles vineyard issues like organic farming, the timing of fruit thinning and agricultural sprays. He even goes undercover for a week as an itinerant worker for a sleazy labor contractor, and he gives us a full satiric attack on a regional wine critic, which is both piercing and painfully funny
Arnold has a low tolerance for tedium, demonstrated when he describes tasting 20 barrel samples in a round table blending trial as “like having sex twenty times in a row for analytical purposes,” and “not only devoid of fun but also difficult.” However, he also exposes his tasting notes, which are simultaneously pitiful and hilarious, and he goes on to explain in delightful journalistic detail the economic and artistic importance of making sound blending decisions.
In “And the Winner Is . . .” Arnold tackles the subject of critics and wine competitions. He interviews winemakers, competition advocates, and judges. The consensus is that scores should be considered in context and never as absolutes. John Belsham, owner of Foxes Island and a competition advocate, said, “The issue, and this is the difficult part, is what the consumers do with that information. It’s frightening when consumers, and you see it more in the U.S.—and dangerously in the U.S.—where consumers are constantly bombarded with this one-hundred-point scale that they believe in implicitly.”
First Big Crush is a compelling portrait of the wine harvest season—it includes all the real experiences, the injuries, arguments, logistical nightmares and hilarity. It should be required reading for anyone applying for or considering work as a crush hand. And if you’re just dreaming of a working at a winery someday . . . this book is a close as you can get to the real experience.
-----------------------------------------------------
More reviews for First Big Crush:
Dr. Vino
"Three years ago in the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik wrote a scathing rebuke of wine writing, saying that what wine books “rarely seem to be about is drinking wine. Remarkably, nowhere in wine writing, including [Robert] Parker’s and [William] Echikson’s, would a Martian learn that the first reason people drink wine is to get drunk.” Gopnik would love Eric Arnold’s First Big Crush, which seems to try to right Gopnik’s perceived imbalance in wine writing single-handedly."
Playback
"When an author, in describing his experiences working at a winery in New Zealand, explains that his grape juice-stained clothing looks like he has "jacked off Barney," it's obvious that his writing style is not typical of Wine Spectator or any of the other dozens of periodicals targeted at aficionados. No, Eric Arnold approaches the world of wine and winemaking as a novice-come-initiated participant and takes the reader with him from the beginning of his idea to travel to New Zealand to the end of an entire year's work at the Allan Scott Winery of Marlborough."
Sideways Wine Club Blog: Amusing Musings from the Wine Road
"Living off his credit cards, Arnold's hands-on knowledge came quickly, a necessity if he was to survive. He shares it generously in a tale that is as ribald as it is insightful. One must wade through a lot of testosterone-laden stories of sophomoric behavior to winnow out useful nuggets. But they're in there - go see for yourself. I particularly appreciated his view on wine critics and their ratings, a most reasoned opinion served without the pedantic virtue that drips from so many wine writers (me included I suspect)."
Vinography
"It’s a great concept—fish-out-of-water urban American parachutes into the land of rugby playing, pig hunting, heavy drinking, hard working rural New Zealand with only a vague idea about how wine is made. First Big Crush is a prose reality show where our fledgling protagonist endures every filthy, body breaking, frustrating, and hazardous element of the harvest, from the ABCs of pitchfork operation to the mind numbing and back destroying weeks spent pruning winter vines in the cold fields. Along the way we get a feel both for the endless hours and the all-hands-on-deck commitment to bring in the harvest and for the lusty, profane and fun-loving Kiwi winery culture that seems overloaded with testosterone, hard partying, and real dedication their work. Good times include wine country festivals where people eat sheep testicles and throw back shots of bull semen, and the kind of buddy frolics where bar brawls, womanizing and throwing up most mornings are all part of the season. Working hard and playing hard comprise the circle of life in Marlborough."
Eric's book website: crusheric.com
and
Interview with Gary V.
Please post your reviews, comments, and questions below.
-----------------------------------------------------
First Big Crush: The Down and Dirty on Making Great Wine . . . Down Under
Author: Eric Arnold, News Editor, Wine Spectator Magazine
In First Big Crush, Eric Arnold combines a nine-year-old’s disgust for females with the sex drive of an orangutan and the intellect of a potentially brilliant and funny journalist, in a raunchy, high energy adventure in New Zealand wine country.
Arnold hires on as a crush intern at Allan Scott Wines & Estates in Marlborough, New Zealand. Throughout his experience Arnold reports on the inner workings of an internationally distributed winery. Arnold’s journey is arranged more by topic than as a journal, and his story is a progression told in three stages: harvest, winemaking, and then the vineyard. His personal journey also takes him from buoyant, obnoxious, clueless crush help to a more settled and professional outlook. Although Arnold uses his innocent curiosity as a springboard to explain the issues of crush and harvest, he never dumbs down the material, and manages to convey a lot of information and insight in few words, seriously peppered with collegiate language, colorful characters, and hilarious anecdotes.
Being myself a veteran of having to endure crush interns, I am familiar with the “winemaker’s buddy.” Generally they suck as interns, showing up to run the equipment or drive the forklift, and then disappearing as soon as it gets cold, dark and wet and it’s time to clean, scrub and sanitize. But Arnold apparently embraces his position as low man on the totem and works energetically throughout wind, rain and crush distemper. This gives him an accurate insider’s perspective on the emotional demands and rhythms of crush.
Working closely with the winemaking team of Josh Scott and Jeremy McKenzie, Arnold learns the ropes, frequently the hard way. After nearly imploding a tank on his first day, greeting a grapefruit-sized gonad, and breaking his toe, he begins to grasp the logic and language of crush. In addition to some phonetic portraits of New Zealandese, Arnold includes a footnote or two on popular crush slang. “In case you’re American and don’t know what ‘wank’ means, it’s British slang for a daytime nap. When an English person seems tired or yawns, it’s generally considered polite for you to ask him if he could use a good wank. Especially if he’s a stranger.”
His self-deprecating humor and eye for visual action are entertaining. He is a master of fast, raunchy analogies, reducing the complexity and tedium of many winemaking and vineyard chores into something readily understandable and even funny.
He also tackles some unknowable questions that plague us all, like: “At what point is a winery too big for the winemaker to be hands on?” Arnold interviews winemakers from Cloudy Bay, Wither Hills, Whitehaven, and Huia for answers. In “Seriously Screwed,” Arnold tackles the subject of screwcaps vs. corks, interviewing five different winemakers and owners with widely diverging views. By the end of the book, Arnold’s reporting becomes even clearer and more detailed. He tackles vineyard issues like organic farming, the timing of fruit thinning and agricultural sprays. He even goes undercover for a week as an itinerant worker for a sleazy labor contractor, and he gives us a full satiric attack on a regional wine critic, which is both piercing and painfully funny
Arnold has a low tolerance for tedium, demonstrated when he describes tasting 20 barrel samples in a round table blending trial as “like having sex twenty times in a row for analytical purposes,” and “not only devoid of fun but also difficult.” However, he also exposes his tasting notes, which are simultaneously pitiful and hilarious, and he goes on to explain in delightful journalistic detail the economic and artistic importance of making sound blending decisions.
In “And the Winner Is . . .” Arnold tackles the subject of critics and wine competitions. He interviews winemakers, competition advocates, and judges. The consensus is that scores should be considered in context and never as absolutes. John Belsham, owner of Foxes Island and a competition advocate, said, “The issue, and this is the difficult part, is what the consumers do with that information. It’s frightening when consumers, and you see it more in the U.S.—and dangerously in the U.S.—where consumers are constantly bombarded with this one-hundred-point scale that they believe in implicitly.”
First Big Crush is a compelling portrait of the wine harvest season—it includes all the real experiences, the injuries, arguments, logistical nightmares and hilarity. It should be required reading for anyone applying for or considering work as a crush hand. And if you’re just dreaming of a working at a winery someday . . . this book is a close as you can get to the real experience.
-----------------------------------------------------
More reviews for First Big Crush:
Dr. Vino
"Three years ago in the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik wrote a scathing rebuke of wine writing, saying that what wine books “rarely seem to be about is drinking wine. Remarkably, nowhere in wine writing, including [Robert] Parker’s and [William] Echikson’s, would a Martian learn that the first reason people drink wine is to get drunk.” Gopnik would love Eric Arnold’s First Big Crush, which seems to try to right Gopnik’s perceived imbalance in wine writing single-handedly."
Playback
"When an author, in describing his experiences working at a winery in New Zealand, explains that his grape juice-stained clothing looks like he has "jacked off Barney," it's obvious that his writing style is not typical of Wine Spectator or any of the other dozens of periodicals targeted at aficionados. No, Eric Arnold approaches the world of wine and winemaking as a novice-come-initiated participant and takes the reader with him from the beginning of his idea to travel to New Zealand to the end of an entire year's work at the Allan Scott Winery of Marlborough."
Sideways Wine Club Blog: Amusing Musings from the Wine Road
"Living off his credit cards, Arnold's hands-on knowledge came quickly, a necessity if he was to survive. He shares it generously in a tale that is as ribald as it is insightful. One must wade through a lot of testosterone-laden stories of sophomoric behavior to winnow out useful nuggets. But they're in there - go see for yourself. I particularly appreciated his view on wine critics and their ratings, a most reasoned opinion served without the pedantic virtue that drips from so many wine writers (me included I suspect)."
Vinography
"It’s a great concept—fish-out-of-water urban American parachutes into the land of rugby playing, pig hunting, heavy drinking, hard working rural New Zealand with only a vague idea about how wine is made. First Big Crush is a prose reality show where our fledgling protagonist endures every filthy, body breaking, frustrating, and hazardous element of the harvest, from the ABCs of pitchfork operation to the mind numbing and back destroying weeks spent pruning winter vines in the cold fields. Along the way we get a feel both for the endless hours and the all-hands-on-deck commitment to bring in the harvest and for the lusty, profane and fun-loving Kiwi winery culture that seems overloaded with testosterone, hard partying, and real dedication their work. Good times include wine country festivals where people eat sheep testicles and throw back shots of bull semen, and the kind of buddy frolics where bar brawls, womanizing and throwing up most mornings are all part of the season. Working hard and playing hard comprise the circle of life in Marlborough."