Book Review - 'Pressing Matters' by Alan Ramey, Academie du Vin Library (2026)

A Quick Heads Up

Having published a wine book, a wine blog and an Instagram site devoted to the grape, I was happily surprised when I was asked by the Academie du Vin Library if I would review some of their books. As it was set up by Hugh Johnson (whom I met years ago and have read so often) and Steven Spurrier (whom I knew and who features prominently in my book), I of course concurred. What better way to spend one’s retirement than reading a hopefully good tome on my favourite subject? (Just to state the obvious, there is no financial interest here at all).

Hopefully as an author one is also more sensitive to just what reviews can do, which makes me think of the many so-called wine experts who can criticise wines so harshly, but have never actually made (or grown) one in their life.

I hope you enjoy the reviews and will find amidst them some more books to read that will bring you thought and pleasure.

‘Pressing Matters’ by Alan Ramey

Published 2026 by the Academie du Vin Library

The subtitle of this book is ‘The debates, controversies and mysteries that have shaped the world of wine.’ That is certainly a broad and complex arena, but Alan Ramey is not the average writer on wine. First, he is not a wine journalist, critic or merchant. He is President of Ramey Wine Cellars in California, wines that I have drunk in the past. He apprenticed in Chile and Burgundy (at Meo-Camuzet), hence when he opines upon winemaking or vine growing, he knows what he’s talking about as he does it every day. As for grappling with controversial issues, in his college year abroad at Oxford he was awarded the prize as best new debater and in his MBA course at Cambridge he was part of the Varsity blind tasting team, so his credentials as someone to discuss opinions are impressive, and how many wine books quote Tennyson, Virgil, Hume, Voltaire and Kandinsky?

But should you think that this sounds like it’s going to be an overly academic, dry lecture from on high, he comments in his introduction that:

‘I don’t pretend to resolve the discussion or to cite every relevant source,,, Nor do I intend to impose my own personal views to neatly wrap up each issue. The chapters will not end in satisfying realizations of a single truth. The satisfaction, I hope, will come from engaging with a broader spectrum of discourse on each topic and reaching a deeper understanding. Each issue opens up further questions for pondering, and I don’t want to disrespect the sanctity of open and free thought with my own very mortal and no-doubt flawed opinions.’

It’s a refreshing attitude as nearly all the books that I have read fall either into one camp or the other opposing one, and misinformation can be as entrenched as the opinions. You either scientifically do not believe in terroir or biodynamic viticulture, or, philosophically and in your glass you do. You like ‘Natural’ wines, or you don’t. Here the author aims to grapple even-handedly with ‘a schism between the overly scientific and the philosophically-minded pioneers whose visions helped mold the famous wine regions we know today.’

He does so in eight chapters, confronting the debates over terroir; regulations, organic, biodynamics; climate; quality; value and naturalness.

He kicks off with the slightly scarily entitled ‘Terroir – the epistemology of taste’ examining the biggest myth, or sacred belief, in wine – that of ‘terroir’ and ‘minerality’, weaving between the hard scientific proof that mineral elements in the soil cannot be directly transferred into the taste in your glass and the perhaps inexplicable but still valid fact that a wine such as Chablis can show a distinctly ‘chalky’ taste that others do not. And whether ‘terroir’ includes more than just geological ‘taste’ and extends to cover the soil’s ability to retain water and other factors such as the climate which after all determines the level of ripeness.

To tie down a definition of ‘terroir’ he covers its historical antecedents and varying interpretations from the strictly soil-based, to the broader general environment (soil, slope, exposure, drainage, weather etc) and finally the widest reading which includes some element of human intervention. But is that a nostalgia for cultural tradition or a neat marketing ploy by the French to exclude all other places from the top-quality hierarchy? And then you get down to debates over whether ‘terraforming’ (moving soil), clones, irrigation and using artificial yeast fall within the rules or not.

It’s a rapid, comprehensive and fascinating glance at every nuance of the argument, and after all the science, ends up with the more difficult question to answer as to why some neighbouring wines made with the same grape by the same person do taste different in blind tastings, though there is no mention of the equally important corollary that wines from adjacent parcels in the same vineyard (ie terroir) made by separate producers can taste very different.  And if in some cases the assertion of terroir has been used for pure marketing and commercial advantage, he ends with a reflection on the modern corporate age:

‘In this sense, terroir offers to the consumer a sense of authenticity in liquid form – individuality and character in a sea of sameness… As long as the terroir question opens a conversation about how to define what is natural, how to define what is pure and the possibility of sensing or determining timeless culture, it will continue to fascinate the wine world.’

I’ve read hundreds of pages agonising over the subject of whether ‘terroir’ and ‘minerality’ exist and mean anything, and whether it even matters if they do, but here the author does it with a light touch in less than twenty. Perhaps the only thing missing is the more practical side, and some of the supposedly most terroir distinctive wines and their tastes (Chablis, Mosel Riesling…) and it might have been fun to enjoy some of the more egregious examples of terroirist journalism from the ‘experts’ who claim to detect the active limestone in their glass of Chambolle-Musigny. But it’s a brilliant, concise overview of the subject.

The book then moves from terroir to region and weighs up the Old v New World positions on whether protected regional status is just a European protectionist market move or a desire to maintain certain quality criteria and regional identity, and whether the restrictive geographic rules are a necessary control or a straitjacket that stifles innovation and the ability to adapt to changing conditions (such as climate or market demand). In some ways it seems a bit of an odd debate as I don’t think anyone expects to see Australian Chablis and the once ‘table wines’ of Tuscany nowadays sell for a fortune and the district, Bolgheri, is world famous. But the argument about stifling rules rages on, especially in France.

On organics I found he was back in his element, taking us to the late 19^th century birth of (synthetic) fertilisers and subsequent moves towards organics. I didn’t know that ‘Bordeaux mixture’ (so often used to counter mildew) originated as blue ‘paint’ sprayed on vines to deter thieves. Eventually the debate comes back to that terroir again, the soil, with all the nuances of organic matter, mycorrhizea, earthworms, pesticides and what is natural. Though he doesn’t specifically make the link, there is an obvious correlation between a more generalist belief in terroir and in ‘natural’ organics and perhaps somewhat of a divide between the Old and the New World, framed against a backdrop of financial/commercial considerations.

But if organics is nuanced, what about its more extreme and at times seemingly lunatic (in literal sense) version, biodynamics? This was the chapter that I was most interested in as I’ve read books by famed disciples such as Nicolas Joly, laughed at some of the more ludicrous sounding mysticism, but am a great fan of many biodynamic wines in Burgundy, a list of which includes a lot of the world’s most renowned wineries. Why and how?

Ramey takes us to the late nineteenth century origins with Rudolf Steiner and his ‘anthroposophy’. As always, though the reaction against chemical farming is understandable, he comes across as a nutcase. I did not know that he only turned to agriculture in 1924, just before his death and that Demeter was formed in 1928 to codify standards for this new concept. Nor did I realise that Maria Thun and her ‘flower/root/leaf/fruit day calendar are not Steiner’s invention but hers, though I regularly read of experts tasting only on fruit days and musing that a poor showing of a wine was because it was drunk on a root day. Perhaps the most useful (and rare) statement is the attempt to explain simply what biodynamics actually means:

‘In broad simplification, a biodynamic vineyard is one in which the farmer follows organic standards, has the goal of circular farming, generally incorporates animals, and uses the biodynamic preparations.’

The preparations include the famed silica based 501 which has to be buried in a cow horn because of its ability for ‘raying back whatever is life-giving and astral.’ (Steiner)

The author goes on to quote Joly, and I would leave you to decide whether he or his prophet sound saner. But just as you might be about to write them all off as wildly eccentric, you get Rodrigo Soto, a biodynamic winemaker in Napa, who replaces the spiritual with the practical:

‘Part of the problem of the miscommunication about biodynamics is that people immediately talk about the moon cycles or one or two of the preps…makes people believe that this is all voodoo.’

Many argue that the soil, root growth and taste of the wine is better under biodynamics, but the scientists cannot prove or disprove if it’s more so than organics. Nor are they agreed on the benefits of farming within the lunar cycles. A quote from The Washington Post might sum it up ‘Biodynamic wine has roots in pseudo-science, but the proof is in the bottle.’

I have read and scratched my head a lot about biodynamics as many of my favourite wines are, and just as many are not. This is the most concise and illuminating examination of the subject that I have read.

When discussing the issues faced thanks to climate change, the discussion all seems to be about heatwaves and irrigation, though in France as I write this, the problem is the ever earlier budding that means that a normal April freeze (as this week) can decimate the yield. Instagram is awash with photos of Burgundy and Alsace vineyards covered with candles, infrared heaters, and turbines to try to stop the freezing air from killing the buds.  And though there is a short description of some of the ways growers try to counter the rising heat, there was no mention of the fact that some now claim that the vines themselves are adapting (another link to the biodynamics debate and whether they are better able to resist naturally).

I found the chapters on quality and value less compelling, and perhaps they could have been combined. On the issue of perceived or adjudged quality in wine there is much debate, though I can’t help wondering if the search for absolutes is not rather pointless in that, as the author relates, a novice will not have the same palate as someone who has studied wine for decades and palates differ across ages, continents, personal tastes etc. Personally, I hate Gewurztraminer, but my dad loved it. And though there is a lot of discussion on the current appreciation (by some) of former ‘faults’ in wine, I wonder how much of this is due to fashion? And one could add that the qualitative trend now for whole cluster fermentation, less extraction and less new oak runs opposite to the critical preferences of the Parker era (1990s). It might also have been interesting to expand the topic into whether the 100-point scoring of wines, especially in mass competitions, has any relevance, and the difference between more austere (often European) palates and the more fruit-driven US critics, but perhaps that would be opening too much of a can of worms. And surely as regards price, it’s down to supply/demand and fashion, now greatly inflated by social media and ‘influencers’? The prices of the top French wines have tripled in the last 15 years or so due to hype and the influx of mega wealthy Asian buyers, and that then drags others behind them. The quality is largely the same, but the value proposition is now appalling. And Bordeaux, once the world’s number one wine region, is being deserted by wine drinkers and vines ripped out.

When it comes to ‘naturalness’ we are back in the debate, all guns blazing. Pliny the Elder complained at adulterations to Roman wines and a Norwegian philosopher has noted 12 uses of the word, against which we have the reductio ad absurdum argument that wine left to Nature would be vinegar. The author tries to pin it down, or at least the underlying philosophy:

‘the principles of the debate tend to remain the same: innovation versus traditional craft, quality or efficiency versus authenticity, industry versus purity. In many ways the tension rests on what truth is and what beauty is.’

It’s a rip-roaring discussion, though when you find a Swiss philosopher studying the ‘metaphysics of natural wine’, well I wonder what some people get paid to do. But feet back on the ground, we fight through the battlefields of natural yeasts from the grapes against added inoculated ones; of the addition of sulphur dioxide, without which, as the author states, you can all too easily end up with wine that is off; of chaptalisation (adding sugar) or the opposite (tartaric acid). And the possible list goes on, especially if you include processes and not just additives (cryo-extraction, reverse osmosis etc). In the end it seems a movement with no fixed definition and, as one critic puts it, an acquired taste perhaps best suited to being drunk in trendy wine bars in Paris.

‘Pressing Matters’ is a very well researched and interesting read. It can be a bit dry as there’s not a single wine or tasting in it, but that’s not the subject, and indeed it covers exactly what it says in the title. Furthermore, it is truly a debate, whereas most of what I have read on these matters has been a monologue, and when in book form, too long and tedious. The author gives an extremely knowledgeable and balanced account of the main subjects in wine today and leaves the reader to form their own opinions.  I’ve tasted and read a lot about wine for 40 plus years and spoken with a lot of winemakers, but I wish I’d read this book years ago. For anyone trying to understand these topics, the controversies and sometimes heated convictions, this is the perfect read and will get you to the heart of the matter in just 180 pages. Bravo.

Postscript - ‘The Wine in My Glass’

‘Loving this wine memoir from Adrian Latimer. A must for those who love great stories and writing, albeit primarily about wine. And it’s all in a good cause. All profits go to the Vendanges Solidaires association which helps winemakers who are suffering due to extreme weather conditions…’

Hermione Ireland, Managing Director Academie du Vin Library

After some encouragement and a fair few blog posts, I published (Sept 2025) a book about my travels in the wine world - the people, places and, of course, wines.  I am not a professional, so everything I say is objective and unbiased (so I can criticise when other journalists do not dare to do so for instance) and any profits will go to the Vendanges Solidaires association which was set up in 2016 to help winemakers who are in trouble after suffering the extreme weather conditions (frost, hail, fire, flood etc) which sadly are becoming ever more frequent: www.vendangessolidaires.com.

The book ranges from California to Sicily, via Salta, Jujuy and Patagonia in Argentina, Valtellina, Piemonte and Tuscany in Italy, Madeira and of course all over France (Burgundy, Chablis, Sancerre, Beaujolais, Bordeaux, the Rhone).

If you have found any pleasure and/or interest in this blog, I think you might enjoy it, especially as it has been brilliantly illustrated by Arabella Langlands-Perry who managed to juggle bringing up two young kids, helping run Maceo/Willi’s Wine Bar in Paris and producing artwork with an abundance of both talent and wit. Brava.

‘The Wine in My Glass – Tales of Wines, Winemakers and Places’

Published by The Medlar Press Limited, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, autumn 2025. www.medlarpress.com       

https://medlarpress.com/bookstore/?store-page=The-Wine-in-My-Glass-p768838784

Available from Medlar in UK, and/or from me in France or Willis Wine Bar in Paris.

Price UK Pounds 26 from Medlar or 35 Euros. All profits to charity.

Arabella’s artwork is available from Restaurant Maceo/Willis Wine Bar in Paris.