The Geography of Wine: How Landscapes, Cultures, Terroir, and the Weather Make a Good Drop by Brian J. Sommers (review)

Wine is well-suited to illustrate a wide range of geographical patterns and processes. The cultivation of wine grapes and manufacture of wine itself, not to mention port, brandy, and other alcoholic beverages made from grapes, give rise to complex interactions between humans and environments and exhibit a remarkable variability across cultures, economies, and political systems around the world and through time.

In The Geography of Wine, Brian Sommers has written an interesting study of humanity’s long and varied relationship with Vitis vinifera. Wine enthusiasts will find this book of value, and by reading it, some may well come to a greater appreciation of the geographical perspective. Geographers, on the other hand, may find fault with the book’s periodic lapses into excessive detail and with missed opportunities to build upon recent theoretical advances in the field. To be fair, however, the author’s intent is not to dazzle academicians, but to speak to broader audiences both inside and outside the university. In that regard, Sommers generally succeeds.

The Geography of Wine is organized topically, in much the same way as many standard geography textbooks. After a brief introduction, the first six chapters examine wine through the lens of the physical environment, focusing on macro- and micro-climates, soils, biogeography, and natural hazards as factors in wine production. This is followed by two chapters that discuss how geographical principles, coupled with GIS and remote sensing technologies, can be applied to contemporary winemaking, from the cultivation of grapes to the production, distribution, and marketing of wine. Both of these chapters, which read more like overviews, seem awkwardly placed in the middle of the book, and might have served better as part of a more expansive introduction.

The final seven chapters cover a wide range of human geographical themes about wine. Several I found particularly enjoyable. One chapter focuses on the impacts of diffusion, empire, and colonialism on the historic spread and contemporary distribution of wine. Others examine the role of industrialization and urbanization in transforming wine into the global industry it is today. Another examines the historic influence of alcohol prohibitions, focusing particularly on the United States temperance movement and prohibition in the early 20th century. Sommers argues convincingly that prohibition benefitted the California wine industry by destroying its competition in more established areas of wine and cider production throughout the eastern half of the United States.

Sommers also examines tensions between local and regional wine identities, embodied in the increasingly mainstream term, terroir, and pressures that arise from production schedules of multinational corporations seeking to satisfy global demand. There is even a chapter on alcoholic beverages not made from grapes—notably beer, cider, and distilled spirits—which have their own distinctive geographies and are themselves emergent topics of interest in geographical research. Throughout the book, each chapter contains a case study of a particular wine region. This is a nice touch. In presenting these cases, Sommers introduces readers to virtually all of the famous wine regions of the world, and to many that are lesser known as well, providing detailed explanations why each is noteworthy.

The Geography of Wine has a number of regrettable shortcomings. In his discussions about the impacts of environmental factors on grape cultivation and wine production, Sommers frequently gets bogged down in details and includes a great deal of information that has no clear relevance. For example, rather than focusing solely on climates where wine grapes can be cultivated with reasonable success, Sommers takes the reader on an exhaustive tour of all major Köppen climate classes. The fact that polar and tropical climates are unsuitable for wine production perhaps deserves a brief mention, but little more than that. In another chapter, Sommers includes a crash course in soil geography, complete with a description of Oxisols of the humid...