Reviews for Bubbly Deck: 50 Sparkling Ways to Celebrate

The average rating for Bubbly Deck: 50 Sparkling Ways to Celebrate based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-12-02 00:00:00 Trevor Weisgerber Plunder, protests, and peasants armed with pitchforks, vineyard stakes, and hail cannons allowed me to get lost in the action of When Champagne Became French and forget the dry argument that Guy is making. However, in other places I found the narrative to drag, the path being littered with untranslated French terms. Buying a PhD dissertation turned book is always a risk. This one's conversion was clumsy, rendering some of it a difficult read. However, Guy crafts an interesting argument. Rather than framing the champagne riots as a class struggle, Guy makes a compelling case that the process of champagne becoming French was instrumental in shaping the French practice of local food traditions and regions becoming national property to be protected. The book is crafted thoughtfully. The introduction is not a forgotten appetizer of wilted greens, but a well-crafted compliment to the following chapters. Next, Guy continues setting the stage by exploring the history of champagne. By analyzing the evolution of branding, labeling, and a rise in sales of champagne, she shows the product's growing contribution to the local economy in the late nineteenth century and the reasons the merchants or négociants began the authenticity campaign to protect their profits. Guy also introduces the folklore tale of champagne being invented by a local monk, which added to the perception that the product was rooted in the area. After contending the importance of champagne to the region, Guy introduces the reader to the lifestyle of the key players in the champagne industry. She introduces the vignerons' (worker in a vineyard for wine) through analysis of official reports, eyewitness accounts, and even photographs. For instance, highlighting the hardworking women, she uses a photo of a woman straining under the weight of a basket, an observation that no one was spared from difficult work in Champagne, and another that women worked as hard as men. By the middle of the book, the narrative is beginning to read like a class struggle as Guy paints the négociants' lifestyle in sharp contrast to the vigneron. While reading this, one does begin to wonder where the argument will begin, but understanding the social and economic differences between the négociants and the vignerons, the vignerons' vulnerability to grape prices, and their harmony with the land through time-consuming work is important context for Guy's argument. Guy shifts to the impact of Phylloxera, a microscopic insect, that decimated French vineyards. Both négociants and vignerons wanted to defeat, phylloxera, but could not agree on the appropriate action. This, she says, brought attention to the poor negotiating position growers had with champagne producers. To the vignerons, the bourgeois négociants were as much a parasite as the phylloxera. The author claims the successful collective action the vignerons took was an important step in their defense and defining of terroir, "the holistic combination… of soil, climate, topography and 'the soul' of the wine producer." By the last third of the book, Guy is nearing the turn of the century. Although only champagne produced in Champagne was considered authentic, vignerons believed authentic champagne should contain the terroir of the region, thus only the region's grapes could be used. The author argues that the process of negotiating the definition of "true" champagne began the process of other local traditions becoming enshrined in the French national identity. Several times Guy cites cognac, bordeaux, roquefort, and brie as examples. Her support seems a little like a post hoc argument. The book seems more focused on telling how champagne became French and forgets to support that this transformation sparked the transformation of other foods and beverages being nationalized. In the second to last chapter, all of Guy's carefully laid context and analysis culminates in the violent and destructive 1911 struggle between vigneron and negociant. It is easy to see this as a class struggle, which Guy asserts is an inaccurate assessment. She provides a thorough analysis, delving into letters and petitions from concerned parties to government officials, letters between officials, police reports, and newspapers to name a few sources. Through her detailed accounts, it becomes apparent that the competing interests went beyond class, as vignerons who were shut out of producing true Champagne grapes sided with the négociants and the opponents of the négociants included wage earners and property owners. Despite this, the struggle is fascinating. Guy concludes that the vignerons were fighting for a stake with a fighting edge in the champagne heritage and industry. Winning this spurred producers in other areas of France to petition for similar protections and designations. Her writing is well-documented and provides a good picture of champagne becoming French, but spends less time defending its influence on instigating other regions to take similar action. Even though this conflict was not a true class struggle, its similarities may interest readers who enjoy the topic. Food history students should definitely consider this book.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-12-20 00:00:00 Timothy Sullivan This is the last of the books from my academic backlog. It took me perhaps seven years to read them all. That's how much reading is assigned in the college I attended. Anyway, this book is about the production and marketing of the sparkling wine known as "Champagne" that is produced in the region of France known as "Champagne" by the people living there known as "Champenois". Making it more confusing (for them and me), none of these three categories were fixed and/or rigid at the time, depending on who you asked. That's the point of the book. 　 It is a mix of economic, national, regional, social, geographical, and nutritional themes. No wonder the laws about the beverage grew so complicated. It is divided into five primary chapters sandwiched between an introduction and a conclusion. These sections can be summarized as: 2. Marketing champagne 3. Producing champagne 4. Protecting champagne 5. Defining champagne 6. Fighting over champagne 　 The book describes in the first chapter how champagne became a big deal even though its characteristic bubbles were originally considered a trick to cover the taste of bad wine. I found that to be a fun little fact. 　 The rest of the book goes into a conflict between vine-growers and sparkling-wine-produces, the vignerons and negociants and the two of them together (or not) against those from outside their region. So the bulk of the book is about this conflict. As a novelist, it appeared to me as a Decoy-Protagonist thing because it starts with the negociants but shifts in focus and sympathy to the vignerons. 　 Apparently, it is really difficult to grow grapes in the Marne because of the thin, chalky soil and more so when the weather is bad. Even if you get a big harvest and good wine the market for ordinary wine from the region at the time did not fetch a good price. Then there was one problem after another; a shifting market, phylloxera, competition with grapes and wine from other regions (even after a national demarcation made this illegal) and then World War I. Indeed, the vignerons of the region known as "Champagne" had a raw deal in this time period according to this book. 　 Despite this, the author, Kolleen M. Guy, makes the argument that this is not a struggle originated in class conflict. Labor vs capital is not what's going on (at least, not the primary thing). It is about a sense of regional identity within a national identity and defending what they see as both a regional treasure and a national legacy. Ms. Guy states that the average vigneron was more likely to get along with a negociant who was their neighbor then a vigneron who was not (this is such a gross oversimplification that I fear it is misleading but I'm trying to keep this review short). 　 It's clear that Miss. Guy did a lot of research. References are made to police reports, peasant petitions, political posters, records of the minutes from many meetings of many organizations, quotes from various people of various standings, and also comparisons with the scholarly works of historians and others who have written on this subject. The appendix and notes section could be their own chapter by length. The newspaper parody "War of the Two Beans" was particular poignant. 　 The history of the various "champagnes" is weaved into a story. It is an engaging story. I didn't want to look up "champagne" the beverage on Wikipedia or something like that because I didn't want to spoil the ending for myself. 　 I have two hang-ups about this book, and the first is the gratuitous French. There are a lot of French words used here that are not defined. Sometimes a quote will be only 90% translated into English. While Ms. Guy does define terms like "terroir", "vigneron" and "negociant" these are the exception rather than the norm. I had to look up what "mevente" meant, a drop in sales. The second hang up is the lack of section subtitles. The chapters themselves are labelled but sub sections are not. They are demarcated by a space and a special symbol to detonate a shift in subject but without a label it impossible to see at a glance the nature of the shift. This limits the book's utility as a reference. Which is a shame considering the great information here. 　 Trickster Eric Novels gives "When Champagne Became French" a B+