James Beard Book Award Nominee 2016Readable Feast Winner 2016From the author ofThe Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft BeerRevolutioncomes the triumphant tale of how America belted France from atopits centuries-old pedestal as the world’s top wine-producing and wine-drinkingnation.Until the mid-1970s, most American wine was far from fine. Instead, it wasfortified and sweet, and came from grape varieties prized less for their tastethan for their ability to ferment fast. Even in big cities, a bottle ofdomestically made Chardonnay or Merlot was hard to come by—and most Americansthought wine like that was for the wealthy anyway, not for them.Then a series of game-changing events and a group of plucky entrepreneurstransformed everything forever. Within a generation, America would standunquestionably at the world vanguard of wine, reversing centuries ofEurocentrism and dominating the Field. This change spawned hundreds ofthousands of jobs and billions of dollars in sales. European vintners foundthemselves altering centuries-old recipes and techniques to cater to thesenewly ascendant, free-spending tastes. The most popular fine wines worldwidebecame big, powerful, and loud—American, in other words.American Winetells that story.All the big players and milestones are here, with never-before-told detailsand analyses based on fresh interviews. Written in a fast-moving, engagingstyle free of wine jargon,American Wineis the first of its kind: a bookfocused solely on the rise of fine wine in the United States since the early1960s, in California and elsewhere, and how that rise altered the way theworld drinks—for better or worse.