I’ve been lucky enough to meet David Ramey, the rightly lauded California winemaker, a master of utterly delicious Chardonnay, several times.
I vividly remember watching him and the late Jim Clendenen at a masterclass – the room entirely captivated by these two heavyweights of California wine verbally sparring, both opinionated, talented, intelligent and witty.
It seems a bit unjust to introduce Alan Ramey’s debut book Pressing Matters (£20 Académie du Vin Library, April 2026) by talking about his father, but I do so merely to point out that brilliance clearly runs in the family.
‘A real treat’
This compact book is a real treat – one that I’d urge you to invest in (and ‘invest’ seems an exaggeration given its reasonable price).
Ramey sets out to tackle ‘the debates, controversies and mysteries that have shaped the world of wine’ – with chapters covering terroir, appellation systems, organics, biodynamics, climate change, quality, value and natural wine.
It’s one of several recent books that take a multidisciplinary approach, and it does so brilliantly.
As he explores each of these topics, Ramey talks to a host of experts and characters both inside and outside the world of wine to help shed light on them.
He discusses rather than opines, underscoring the fact that the answer to almost everything ever is ‘It depends’, and laying out the world of wine in all its glorious shades of grey, highlighting the complexity and nuance that, for me, make wine so fascinating.
Unlike so many wine books, Pressing Matters is genuinely readable – so much so that I devoured it in a matter of days.
Ramey comes across as wonderfully intelligent, yet not at all a bore, with pleasing displays of wit sprinkled throughout. It’s not a light read, but nor is it impenetrable.
And, at just 185 pages long, excluding the comprehensive endnotes, it’s a book that won’t just sit on your shelf – it’s one you’ll actually read.
In Ramey’s concluding chapter, he writes: ‘In my conversations… it became clear that at least part of [people’s] fervour was derived from not having taken the time to meet and intellectually question a person who held a disliked belief. Those conversations by no means have to lead to changing one’s views – in many cases they should not – but at least they lead to better understanding of human values.’
That, I’m sure you’ll agree, is something that holds true far beyond the world of wine.
Listen: Earth sounds
BBC Rare Earth on the ‘joy of soil’
The other day I was pottering about in my kitchen with the reassuring sounds of Radio 4 in the background when a program caught my ear (as so often happens).
It was an episode of the series Rare Earth, entitled ‘The Joy of Soil’ – and what a joy it was. It’s not wine-focused, but for anyone interested in the power of mere earth and why the way in which we farm matters, it’s brilliant – and so is much of the rest of the series. Catch it on BBC Sounds (wherever you are in the world).
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New book on Japanese wine offers ‘comprehensive guide’
