Days of wine and coffee
Viticulture and espresso culture get the comprehensive treatment.
To describe Warren Moran as a wine enthusiast is something of an understatement. There’s hardly a branch of New Zealand’s wine industry that he hasn’t discussed and analysed during a 50-year exploration of the industry that has triumphed over ruthless competition to put this country on the world wine map.
The culmination of all this patient dedication to the subject is his encyclopaedic new book, NEW ZEALAND WINE: THE LAND, THE VINES, THE PEOPLE (Auckland University Press. $69.99), the story of his journey accompanied by a colourful supporting cast of winemakers. This is definitely no routine-vintage glossy coffee-table book filled with pretty pictures and accompanying recipes. What Moran, geographer and academic, gives us is a – perhaps the – definitive study of New Zealand wine, its environment and producers. Every detail, every subtle nuance surrounding the production of wine from climate to soil types and the evolution of individual vineyards, is painstakingly covered with images, words and maps. Mercifully, there is little pretentious winespeak in a book that seems destined to become a classic.
Is this a hearty dollop of shameless self-promotion? A romp through the rumbustious, caffeine-infused life and times of Wellington’s entrepreneurial coffee baron, Geoff Marsland? Or is it a bit of both blended with delicious sangfroid and served piping hot?
Whatever your definition, HAVANA
COFFEE WORKS (Phantom House, $50) is a strong brew but one that in its own cheerfully idiosyncratic way lingers on the palate. It’s also a social history, reflecting how New Zealanders turned from being a nation of tea drinkers to a race of coffee enthusiasts, or addicts, according to your point of view.
For Marsland, it all began with a minuscule cafe in a bohemian corner of Wellington. Mighty coffee bushes from small beans grow … or in this instance, Cuba St’s Midnight Espresso. Today, Havana Coffee Works roasts seven tonnes a week and is, as they say, a household name. Marsland’s unquenchable passion for the coffee industry, meanwhile, has never dimmed – in his words, he’s still learning, giving, delivering and working coffee. His story – written in collaboration with Tom Scott – is an absolute joy.