PRO CONNECT
T. Mullen is Tom Mullen. He is the author of a dozen non-fiction and fiction books about travel, wine, history, and environmental issues. He spent two dozen years providing consulting advice and managing environmental, water resource, and infrastructure projects while living in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and the US. He has masters degrees in both business administration and engineering.
Tom has been interviewed by dozens of radio channels, has been a public speaker for public and private organizations and universities throughout the world, has published several magazine articles, and has worked as a historian for Lindblad/National Geographic. He now manages the implementation as well as environmental aspects to provide the rehabilitation of hundreds of schools, water systems, roads, and flood protection schemes throughout the northwestern tribal regions of Pakistan.
His books are described at both www.roundwoodpress.com, and www.vinoexpressions.com.
Tom can be reached via tjlmullen@gmail.com
“A fine, maverick company of winemakers hold court about the thing they love best: communing with the world of the grape.”
– Kirkus Reviews
From a global cast of winemakers come intimate, revealing comments about their art, which swing between invigorating to mellow.
Three years, 50 people and a dozen countries later, Mullen returns with these insights into why folks involved with the wine trade are in love with their work. The reasons are legion but all of a part: being outdoors and in tune with the seasons, entering into a partnership with the grapes, pride in the art of creation and an independence of spirit; as one Slovenian winemaker said, “When we started we have opinions that are different than other guys.” What Mullen has delivered is essentially a transcript of the spoken word, as unvarnished as are many of these mostly unsung winemakers—there are plenty of abrupt transitions and digressions—an enjoyable collection that contains many a rough diamond who yet ably convey the passion they bring to their work. “I like drinking red wine. I like making red wine. I like thinking about red wine.” Mullen keeps the proceedings lively by covering not only lots of ground—New Zealand to Missouri, Washington to the Azores—but also lots of aspects of winemaking, from cooperage to corks, the challenging demands placed on women winemakers, research into screwcaps, the talents of the garagiste, winery architecture. Particularly impressive is a short course on Italian geology that blossoms into an earnest and enlightening dissection of the whole notion of terroir, as well as a wonderfully disarming story of a Frenchman who now makes cognac, but who came to the calling via Kent in England, where he worked at “a small winery in the town of Chiddingstone for a bit more than two years. That’s where I learned to make wine.” That is an admission perhaps unique in the long annals of winemaking. Included are photographs heavily saturated with atmosphere, the kind you can almost smell before you see them. A fine, maverick company of winemakers hold court about the thing they love best: communing with the world of the grape.
Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9849565-0-0
Page count: 360pp
Publisher: Roundwood Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2012
Upcoming Book - River of Dreams
Day job
International consultant for water resources and environmental projects
Hometown
Laguna Beach, California
Foreward Magazine Review of Rivers of Change Book, 2004
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