Brian Freedman - Crushed: How a Changing Climate Is Altering the Way We Drink

Brian Freedman is a wine, spirits, travel, and food writer; restaurant and beverage consultant; wine and spirits educator; and event host and speaker. He regularly contributes to Food & Wine digital, Forbes.com, Whisky Advocate, and SevenFifty Daily; has contributed to Travel + Leisure online, Departures online, The Bourbon Review, and more. He also hosted several wine and spirit pairing segments for the CNN Airport Network. In 2019, Brian was awarded a fellowship to attend the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers in Napa Valley. He consults for restaurants on their beverage programs; regularly hosts virtual and in-person wine and spirit tastings for corporate and private clients; and has traveled to more than fifty countries and territories around the world and extensively throughout the United States to experience the food, drink, and culture for his work. He lives outside of Philadelphia with his wife, Steffi; daughters, Olivia and Sophie; and dog, Murray.

This book never would have come to fruition without the tireless work of my amazing agent, Sarah Phair, of Sanford J. Greenburger Literary Agents: her guidance, advice, and support have been invaluable. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to my excellent editor at Rowman & Littlefield, Suzanne Staszak-Silva, who saw the importance of this topic and brought the book to life. Naomi Minkoff did a fantastic job copyediting the manuscript, and Alyssa Henkin got the ball rolling years before I ever wrote a word of this. Thanks as well to Erin Sinesky Lovett, whose enthusiasm and guidance are very much appreciated.

Kristen Green-Kutch, Angela Duerr of Cultured Vine, Jennifer Scott of SMWE, Amy Mironov, Christina Seillan, Josh Greenstein of Royal Wine Corp., Erik Segelbaum, the IWPA, Peter Breslow, Mary Collum, Hamdy Khalil, Caroline Paulus, Wagstaff Media + Marketing, Amy Preske, Christi Crosby, Buffalo Trace, Sazerac, Eva Valdebenito, Nora Favelukes, Todd Nelson, Denise Clarke and Texas Fine Wine, Jim Clarke and Wines of South Africa, Aaron Meeker, Erick van Zyl and South African Tourism, the teams at Colangelo & Partners, Jarvis Communications, Nike Communications, J.A.M. PR, Sopexa, LVMH, Serious Business PR, Lisa Shea, Casey Shaughnessy, Claire Hennessy, Alex Schrecengost, Wilson Daniels, Lisa Mattson and the team at Jordan, Zach Groth, Laura Baddish, Evins Communications, Savona Communications, Sazerac, Jackson Family Wines, Teresa Wall and Napa Valley Vintners, Beth Cotenoff and Teuwen Communications, Andrea Duvall and Brown-Forman, KLGPR, Alex Koiransky and the team at FAIR Spirits, Courtney Schiessl Magrini and SevenFifty Daily, and the kind, smart, generous colleagues and amazing PR and marketing teams and regional and national wine and spirit boards that Ive had the privilege of traveling with over the years: Thank you all. Massive thanks as well to the wineries and distilleries, many of them not in this book by name, whose expertise and open doors have laid the foundation for it.

Very warm thanks also go out to two mentors and friends: John Mariani, who gave me my first big break, and Ray Isle, who brought me on as a contributor to Food & Wine digital. Both have been beyond kind, generous, and helpful. Sean Flynn, my excellent editor at F&W digital. Lyn Caum and Toby Thompson, who did so much to nurture my love of writing. Im grateful as well to the editorial teams at Forbes.com and F&W digital; Melanie Schwenk at Whisky Advocate; Gerard Holden of Holden Manz Wine Estate; Ian Freedman and Paul Balbresky; Jordan Balbresky, with whom I used to dream of being a writer one day over way too many martinis in New York twenty years ago; Jessica Dupuy, Jonathan Cristaldi, and Matt Ulmer, amazing writers, friends, and professional sounding boards; Scot Zippy Ziskind and the Dead Guys Wine Society; the Wine Media Guild; and so many moreespecially the people who are featured in this book, who were so generous with their time and trusting in my ability to tell their stories. I hope Ive done right by them.

Lots of love and gratitude to my sister Amy Shubert, who has spent the past two years dealing with unimaginable challenges as a school nurse during a pandemic: shes always believed in me, and was an early reader of my first chapter, for which Im eternally grateful. And to my brother-in-law Mike Shubertwhiskey lover, meat smoker extraordinaire, and all-around great guy.

They may be gone, but I think about my Nana Gwen Balbresky and Pop-Pop Charlie Freedman every daytheir joy and zest for life are in this book.

I am deeply indebted to my parents, Linda and Arnie Freedman, whose love, support, enthusiasm, and warmth mean the world to me. The love of food, wine, and dinner-table conversation that they instilled is why Im in this line of work in the first place.

Olivia and Sophiethe Freedman Ladies, two of the most amazing people I know. Its a joy and a privilege watching them grow up. I have no idea what we did to deserve them, but Steffi and I are the luckiest people in the world to raise daughters like these two.

And finally, absolutely none of this would have been possible without my wife, Steffithis book is as much hers as it is mine. She is the brains behind the operation, the extraordinary human who keeps our crazy household running, proofreader, sounding board, advice giver, exemplary mother, incredible wife, best friend, and soul mate. Im hereby officially ignoring Larry Davids hesitations and agreeing, happily, to eternity.

(And as promised, a big thanks to Murray and Gianluca too.)

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