Nice China, nice

May 022012

BEIJING (AP) — Chen tells AP he was told Chinese officials would have killed his wife had he not left embassy.

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I wrote "Cognac: The Seductive Saga of the World's Most Coveted Spirit" because no one had ever put together a readable, independent history of this marvelous spirit. My connections to Cognac country inspired me to dig deep into an incredible story that ranges from an exploration of the ancient bedrock, to the long and tortured development of wine growing in this region of southwest France, to the phylloxera epidemic that nearly wiped out the industry, to the machinery of modern, foreign-owned Cognac giants spreading their eau-de-vie all around the world. Frank Prial, former wine critic for The New York Times, called "Cognac" an "enthralling volume ... a compelling story, not just about the world's best known eau-de-vie, but about the people who make it and the often violent history of the remarkable but little-known region of France from which it comes."