Wine Scholar & Novelist Steven Laine Announces the Release of His New Book 'Jupiter’s Blood'
Steven Laine is a French, Italian, Spanish and Canadian Wine Scholar (he is currently studying for his WSET Level 4 Diploma), and the only North American invited to join the Champagne Academy in France. He has visited hundreds of wineries in the world's major wine regions.
During the pandemic, he worked the 2020 harvest to learn the winemaking process firsthand from the winemakers at Mission Hill Family Estate Winery in British Columbia. In 2021, he worked at Trius Winery in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario where he put his winemaking and forklift-driving skills to use once again as a cellarman.
Steven Laine has written several wine thrillers, including Root Cause, Dragon Vine, and his latest book Jupiter’s Blood.
Kirkus Reviews called Steven Laine's first wine thriller, Root Cause, “An entertaining, wine-soaked mystery.” The Washington Post wrote; “If Michael Pollan and Dan Brown sat down over a bottle of Barolo and brainstormed a novel based on the neuroses of the natural wine movement, they might have come up with something like ‘Root Cause’.”
In Steven Laine’s new novel Jupiter’s Blood, an American wine expert, Dante Lombardi, is struggling to come to terms with his best friend’s suicide. His world is further upended when his ex, Dr. Claire Durant, introduces him to a synthetic lab-made wine she’s developed. Replivino can pass for the finest wines produced by the world’s best winemakers at a fraction of the cost. When Claire and her company’s ‘Vino Code’ disappear, however, Dante must put his feelings for what he deems frankenwine aside and rush to Europe to find her. But Dante isn’t the only one looking for Claire as she pursues her own agenda to pop the cork on the traditional world of wine. So too is a ruthless wine counterfeiter. In a race across Europe, Dante must rely on his French and Italian wine industry connections, partner with new allies and old adversaries, and plumb the depths of his memory cellar to find Claire. Can he do so in time to save the global wine industry from ruin in the face of mass commoditization?
