Ivey, Jamie

PERSONAL:

Married: wife's name Tanya.

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England.

CAREER:

Writer. Previously worked as a lawyer.

WRITINGS:

Extremely Pale Rosé: A Very French Adventure (travel memoir), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Former London-based lawyer Jamie Ivey decided to take an extended journey through France with his wife, Tanya, writing about his experiences as he searched for the best rosé wines in the South of France and discovered good food, beautiful scenery, and a host on entertaining people along the way. Motivating Ivey is a British fondness for rosé, the paler the better, a characteristic that has most Frenchmen frowning. They consider rosé to be inferior to either white or red wines, and paler rosé is thought to be of lesser quality than that with a fuller, richer color. The couple's quest begins when, in the company of their friend and fellow traveler Peter, they are told that the wine they are drinking is the palest rosé in all of France. The trio take the vintner's comment as a dare of sorts, and set out to find a wine that will prove him wrong. In a review for Reader.com, a writer commented on the lack of obvious motivation given the length of Ivey's quest, noting: "The story ends up feeling rushed at the expense of character development, leaving the reader standing in the dust without so much as a baguette to nibble on." A contributor for Kirkus Reviews called the book a "delightfully quirky debut." Joel Jones, in a contribution for Library Journal, declared Ivey's effort to be "witty escapism for those who enjoy, or enjoy reading about, good wine, good food, and good travel."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Ivey, Jamie Extremely Pale Rosé: A Very French Adventure, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2006.

PERIODICALS

California Bookwatch, December 8, 2006, review of Extremely Pale Rosé.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2006, review of Extremely Pale Rosé, p. 275.

Library Journal, June 15, 2006, Joel Jones, review of Extremely Pale Rosé, p. 91.

ONLINE

Extremely Pale Rosé Web site,http://www.extremelypalerose.com (December 14, 2006).

Reader.com,http://www.thereader.com/ (March 23, 2006), "Pale, Pale Wine," review of Extremely Pale Rosé.

Times Online (London, England), http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ (July 30, 2006), Joanna Simon, "Travelling Lite."