Vino Presage by Mike Maione and Brett Barry

Maybe you’ve heard the names Mike Maione and Brett Barry before. They released “Celebrity Presage” several years ago and took the world by storm. It was a gimmicked book designed to look like a book of celebrity fails, but this book allowed you to read minds or force a celebrity in a very clean and creative manner.

Well, Mike and Brett have been working together again to bring us “Vino Presage,” another book gimmicked in the same way as before, but instead of celebrity fails, this is designed to look like a nice wine guide.

The quality of this book is absolutely unbelievable. The book has a nice cover and thick, full-color, glossy pages throughout. It looks and feels exactly like you would expect a book of this nature to look. I won’t speak too much to the gimmicked nature of the book, but if you know what Brett Barry and his company (SvenPad) are known for, then you know the general idea here. What I will say is that it is almost invisible looking at the side of the book, and you can’t feel that anything is “off” when you flick through the book. He always amazes me with the quality and precision he is able to get out of this particular method. They have also bound this book with a special process created specifically for this book. This process should keep the pages intact and squared as they need to be for years of performing. Holding it in my hands, it is clear to me why this book is $200, and I’m sure that the majority of that is going directly to manufacturing these.

But you’re not just paying for the book. You’re also paying for all of the ideas that have been loaded into this book, and let me tell you, they have loaded this book with a TON of principles. Usually when you see a book like this, it has one, two, maybe three ideas that you can run with. With this book, there’s literally dozens of different things you can use. I will discuss all of these ideas more below.

When you go to the instruction site, you will find a 15 minute “Quick Start” video, a 30 page pdf, and a file of downloadable images to use for revelations/presentions.

The 15 Minute “Quick Start” Video:

This begins with a quick look at the book and how it works. Next you get a quick walk through various forcing methods. There’s an in-their-hands method, an on-the-table method, and a forcing method using the very clever page numbering system (my personal favorite if you intend on using this as a prediction.) Brett and Mike also go over all of the various things you can force with this book. You can force the name of a wine, the year of a wine, the taste of a wine, an image, the name of a man in an image, the name of a dog in an image, any long word thought of (wiki words), and a long word in a caption (nonforce pages.) They have also incorporated a Rorschach/inkblot test on every page made out of wine. These are generic stains that people will see different images in, yet, you can force a precise image that someone will see in one of these wine stains. Next, the video discusses the crib sheet that comes with the book. It is a sticker with the wiki test words that fits perfectly on a maker. This allows you to use the wiki words even if you don’t already have them memorized. Those words are also on the last page of the book in case you need a quick reminder in the moment. Finally, the video teaches the concept behind the “Word Play” boxes. Brett and Mike have incorporated the classic Mental Yarn effect into a booktest for the first time ever. This principle is on the force and nonforce pages. It allows you to play a free-association game with a couple of spectators and read their minds.

The 30-Page PDF:

The pdf essentially covers the same thing as the video, but it provides more details such as a few ploys to get the first letter for the wiki words, script ideas for the “Word Play” feature, and a ton of extra brainstorm ideas that you can take and run with. It also includes the fictional backstory for the book to make it seem more legitimate and a host of credits for all of the ideas that have been included.

Downloadable File:

This file contains images of unusual wines, a 52 on 1 card with a kicker revelation, a label you can stick on your book to make it seem more legitimate, a step-by-step tutorial on how to draw one of the revelations, some bad wine labels you can use for a comedic punch, a digital force bag list, an image of a celebrity holding the force wine, a word cloud that you can use to show the power of subliminal influence, an image of the force wine and drawing that can be printed for a revelation, some mock ads for the force wine, and a high quality png of the force bottle for you to use to make your own revelations. This is a great resource, and it was very kind of them to include this.

I also wanted to mention that the force wine is a cheap wine that is easy to obtain in the US and UK which means you can give the bottle away as a souvenir without breaking the bank. I’m glad they chose this as the force wine.

One important thing to note is that TV Rights are NOT included. This includes all social media platforms. You must reach out to Brett directly if you intend on performing this for social media or television to speak about obtaining the rights. Live performance rights ARE included.

Overall, this is a fantastic product that exudes excellence. It is abundantly clear that this was not a quick project, but a project that has taken a lot of thought and time to execute perfectly. Every detail has been thought of, and they have gone above and beyond to make sure you have plenty of ideas to get the juices flowing (no pun intended.) This is a product that the classiest of performers can feel confident using in their show. Brett will only have 60 books with him at Magic Live 2023. After that, he will have some on his site at svenpads.com. There are a few other exclusive dealers who will have this as well, but all of them only have limited quantities, so if you want one of these, I wouldn’t wait too long.