All the major wine styles and regions are covered in the new edition of this clear and concise primer, together with notes on the history of wine, winemaking, and blind tasting.
Beyond Flavour is a practical guide to blind wine tasting which will help wine lovers increase their knowledge and improve their blind tasting skills. The book offers detailed descriptions of the key attributes of major grape varieties and wine producing regions, and argues that assessing a wine's structure - acid structure in white wines and tannin structure in red wines - is a more reliable indicator of a wine's identity than the traditional reliance on flavour. Beyond Flavour includes analysis of wine style by country and region; descriptions of recent vintages for classic European origins; and tips for blind tasting exams. Beyond Flavour is an indispensable guide to blind wine tasting for wine students, professionals and others seriously interested in understanding why wines taste like they do.
Explores the controversy about corking and wine-bottle sealing that has spawned a heated debate throughout the oenological community, tracing the history of the cork while evaluating the merits and shortcomings of other seal contenders.
During the thirty-five years wine critic and writer Paul Gregutt has lived in the state of Washington, its wine industry has ballooned from a mere half dozen wineries to nearly five hundred. Washington Wines and Wineries offers a comprehensive, critical, and accessible account of the nation's second largest wine-producing region.
The only reporter present at the mythic Paris Tasting of 1976 for the first time introduces the eccentric American winemakers and records the tremendous aftershocks of this historic event that changed forever the world of wine. The Paris Tasting of 1976 will forever be remembered as the landmark event that transformed the wine industry. At this legendary contest—a blind tasting—a panel of top French wine experts shocked the industry by choosing unknown California wines over France’s best. George M. Taber, the only reporter present, recounts this seminal contest and its far-reaching effects, focusing on three gifted unknowns behind the winning wines: a college lecturer, a real estate lawyer, and a Yugoslavian immigrant. With unique access to the main players and a contagious passion for his subject, Taber renders this historic event and its tremendous aftershocks—repositioning the industry and sparking a golden age for viticulture across the globe. With an eclectic cast of characters and magnificent settings, Judgment of Paris is an illuminating tale and a story of the entrepreneurial spirit of the new world conquering the old.
The #1 wine book—now updated! The art of winemaking may be a time-honored tradition dating back thousands of years, but today, wine is trendier and hotter than ever. Now, wine experts and authors Ed McCarthy and Mary Ewing-Mulligan have revised their popular Wine For Dummies to deliver an updated, down-to-earth look at what's in, what's out, and what's new in wine. Wine enthusiasts and novices, raise your glasses! The #1 wine book has been updated! If you're a connoisseur, Wine For Dummies will get you up to speed on what's in and help you take your hobby to the next level. If you're new to the world of wine, it will clue you in on what you've been missing and show you how to get started. It begins with the basic types of wine, how wines are made, and more. Then it gets down to specifics, like navigating restaurant wine lists, deciphering wine labels, dislodging stubborn corks, and so much more. Includes updated information on wine regions throughout the world, including the changes that have taken place in Chile, Argentina, parts of Eastern Europe, the Mt. Etna region in Sicily, among other wine regions in Italy and California's Sonoma Coast Covers what's happening in the "Old World" of wine, including France, Italy, and Spain, and gets you up-to-speed on what's hot (and what's not) in the "New World" of Wine, including the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand Features updated vintage charts and price guidelines Covers wine bloggers and the use of smartphone apps Wine For Dummies is not just a great resource and reference, it's a good read. It's full-bodied, yet light...rich, yet crisp...robust, yet refreshing....
In The Wine Lover’s Daughter, Anne Fadiman examines—with all her characteristic wit and feeling—her relationship with her father, Clifton Fadiman, a renowned literary critic, editor, and radio host whose greatest love was wine. An appreciation of wine—along with a plummy upper-crust accent, expensive suits, and an encyclopedic knowledge of Western literature—was an essential element of Clifton Fadiman’s escape from lower-middle-class Brooklyn to swanky Manhattan. But wine was not just a class-vaulting accessory; it was an object of ardent desire. The Wine Lover’s Daughter traces the arc of a man’s infatuation from the glass of cheap Graves he drank in Paris in 1927; through the Château Lafite-Rothschild 1904 he drank to celebrate his eightieth birthday, when he and the bottle were exactly the same age; to the wines that sustained him in his last years, when he was blind but still buoyed, as always, by hedonism. Wine is the spine of this touching memoir; the life and character of Fadiman’s father, along with her relationship with him and her own less ardent relationship with wine, are the flesh. The Wine Lover’s Daughter is a poignant exploration of love, ambition, class, family, and the pleasures of the palate by one of our finest essayists.
“Can I just be Marissa, please? I want to be hilarious and sexy and smart and insanely knowledgeable about wine.” —Mindy Kaling A fresh, fun, and unpretentious guide to wine from Marissa A. Ross, official wine columnist for Bon Appétit. Does the thought of having to buy wine for a dinner party stress you out? Is your go-to strategy to pick the bottle with the coolest label? Are you tired of choosing pairings based on your wallet, instead of your palate? Fear not! Bon Appétit wine columnist and Wine. All The Time. blogger Marissa A. Ross is here to help. In this utterly accessible yet comprehensive guide to wine, Ross will walk you through the ins and outs of wine culture. Told in her signature comedic voice, with personal anecdotes woven in among its lessons, Wine. All the Time. will teach you to sip confidently, and make you laugh as you're doing it. In Wine. All The Time., you’ll learn how to: • Describe what you’re drinking, and recognize your preferences • Find the best bottle for you budget and occasion • Read and understand what’s written on a wine label • Make the perfect pairings between what you’re drinking and what you’re eating • Throw the best damn dinner party your guests will ever attend • And much more
Winner of the prestigious André Simon Drink Book Award The first definitive reference book to describe, region-by-region, how the great wines of Europe should taste. This will be the go-to guide for aspiring sommeliers, wine aficionados who want to improve their blind tasting skills, and amateur enthusiasts looking for a straightforward and visceral way to understand and describe wine. In this seminal addition to the wine canon, noted experts Rajat Parr and Jordan Mackay share everything they've learned in their decades of tasting wine. The result is the most in-depth study of the world's greatest wine regions ever published. There are books that describe the geography of wine regions. And there are books that describe the way basic wines and grapes should taste. But there are no books that describe the intricacies of the way wines from various subregions, soils, and appellations should taste. Now, for the first time ever, you can learn about the differences between wines from the 7 grand crus and 40 premier crus of Chablis, or the terroirs in Barolo, Champagne, and Bordeaux. Paying attention to styles, winemakers, soils, and the most cutting-edge of trends, this book explains how to understand the wines of the world not in the classical way, but in the modern way--appellation by appellation, soil by soil, technique by technique--making it an essential reference and instant classic.