Educating Peter: How I Taught a Famous Movie Critic the Difference Between Cabernet and Merlot or How Anybody Can Become an (Almost) Instant Wine Expert [Hardcover]

Lettie Teague (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Teague, the wine editor for Food & Wine, first takes Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers in hand, he's the sort of uninformed drinker who rarely spends more than $10 on a bottle and inevitably ends up selecting bad vintages. So Teague (Fear of Wine) starts pouring him selections from around the world. Each region gets its own chapter, transitioning between the tastings and Teague's general recommendations. Later, after a visit to Napa Valley, she takes Travers out to dinner to see if he'll be able to interact with sommeliers and match wine to various courses, then visits an assortment of shops to show him what to look for when building his own collection. She corrects his vocabulary when he says a wine has "a fatness to the swirl" instead of "good viscosity." He stubbornly resists New Zealand vintages because director Peter Jackson criticized them, and complains that green wine bottles keep him from seeing how red the wine is. Novice tasters can add this pleasure to more traditional guides, while enjoying the entertainment value. (Mar. 13)
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About the Author

Lettie Teague is an executive editor at Food & Wine magazine. She writes a monthly column for the magazine, "Wine Matters," for which she won the 2003 James Beard M. F. K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. She is also the illustrator and coauthor of Fear of Wine.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (March 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743286774
• ISBN-13: 978-0743286770
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,242,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars This book will not make you an (almost) instant wine expert... April 14, 2009

By NOLA transplant

Format:Hardcover

I wish I had borrowed this book from the library instead of paying money for it. As other reviewers have said, I wanted to like this book. The premise is good and before I actually started reading it I was envious of Peter. How great would it be to have a friend who is a wine expert, is willing to mentor you, and (apparently) has a hefty budget to buy wines for you to taste? By the end of the book I was rather glad she's not my friend...

First, the good:
1. It's short
2. It's an easy read
3. It does give some information on the wine industry, wine regions, grapes, recommended wines, etc.
4. It could be inspirational to fledgling writers because it proves that a book doesn't have to be well-written to be published.

And the bad:
1. The book is clumsily written, so bad that I had to keep reminding myself that Teague is not an amateur writer but the Wine Editor for Food and Wine Magazine.
2. Teague and Peter are annoying characters - about halfway through the book I started skipping over their inane, repetitive dialog and reading only the parts that actually talked about wine. Surely Peter had better comments and questions than what's in the book -- he sounds like a petulant teenager. The Hollywood name dropping got old quickly, too.
3. Teague gave little to no information on good and bad vintages. Isn't this sort of important when buying wine?
4. The book is only 2 years old so I expected it to be reasonably current on vintages. Even if you gave her a few years to write the book, that means she and Peter should have been tasting wine from around 2003. However, most of the wines she mentioned were from the late 1990s.... Since the vast majority of wines don't age well and should be consumed within 1-2 years of production, why was she writing about older vintages? The book is presumably aimed at novice wine drinkers, so you would think she'd realize that most of us novices don't have pricy older bottles of wine lying around.
5. As another reviewer mentioned, Teague is not pushing inexpensive wine. I can't even find some of the wines she recommends, and those that I did find were well over $30 -- many were in the three figure price range. Not really practical, given the economy and the book's supposed audience.

So, I learned a some things and don't consider the time spent reading the book to be a waste. However, the "...(Almost) Instant Wine Expert" subtitle is really misleading. This book doesn't give even a foundation of wine knowledge, let alone make you an expert. In the hands of a more capable and compelling writer, and with less pretentious and more likeable characters, this would be a nice addition to a collection of more comprehensive wine books. Read more ›

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Easy read, but not much there.... July 2, 2007

By John H. Padgham

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've read over a dozen books on wine, and this one is easily the least informative. It's a decent story and easy to read, but she only touches the surface and really doesn't provide much of a wine education at all. If you want a really good book to learn about wine, try either "Great Wine Made Simple" by Andrea Immer Robinson or "Windows on the World Complete Wine Course" by Kevin Zraly.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars "Budget" oenophiles beware May 28, 2008

By Joshua

Format:Hardcover

I found this book to be an interesting and entertaining high level introduction to the wine world. I will say, however, that I am dismayed by the average price point of the wines highlighted by the book. I was really hoping that I could "sip along" and educate myself, but between the $599 price tag of the latest Harlan Estate to the $289 Clarendon Hills to the $580 Lafite-Rothschild I'm afraid most of the suggestions in the book will go untasted by those of us not in the film or wine industries. To be fair, there are a few "cheaper" wines mentioned in the book. I just would have gotten a lot more out of it had Ms. Teague consistently identified "mid-priced" wines for all the regions she highlights so that more of us could have educated our palettes as opposed to just our minds.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Painful Read January 28, 2009

By Carol

Format:Hardcover

I loved the idea of the project undertaken in this book- a wine expert takes a novice in hand and shows him the way. If only all of those who wish to expand their wine knowledge and sharpen their senses could find such a generous teacher- the world would be a slightly happier place! Unfortunately the teacher in this case comes across as condescending, judgmental, and definitely not someone with whom I'd like to undertake such a project. Halfway through the book I started skipping over many of the accounts of Lettie's (teacher) observations of Peter (student). I even flipped back to the first page to confirm that yes, she did actually refer to him as a "friend" on the first page. It was all downhill from there, from accusing him of a heavy flirtation (not with his wife- I wonder how she enjoyed the book), to outing him as a major league name dropper. He couldn't make a move without her characterizing his actions and thoughts (to which she was not actually privy) in an unflattering light. The "project" overall came across as a farce, a vehicle that could get a book into print. That in itself wouldn't have offended me, since there is some good basic wine education to be had in this book, had the teacher/writer not been so unbearable.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction to wines of the world! April 15, 2009

By Blue Jay

Format:Hardcover

For years my friends thought I knew a lot about wine because I love drinking it. Reading "Educating Peter" taught me how narrow my knowledge of wine was. I realized that I only knew very few Californian, French, Australian, and Chilean wines. This intriguing book took me on an informative and humorous journey through the wines of those and many other countries in a breezy, yet detailed style that kept me wishing I was on the trip with the author instead of Peter Travers. But then again, I wouldn't have made all the cinematic connections he did, and that adds a dimension to the book film buffs will especially enjoy. The quiz at the end of the book is a fun way to see how much you've learned from reading it. Okay, I admit it's not as much fun as actually tasting all the wines mentioned, but it's as close as you can get for less than $30.

1.0 out of 5 stars Insulting on many levels July 8, 2011

By Peter H. Burge

Format:Hardcover

I'm fortunate to have picked up a used copy for $2 - I would have been far more disappointed had I purchased a new copy at or close to full retail. My thoughts closely mirror another 1-star review "Painful Read." Although this book does have some useful, although basic, information on wine, the writer paints such an insulting portrait of the Peter (Travers) in the title I was appaled. She characterizes him as a fool, a lecher, a poseur, and on and on. I wonder if the relationship persisted after she published this book? She herself comes off as condescending beyond what I would allow in a friendship. It appears this might be the only book the author has written - quite possibly a favor to the public. After reading this I will also avoid similar books where one person writes about their efforts to "educate" someone else on a subject - it makes for tiresome reading.