Great Wine Made Simple: Straight Talk from a Master Sommelier [Hardcover]

Andrea Immer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2000

At last, a wine book that makes selecting and enjoying wine truly simple. With renowned wine expert Andrea Immer as your guide, never again will you have to fear pricey bottles that don't deliver, snobby wine waiters, foreign terminology, or encyclopedic restaurant wine lists. You'll be able to buy or order wine with confidence-and get just the wine you want-by learning how the "Big Six" basic styles taste and how to read any wine label.

Andrea Immer genuinely knows more about wine than most wine lovers could ever hope (or want) to learn. But she doesn't believe that you have to join a stuffy, exclusive wine-tasting set to become a savvy wine buyer. Unlike other guides on the market, Great Wine Made Simple makes it easy to master the ins and outs of choosing a wine that you and your guests will love-on any budget.

Shunning yesterday's 100-point scales and lectures on "bouquet," Great Wine Made Simple explains wine in commonsense terms. Featuring a core curriculum of the six grapes that comprise 80 percent of today's top-selling wines, along with a complete flavor map that explains what tastes you can expect from climates around the globe, Great Wine Made Simple uses easy and fun tasting lessons to help you identify what you like and learn how to spot it on a menu or shelf.

Immer reveals the secret weapons of wine experts and explains how to decipher those enigmatic labels. In her fresh, encouraging tones, she provides enlightening exercises (such as "milk tasting" for understanding variations in wine texture) and vocabulary sessions. On a mission to empower the everyday wine buyer, with Great Wine Made Simple Immer creates a refreshing new way to choose the perfect wine for every palate and occasion.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

About one-third of the way through Andrea Immer's Great Wine Made Simple, the author recounts an anecdote that could serve as the book's theme--alligator, rabbit, and squab were all introduced to her the same way: "Tastes like chicken." And as demonstrated by Immer, who went from debentures to de Rothschild when she quit Morgan Stanley to eventually oversee the 50,000-bottle cellar at Manhattan's famed Windows on the World, the leap from pigeon to Pichon-Lalande is analogous: teaching novice wine drinkers what to expect is what her book, aptly subtitled "Straight Talk from a Master Sommelier", is all about.

With emphasis on her "Big Six" varietals--Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon--this "Immer-sion" class of tastings lets amateur sippers differentiate the typical qualities of each, while illustrating wine terms such as dry, crisp, oaky, and tannic. Practical advice abounds; one chapter devotes itself to finding useful info on a wine label while avoiding "Stupid Label Tricks," those bits of puffery or unfamiliar flavors (how many have actually tasted lychee or red currant?) that can be confusing the average buyer. And her "Flavor Map" concept--dividing the wine world into three climate zones--eschews memorization in favor of some rudimentary geography.

Throughout, her pronunciation guides are accurate and personable ("If you're pronouncing 'Riesling' right you have to smile."); and she provides a great postgraduate curriculum of buying strategies, including the pros and cons of wine shops versus your nearest Costco; and a consumer advisory about restaurant's "award-winning wine lists." --Tony Mason

Review

"Andrea Immer makes wine education simple and fun. One of America's best
sommeliers has written one of the year's best wine books!"
--Robert G. Mondavi

"Without doubt the finest introduction to wine tasting and food and wine pairing I have read.  This book is an excellent addition to the libraries of both professionals and aficionados."
--Frederick Dame, M.S., President, Court of Master Sommeliers

"Well organized, succinct, clear, and precise are the adjectives that best describe this Cartesian book on wines. Great Wine Made Simple will educate you without boring you and will lead you joyfully and expertly through the intricate world of the master sommelier."
--Claudine Pépin and Jacques Pépin

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; First Edition edition (October 31, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076790477X
• ISBN-13: 978-0767904773
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #137,480 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Drinks & Beverages > Wine > Buying Guides

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

158 of 163 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wine-Oh Book for us Wine-Don't-Knows, November 1, 2000

By 

"lizzharmon" (Tampa, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Wine Made Simple: Straight Talk from a Master Sommelier (Hardcover)

This book is about the fifth or sixth book on this subject I have purchased in recent years. It's the first one that speaks to me like the novice I am. It's direct, it's easy reading, it's simple to follow, and it tells you what you need to know to be comfortable ordering wine in a restaurant, or buying it in a store. It's not full of high-brow rhetoric thrown in to impress the reader. It's entry level stuff -- information that you don't have to be a connoisseur to understand. For me, since I like wine but have no interest in becoming some sort of wine snob, this book gave me exactly what I needed to have a handle on what I'm buying. As far as what wine goes with what, and how it is served, it's all in there. If you want to get up to speed in layman's terms, this is the book to get. I thank Immer for writing it. A sommelier I'm not; I'm just a consumer who wanted a basic understanding of the subject, and I got it from this book... finally.

75 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Want to increase your enjoyment and knowledge of wine?, January 8, 2001

By 

drdebs (CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Wine Made Simple: Straight Talk from a Master Sommelier (Hardcover)

If so, you should seriously consider buying this book for yourself, and for any friends who might have the same goal. I have enjoyed wine for a number of years, but have not ventured forth much from the cabernet-merlot-chardonnay rut because it all seemed so overwhelming. You go to the wine store and signs give wines different points from different people for wines you've never heard of and can't pronounce.

Enter Andrea Immer, the sassy and straightforward Master Sommelier! Immer makes wine approachable, fun, and stimulating. Through a variety of different techniques (comparison tasting, old world wines vs. new world wines, flavor maps, and varietal information) Immer will open up your wine world and give you the confidence to sally forth to your local wine shop and ask for a Gruner Veltliner (she also tells you how to pronounce it!)to go with your chicken dinner. She also totally demystifies the restaurant wine list and tells you how to make good and economical choices from it.

There is no pretention at all in this book. Ms. Immer is not a wine snob, nor does she make wine into some obscure chemical and gastronomical science. She knows her stuff so well she can make is simple for you, me and everybody else who would like to buy a $10 bottle of wine and find it is reasonably tasty.

By the way, friends much more expert than myself have confessed that they bought the book and found a great deal of information that was helpful to them, too, so this book is not just for wine beginners.

54 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At last - The wine book I've been looking for., November 29, 2000

By 

richard ryan (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Wine Made Simple: Straight Talk from a Master Sommelier (Hardcover)

I have been in the wine business for many years, and have read all the standard texts. This is a great one. The "flavor map" and the new world/old world distinction will help anyone select good wine whether from the neighborhood store or from a resturant. Ms. Immer removes much of the mystique and snobbishness that often is associated with wine, and presents the subject simply and honestly. Her knowledge and enthusiasm is evident on every page.