Customer Reviews

Napa Uncorked with David Hyde Pierce

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

David Hyde Pierce could make the telephone book funny, but he brings is elegant wit to bear on a far more interesting topic in this CD about wine and wineries. It is a useful and entertaining blend of humor and information that should appeal to the connoisseur and novice alike.

David Hyde Pierce is the perfect host for this "CD Roam" - that is what they are calling it. Get it? Truthfully, I look forward to bringing this up with me to Napa and touring around. Im going to save the rest of it for my trip up there. Its a great mix of music and humor to accompany you on a driving trip from winery to winery. Why not learn something while you are in your car about the area you are driving through!? Hyde Pierce marries info about the area with great stories, hilarious impersonations, and just plain personality. Great gift to give with a bottle of California wine.

This CD is a wonderful combination of interesting, humorous stories and delightful music. It provides travel tidbits and information about wine and the Napa Valley. As a person who likes wine but does not feel particularly knowledgable about the subject I found that this CD presented just the right amount of wine information in a humorous context. Although the CD provides travel information about Napa it is not a travel guide. You do not have to visit Napa to enjoy this CD. In fact, I enjoyed listening to it in the kitchen while cooking dinner. I have played the music portions again and again. David Hyde Pierce is the perfect host and narrator to guide you through this wine experience whether on the road or in the kitchen. Please keep me informed about other titles.

To quote Niles Crane: "Bravo! Excellenté! Benissimo!"
I just purchased it from Amazon.com and have just finished listening to the second cd. David Hyde Pierce is a great storyteller!There were times that I had to catch myself from laughing out loud. (I didn't want anyone at work to think that I was nuts)

This CD is a great intro to wine, wine tasting, and Napa. The jazz is also good, though in short supply. I like David Hyde Pierce's narration...he's a great story teller. I'm ordering Sonoma Uncorked next and planning my trip to wine country.

This is a fun way to tour the Napa Valley. Informative and entertaining.

Really fun to listen to. Even learned alot about the process. Needs updating--lots of wineries, downtown Napa, Copia, etc. have changed in the past two years (2007-2008). I would still recommend it for a drive through the valley though.

> David Hyde Pierce, known to viewers nationwide
> the wine snob Nile Krane on the Frasier TV series

Spelled "Niles Crane".

So I bought this record for two reasons. First, I've had an interest in Napa from both loving Northern California (being from San Diego), and also having been reading Michael Chiarello's books. Second, the description mentioned that there was information on wine tasting etiquette and procedure if you will.

That's the reason I'm giving this two stars. There was wine tasting information. It was even useful and correct. I'd recommend this to friends (with judicious use of 'fast forward') as a primer to wine tasting, especially when more than one winery is to be considered.

The rest of the record is just reprehensible. It's almost 2 hours of the narrator being smug to the point of sheer idiocy. Complete with dubbed-in soundtrack for his various incredibly bad "jokes". He commits an unending stream of incredibly bad puns (bad in a bad way, not bad in a good way), and writes check after bad check on his foppish television character.

In addition to his incessant blathering and quest to prove how clever he is, there is the occasional five-plus-minute interlude of crummy jazz music. I'm not saying that jazz music itself is crummy, mind you. I'm just saying that the music in question is crummy. And there's a lot of it. I found myself fast-forwarding the iPod a tremendous amount, and let's face it, we paid for this.

There are brief mentions of sites to see in Napa (an only brief, condescending mention of the French Laundry, for example), but they serve only to bolster the various nonhumorous jokes thrown about. This is largely an album about the narrator, and secondly, an album about wine. The focus seems to be on the wineries, which is appropriate, but the wineries seem to be an ends to drinking wine -- rather than touring Napa.

I can't recommend this to anyone who wishes to actually tour Napa. I also can't recommend this to anyone with a low tolerance of television personalities. I don't like sitcoms, and I didn't buy this to hear some re-iteration of a sitcom personality.

It is marginally good at instructing a user for a introduction to wine tasting, and it does have a small amount of history of the Napa wineries.

Avoid.