Customer Reviews

Windows on the World Complete Wine Course: 2008 Edition

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I absolutely love this book. Incredibly informative and broken out so that you don't find yourself overwhelmed by all the vast information available in the wine world. I knew a little bit about wine before this book, and my knowledge has increased dramatically after reading this book. This is a must have for anyone with an interest in wine.

Windows on the World Complete Wine Course: 2009 Edition (Windows on the World Complete Wine Course) is the number one book to learn about wine. It's a complete, readable guide to wine regions, grape varietals, wine pairing, and much much more. You'll learn about all the major wine regions, their typical grape varietals, and distinguishing characteristics.

Throughout the book specific, easily available, and affordable wines are profiled by winery. Special sections take this further: wine tasting "courses" of flights of different wines to compare; 101 favorite wines; and wines to begin a wine cellar.

I've completed two levels of the excellent Wine and Spirit Education Trust's wine programs. I'm amazed that Kevin Zraly's Windows on the World is just as thorough and is basically the intermediate level - in a book. I refer back to it often, and give it as gifts to friends who want to increase their appreciation of wine.

I bought this book in search of basic information about the wines of the world, the various grapes, regional distinctions and recommendations for all the categories. This book does not disappoint in that regard. I have no complaints at all about any of the information in the book--every bit of it was helpful. However, I would like to have seen more information about wines from the various regions of the U.S. (I live in North Carolina where we have quite a few vinyards, but my state wasn't even mentioned) other than the West and NY State. Also, after reading the book I realized I'd do well to make up some index cards listing categories and recommendations according to regions, so I could have something handy to go with me to the wine shop when I wanted to try something new. I think that a wonderful addition to this book would be some tear-out "cheat sheets" to carry in one's pocket or purse. However, for an at-home reference, this book is excellent.

This book is an excellent resource as your are starting to dive into the world of wine. I was introduced to this book many years ago. It gives a very good over of most of the major regions (although it lacking New Zealand, which is mind boggling) Other than that small caveat, I think this is a must have in your wine library. I am in the wine industry, and teach a beginning wine class, and each of my students receive this as a textbook.

If you don't know anything about wine then this book might seem to be a good introduction. However, if you have any prior knowledge then it is immediately obvious that the author is a self-absorbed pretender. The book fails on multiple levels:

Writing style
The book is poorly written and insults its readers. It's filled with little insinuations that the reader is a hopeless idiot, and after a few pages this repeated rhetorical device becomes insufferable. How often can you tolerate an author characterizing your thoughts and behavior as moronic just to set up the point that he is trying to make? Much of the text unreadable for this reason. In addition to talking down to his readers, the author generally writes like an eighth grader. He loves to put words in quotation marks for no apparent reason, typographical errors are common (even ones that would be caught by any computer spell checker), and he often trips over his own feet trying to write the simplest sentence. Finally, he talks about himself incessantly, like a bore at a dinner party.

Inadequate coverage
The book has gaping omissions at all levels. The author gives the impression that he is introducing the range of varietal grapes and growing regions of the world, but he misleads novice readers in this pretense. His coverage is limited, outside of a few uninformative and incomplete lists, to the larger regions and grape varieties. This is the kind of basic survey that one can gather from going to one or two wine stores and looking at the shelves: there's a lot of wine from California, France, Australia, Italy, and Spain. The author simply repeats the obvious in many parts of the book.

Inaccurate information
The one thing that a book like this should at least get right is the basics. And yet he fails here as well. In one part of the book the author honestly claims that letting a wine breath before drinking it is of dubious value--he actually goes so far as to question whether it has any effect. This is where he exposes himself as a poser. When a wine is exposed to air, the organic compounds in the wine begin to react with oxygen. This is simply a matter of measurable chemistry. For someone to claim to be an expert and yet to assert that letting the wine breath has no effect is preposterous. The effect can be analyzed and measured. And it can be easily tasted! For someone who claims to taste 3,000 wines per year (that is his statement), he is inexcusably ignorant about this most basic fact. The truth is that the vast majority of wines improve their complexity of flavor, bouquet, and smoothness if they are allowed to sit open (or decanted into another container) for 2-3 hours. A real expert on wine would encourage the reader to test this for herself: open a bottle and taste the wine at 30 minute intervals. It's easy to determine that in the vast majority of cases the chemistry of oxidation makes a real difference in enjoyment. Instead, this pompous author proclaims that there is no benefit to a wine breathing, and encourages everyone to drink the wine directly after opening the bottle. He's an idiot.

He also claims that you should never use soap to clean your wine glasses. His explanation is that soap residue can effect the taste of the wine. This might be true if you don't wash the glass thoroughly, but it's generally pointless advice. It sounds insightful, but it's just empty hogwash. Just rinse the glass well and dry it with a clean towel--problem solved. It takes a special type of fatuous blowhard to fabricate pearls of wisdom out of thin air, but he manages to do it!

Over emphasis on wineries
The final major failure of the book is to give the reader an utterly false sense of comfort and knowledge by listing wineries that the author feels have a good reputation. This is the most useless information for a novice seeking to learn about wine. The well known wineries very often fluctuate in the quality of wines that they produce, increase production to cash in on their reputation and thereby suffer a loss of quality, or become priced out of reach for most people (and become overpriced in general compared to wines of equal quality). The author's approach here simply encourages ignorant snobbery and perpetuates the problem of people simply wanting to be told what is good. You need to taste a variety of wines. You need to get a feel for what you like, not what some stuffy and arrogant faker tells you is good. This book is poison to someone who really wants to develop real knowledge about wine. It gives the illusion of being informative, but it simply feeds the reader comforting half truths and steers him off course.

Avoid this steaming pile of nonsense like the plague.

delighted with this book, as someone who knows nothing about wine, this gives the right level of information to get going with.

I do not have the 2008 edition (yet), but have the last 3 books. I strongly disagree with the reviewer who thinks that Zraley is full of himself and a "poser". First of all Kevin Zraley is THE wine instructor. Ever hear of a little restaurant called "Windows on the World"?

That said, his last 3 editions are a wonderful introduction to wine. As a restaurant manager, I keep them in our lending library and recommend them to all new servers, to get a handle on the vast world of wine.

These books are well written and easy to understand. They cover a little bit of each region, but do it in an interesting way.

This was the first wine book I ever purchased (2006). At the time, it was too hard to read for me. This book is really packed with great information and great pictures. However, if you are buying your first book on wine, make it Oldman's guide to outsmarting wine. Later, when you grow a bit more "geeky" about wine, you will begin to fully appreciate this book.

Great book that covers all of the basics + provides real-world tasting ideas. Only downside is the focus on French wines; I wish there was more on Italy and "emerging" markets like Argentina. But with that said, Kevin Zraly recommends books that focus on these (and other) regions, so for those that need more information, it is easy to know where to read next.

Are we talking about reverence in a moment of recollection regarding the deceased?

Nope.

It's about the proper appreciation of wine. As Kevin Zraly, founder of the Windows on the World Wine School writes, "Over the last few years I have insisted that my students spend one minute in silence after they swallow the wine".

Okay, fair enough.

But then, this. "In my classes it is amazing to see more than a hundred students silently taking one minute to analyze a wine. Some close their eyes, some bow their heads in deep thought, others write notes."

Gee, this seems to be bordering on some kind of religious experience...

For the most part though this book manages to avoid this kind of pretentious blather. That's a good thing. After all, it's only wine.

This having been said, I recommend Complete Wine Course for budding oenophiles and anyone who wants to understand a bit more about what they're drinking and why they may or may not like it.

There are chapters devoted to the major wine growing regions, and what makes them distinctive. We learn about the characteristics of the major varietals, and are exposed to history, production methods, and more. Maps, reproductions of labels, photos and charts add visual interest to the text.

So go ahead - enjoy.