Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Maybe Not WineWise, But Wine Introduction, January 13, 2009
The three authors of /WineWise/ are all professors of wine studies at The Culinary Institute of America. Together, they have put together a highly useful and educational overview guide to wine. There are some limitations to the book, but, within the scope of the book, they did a good job. The first chapter is a practical (but short) introduction to wine, wine making, how the appellation system works, and why some wines cost so much. There are two chapters on the major white and red grapes, with some sub-categorization on specific growth areas in different countries. There are ten chapters on major growing area, with comprehensive discussion of the various appellations, major growers and styles. Some of their lists of wineries are just that--a paragraph or so of names, with no editorial commentary or reason for their inclusion. The maps of the regions are excellent, and the included wine labels throughout the book are a nice touch. There are numerous sidebar articles expanding on specific subjects relevant to the topic on hand in the chapter.
There are two reasonable chapters on wine pairings and doing wine tastings at home. Both are a good introduction, but either one could be the entire subject of their own book (and have been often enough.) The chapter on picking wine at restaurants is a nice addition to a beginning guide like this, though some of the suggestions may fall into the category of common sense. The final chapter of bargain wine choices is an interesting addition, with each of the authors picking wines in different price ranges and styles. Here is where you see that the authors either didn't collaborate directly, or the editor didn't want to directly interfere in the writing. Each of the author's sections are organized and arranged differently, with no consistency to either price, region, or system. And, while this isn't a major flaw (and the section is fairly helpful to new wine buyers looking to maximize their dollar and tasting range), it does explain the sometimes-noticed inconsistency within the chapters in writing style.
For the price, /WineWise/ is worth the purchase for a new wine drinker, or for someone wanting a book to loan out to friends.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Wine Bible, October 9, 2009
Very informative and useful, I havent read any other wine book but enjoyed this one and it has been on the money about the wines that I have purchased.
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10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not good flow but OK if you can figure it out. , December 25, 2008
One of the topics I really liked in this book was the explanation of the Appellations. There are detailed maps showing the wine regions and how the Appellations are then broken down within those regions. It really helped me understand this whole thing. The maps were very detailed and well drawn.
There's a whole chapter on the great white grapes: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Grigio, and Viognier.
In the red grape chapter the varietals covered are: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Shiraz, Zinfandel, and Grenache.
There are then chapters specific to other parts of the world such as: California, Washington (with Oregon and New York), South America, Australia (with New Zealand and South Africa), France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany (with Austria), Canada (with Greece). The Spain chapter had a "What's Hot Now" section but did not have that on any of the other countries.
I did not understand how to follow the "Tower of Power" section in the food and wine matching section. And this was the real reason I purchased this book was to be able to better match wine with my dinners. All the different food groups are broken down into whether they are most delicate, delicate, moderately rich, rich, very rich. Meals are served not individual food groups so say you're having chicken (considered a most delicate food) with eggplant (considered a very rich food) so do I serve white or red wine? There was no clear explanation of this for me. This book would have you serving both I guess. But then what's crazy is the book then covers asparagus, artichokes, spinach, garlic, tamarind, eggs, and cuttlefish in detail. Go figure. A person is much more likely to need a wine to go with chicken breast and roasted eggplant then cuttlefish and eggs, I would think.
The food section is broken down into country specific foods. An example is British fish and chips and German Wiener Schnitzel. These food/wine pairings should have been incorporated into the country specific chapters rather than as a dangling thought at the end of the book. Most wines are not served on their own, they are served with accompanying foods. There are no specific recipes just general food suggestions, like have seafood gumbo with Cava. If you want a better food wine pairing book go with The Wine Club: A Month-by-Month Guide to Learning About Wine with Friends. It has a much better food match up with wines as well as providing varietal information.
I would even go with Wine Food & Friends over this book, it's much easier to follow and while not as much information is given about the specific grapes it's much easier to follow with food pairings. But if you want to learn true food wine pairings then go with What to Drink with What You Eat: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea - Even Water - Based on Expert Advice from America's Best Sommeliers it's 10x better than this book.
The Living With Wine chapter started to cover having a wine tasting at home but then stopped short of giving any real information. Definitely go with The Wine Club: A Month-by-Month Guide to Learning About Wine with Friends if you have any interest in having your own wine tastings at home. Also, if you're really into having self-taught wine tastings then try A Year of Wine: Perfect Pairings, Great Buys, and What to Sip for Each Season. Definitely purchase that over this book.
If you want information on grape varietals and not so much concerned with the food then go with The Complete Idiot's Guide to Wine Basics, 2nd Edition. It has great detailed information but not so much on the maps for the grape growing regions. But you can get that free from searching the internet if you are really interested in Appellations.
Some more hodge podge information included in the Living with Wine chapter was wines to have in the summer, winter, kosher, and then breaks that down into specific countries as well. Why wasn't all this information put in the country chapters to begin with? You'd have to do a lot of jumping around to get real information out of this book. And then the section on corks, caps, glass stoppers and boxes seemed like an afterthought and really added no value to the book. If you really want information about taking wine notes get The Little Black Journal of Wine: A Wine Lover's Record Keeper (Little Black Books) (Guided Journal Series) hugely better than this book.
Now we jump to Wine In Restaurants chapter. The recommendation was to make sure the wine you order is the wine you receive. The list then goes on to indicate good value wines. Again, breaking it down by country. Hummm...there seems to be an apparent trend that information is not given when it should have been given back in the chapters which covered those countries? And again, no specific food/wine recommendations were given. The other suggestion was to make sure the restaurant gives you descent glasses to drink the wine out of.
This book was written by 3 different people and it seems exactly like that. All the information is so disjointed that it seems like each person was told to write 5-6 chapters each and cover a specific subject and they did that but then the 17 chapters don't incorporate into each other. The information should be meshed together much better than it is. There is little cohesion within this book.
In the last chapter there's a laundry list of "bargain" wines provided by each of the authors. There are lots of wines they recommend especially "fortified" wines but the book doesn't adequately explain what a fortified wine is or why it's such a good bargain. I'm sure they know but they didn't do a good job of explaining it to the casual drinker. Another flaw is they didn't explain dry vs. sweet wines but went to great links to recommend specific dry and specific sweets. How about letting us in on this?
There are much better books on the market than this one. The pictures are nice quality, there are not a whole lot of them but they're good. There is good information on reading wine labels, and as mentioned before the Appellation information is well written for the novice. But you can get all that in the other books mentioned as well as helpful food/wine pairing information. This book is hugely lacking in giving any useable information in this area.
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