Wine For Dummies
- ISBN13: 9780764525445
- Condition: USED – VERY GOOD
- Notes:
Product Description
The bestselling guide that demystifies wine-now revised and updated Winner of the George Duboeuf Wine Book of the Year “Smart and totally readable.” -Newsday “Crammed with useful, accurate information.” -Wine Enthusiast “Complete…and agreeably relaxed.” -New York Times The nation’s most popular wine primer is now even better. Wine experts Mary Ewing-Mulligan and Ed McCarthy have revised this friendly, unintimidating guide to cover all the latest developments in the wine world: which wine regions are now hot (and which are not), information on new rules for shipping wine and the new vogue for screw-caps, and, of course, updates on vintages, producers, and wine resources on the Web. As always, the authors deliver just what ordinary mortals need to navigate the wine list at a restaurant or the wine aisle at a store, select a great bottle, and truly enjoy it. They provide an easy-to-understand overview of wine grapes… More >>
This book offers an excellent introduction into wines. If you know little about wines, but want a quick, fun and easy way to learn, this book is for you. After reading this book, I was able to talk intelligently about the different varieties of wines, how wine is made and how to taste wines. This book has improved my social and professional life. At business dinners, I’m able to talk about wines and navigate through the wine list intelligently. On the social front, I recently held an amatuer wine tasting at my house and it was big success. One chapter in the book explains all the attributes and nuances you could sense in a wine. I organized the attributes with the descriptions in a table, with a few blank columns for wine tasting notes. My guests were entertained and educated at the same time.
The writing is clear and concise. The authors do not take a snobby attitude towards tasting; throughout the book, they emphasize that good wine is primarily determined by personal choice. They give you the tools to learn to taste and enjoy wine.
I read at an average rate. In about 2 hours, I was able to talk intelligently about the wine making process, understand how to taste wines, and navigate around wine shops. This book should be read over a period of several weeks so that you can actually practice what you’ve read. The only drawback with this book is that there are no colorful pictures and they weren’t very explicit about which flavors to concentrate on while drinking different wine varieties.
Overall, this book is excellent for beginners. After reading the first few chapters, you’ll go from beginner to an intermediate wine buff. I even purhased several of these books for my friends as Christmas gifts!
I’m not an expert oeneophile (in fact, I can’t even spell it), but I am an interested amateur who has read about 5 basic books on wine ranging from Parkers famous one to lesser known tomes (the Windows on the World one is good too). I think this dummies book offers the least pretentious and most concise overall guide to wine. It does cover a lot of ground which is why the same authors have separate books on white and red wines. On the bright side, you’ll learn about every major grape variety and region in the wine world and how to find great bargains. I really enjoyed the tone and attitude — the authors clearly know a lot, but make it clear that you don’t have to be a wine snob to really enjoy wine.
I was always intimdated by the thought of ordering and buying wine. Wine for Dummies opened the door to a whole new world of experiences. This book helped me understand the different types, vintages, and tastes of wine. It gives clear information and explanations, and answers most any question you could have on the subject of wines. With this book as your guide, you will have no problem navigating a wine list in a restaurant, or the aisles of your local wine shop. There is information on pairing wine and food, how to serve wine, and how to store it. It is the most complete book on wine that I have read to date.
I found that it was easiest to concentrate on one section at a time, rather than to try to read and understand everything at once. Also, it was kind of fun reading one section, then trying some of the wines suggested by the authors, or simply trying the different kinds of wine in the section. The authors really know their wines.
This book will easily become the one you refer to most. It is concise, well-organized and easy to follow.
This was my first book on wine. I’ve read numerous books on beer, so that was my background coming into the book.
There’s a lot of info in the book, but I feel like there is too little practical info and too much “academic” info.
Indeed, three-forths of the book are devoted to the history and geography of wines. Don’t get me wrong, this stuff is extremely important; it is the geography and the winery which makes the wine what it is. The problem is that in this regard, the book reads more like “Wine for Experts” than “Wine for Dummies”.
In a book for complete novices, you would expect a table, chart, or other easy-to-read section on all of the major types of wine, broken down by various properties such as appearance, smell, taste, etc. “What’s a Chardonnay? What’s Pinot Noir?” But there isn’t anything like that. There are a couple of pages which briefly mention three to four of the most popular varietals in both white and red, but that’s it. There’s a short section on how to smell/taste wine, which is good, but then you’re left to page after page of French legal classification systems and all kinds of other stuff.
Again, that “stuff” is important, and I’m glad it’s in there, but it’s kinda difficult to get a *basic* grasp on wine by reading all of the expert material, when they never gave you a halfway decent foundation to start with (and I even speak French; if you don’t, it will be an even steeper learning curve). And that is my problem with this book.
This is an okay book, but if one of my friends asked, I could not honestly recommend it to someone who knows absolutely nothing about wine. If you already have a fair amount of experience with wine, then you will be okay with this book, but if you are a complete beginner, I would recommend something more basic, because this book really isn’t for “dummies” in the subject.
If your idea of a good wine means that it doesn’t have ascrew top, but you genuinely want to learn more about thecorked types, this is the book for you! This books takes much of the mystery out of WHY wine snobs do some of that silly looking stuff while at the same time pointing out which of those things are worth the effort and which aren’t.
Additionally, it turned out to be an invaluable reference for starting to look at the shelves in the local liquor store. The time prior to reading this book, I picked wines based on who had the prettiest label – while I did get one really good wine out of that batch, it wasn’t a very dependable method. The next trip, I took a list I had made from this book and have been MUCH happier with the results.
In the end, this is an excellent reference book and a does a great job of demystifying the rites and ritual of wine. I highly recommend it!