THE #1 WINE BOOK __ NOW UPDATE
by Ed McCarthy
Certified Wine Educator
and
Mary Ewing-Mulligan
Master of Wine
Certified Wine Educator
and
Mary Ewing-Mulligan
Master of Wine
 |
| Wine For Dummies 4th Edition |
Ed McCarthy and Mary Ewing-Mulligan are two wine lovers who met at an
Italian wine tasting in New York City’s Chinatown and subsequently merged
their wine cellars and wine libraries when they married. They have since coauthored
six wine books in the Wine For Dummies series (including two of
their favorites, French Wine For Dummies and Italian Wine For Dummies) as
well as their latest book, Wine Style (Wiley); taught hundreds of wine classes
together; visited nearly every wine region in the world; run five marathons;
and raised eleven cats. Along the way, they have amassed more than half a
century of professional wine experience between them.
Mary is president of International Wine Center, a New York City wine school
that offers credentialed wine education for wine professionals and serious
wine lovers. As U.S. director of the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET®),
the world’s leading wine educational organization, she works to make the
courses she offers in New York available in more and more parts of the
United States. She is also the long-standing wine columnist of the NY Daily
News. Mary’s most impressive credential is that she’s the first female Master
of Wine (MW) in the United States, and one of only 22 MW’s in North America (with 251 worldwide).
Ed, a New Yorker, graduated from City University of NY with a master’s degree
in psychology. He taught high school English in another life, while working
part-time in wine shops to satisfy his passion for wine and to subsidize his
growing wine cellar. That cellar is especially heavy in his favorite wines —
Bordeaux, Barolo, and Champagne. Besides co-authoring six wine books in
the For Dummies series with Mary, Ed went solo as author of Champagne For
Dummies, a topic on which he’s especially expert.
Ed and Mary also share wine columns in Nation’s Restaurant News and in
Beverage Media, a trade publication. They are each columnists for the online
wine magazine, WineReviewOnline.com. Ed and Mary are both accredited as
Certified Wine Educators (CWE).
When they aren’t writing, teaching, or visiting wine regions, Mary and Ed maintain
a busy schedule of speaking, judging at professional wine competitions,
and tasting as many new wines as possible. They admit to leading thoroughly
unbalanced lives in which their only non-wine pursuits are hiking in the
Berkshires and the Italian Alps. At home, they wind down to the tunes of U2,
K.D. Lang, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young in the company of their feline roommates
Dolcetto, Black & Whitey, Ponzi, and Pinot.
Authors’ Acknowledgments
The wine world is dynamic — it’s constantly changing. Because three years
have passed since the third edition of Wine For Dummies, we decided to
revise and update the book. We especially felt an obligation to write this
fourth edition because of all the readers who have personally told us how
valuable Wine For Dummies has been to them. We are grateful that we’ve
been able to contribute to your knowledge about this wonderful beverage.
But this book would not have been possible without the team at Wiley. We
sincerely thank Publisher Diane Steele, who engaged us to write the fourth
edition of Wine For Dummies, along with Acquisitions Editor Stacy Kennedy.
Really special thanks go to our Project Editor, Traci Cumbay, who made excellent
suggestions to improve the text.
We thank our technical reviewer, colleague Igor Ryjenkov, MW, for his expertise.
It’s a better, more accurate book because of you.
Special thanks to Steve Ettlinger, our agent and friend, who brought us to the
For Dummies series in the first place, and who is always there for us.
We thank all our friends in the wine business for your information and kind
suggestions for our book; the book reviewers, whose criticism has been so
generous; and our readers, who have encouraged us with your enthusiasm
for our previous books in this series.
Mary offers special thanks to Linda Lawry and everyone else at International
Wine Center, who enabled her to have the time and the peace of mind to work
on this book. Thanks also to Elise McCarthy, E.J. McCarthy, Cindy McCarthy
Tomarchio and her husband, David, for their encouragement and support.
Introduction
We love wine. We love the way it tastes, we love the fascinating variety
of wines in the world, and we love the way wine brings people together
at the dinner table. We believe that you and everyone else should be able to
enjoy wine — regardless of your experience or your budget.
But we’ll be the first to admit that wine people, such as many wine professionals
and really serious connoisseurs, don’t make it easy for regular people
to enjoy wine. You have to know strange names of grape varieties and foreign
wine regions. You have to figure out whether to buy a $20 wine or an $8 wine
that seem to be pretty much the same thing. You even need a special tool to
open the bottle once you get it home!
All this complication surrounding wine will never go away, because wine is a
very rich and complex field. But you don’t have to let the complication stand
in your way. With the right attitude and a little understanding of what wine is,
you can begin to buy and enjoy wine. And if, like us, you decide that wine is
fascinating, you can find out more and turn it into a wonderful hobby.
Because we hate to think that wine, which has brought so much pleasure into
our lives, could be the source of anxiety for anyone, we want to help you feel
more comfortable around wine. Some knowledge of wine, gleaned from the
pages of this book and from our shared experiences, will go a long way toward
increasing your comfort level.
Ironically, what will really make you feel comfortable about wine is accepting
the fact that you’ll never know it all — and that you’ve got plenty of company.
You see, after you really get a handle on wine, you discover that no one knows
everything there is to know about wine. There’s just too much information,
and it’s always changing. And when you know that, you can just relax and enjoy the stuff.
About This Book
If you already have a previous edition of Wine For Dummies, you may be
wondering whether you need this book. We believe that you do. We wrote
Wine For Dummies in 1995, and the world of wine has changed a lot since then.
It has even changed since our third edition in 2003:
Dozens of wineries have opened, a few have gone out of business, many
have improved, and a few have slipped. Web sites on wine have come
and gone. The wine auction scene bears almost no resemblance to what
it was. Our recommendations reflect all these changes.
Remember those prices that we listed for your favorite wines in our earlier
editions? Well, big surprise: Just about all those prices have increased.
But we point out some bargains, especially in Parts III, IV, and V.
Several new vintages have occurred; we give you the lowdown on them
throughout the book, and especially in our vintage chart in Appendix C.
Great wine regions of yesterday, such as Spain, Hungary and Greece,
have revitalized themselves, and we tell you about them. Also in this
edition, we’ve updated the wine regions of Italy, California, Washington,
Chile, and Argentina, among others.
We wrote this book to be an easy-to-use reference. You don’t have to read it
from cover to cover for it to make sense and be useful to you. Simply turn to
the section that interests you and dig in.
Conventions Used in This Book
To help you navigate this book, we’ve established the following conventions:
Italic is used for emphasis and to highlight new words or terms that are defined.
Monofont is used for Web addresses.
Sidebars, which are shaded boxes of text, consist of information that’s
interesting but not necessarily critical to your understanding of the topic.
How This Book Is Organized
This book is a wine textbook of sorts, a user’s manual, and a reference book, all
in one. We’ve included very basic information about wine for readers who know
nothing (or next to nothing) about wine — but we have also included tips, suggestions,
and more sophisticated information for seasoned wine drinkers who
want to take their hobby to a more advanced level. Depending on where you
fall on the wine-knowledge gradient, different chapters will be relevant to you.
Part I: Getting to Know Wine
The five chapters in Part I get you up and sipping even if you’ve never tasted
wine in your life. We tell you the basic types of wine, how to taste it, which
grapes make wine, why winemaking matters, and how wines are named.
Part II: Wine and You: Up Close and Personal
This part deals with practical wine matters — in the wine shop, in the restaurant,
and in your home. Find out how to handle snooty wine clerks, restaurant
wine lists, and those stubborn corks. In addition, we show you how to decipher
cryptic wine labels.
Part III: The “Old World” of Wine
Visit this part for a tour of the major wine regions of Europe: France, Italy,
Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, and Greece.
Part IV: Discovering the New World of Wine
Here we adventure to Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, and South
Africa, and then take a look at the major wine areas in the United States —
California, Oregon, Washington, and New York — and end with a quick look at Canada’s wines.
Part V: Wine’s Exotic Face
Some of the most exciting and fascinating wines are in this part, including
Champagne, Sherry, Port, Sauternes, and other exotic dessert wines.
Part VI: When You’ve Caught the Bug
You find a wealth of practical advice in this part, including recommendations
on where and how you can buy wine beyond your local wine shops. We tell
you how to describe and rate wines you taste, and how to pair food and wine.
We also tell you how to store wine properly, and how to pursue your love and
knowledge of wine beyond this book.
Part VII: The Part of Tens
What For Dummies book would be complete without this part? It’s a synopsis
of interesting tips and recommendations about wine to reinforce our suggestions
earlier in the book. We’re particularly happy to debunk ten prevalent
myths about wine so that you can become a savvier consumer and a more
satisfied wine drinker.
Part VIII: Appendixes
In Part VIII, we show you how to pronounce foreign wine words, and you can
look up unfamiliar wine terms in our glossary. You can also consult our vintage
chart to check out the quality and drinkability of your wine.
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File Size
| 9,935 KB |
Pages
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433 p |
File Type
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ISBN-13
ISBN-10 | 978-0-470-04579-4 0-470-04579-5 |
Copyright
| 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc |
Contents at a Glance
Introduction ....................1
Part I: Getting to Know Wine.............7
Chapter 1: Wine 101 ..............................9
Chapter 2: These Taste Buds Are for You.......................21
Chapter 3: Pinot Envy and Other Secrets about Grape Varieties.......35
Chapter 4: Wine Names and Label Lingo...................49
Chapter 5: Behind the Scenes of Winemaking ........................67
Part II: Wine and You: Up Close and Personal...............75
Chapter 6: Navigating a Wine Shop........................77
Chapter 7: Confronting a Restaurant Wine List ...................89
Chapter 8: The Insider’s Track to Serving and Using Wine................105
Part III: The “Old World” of Wine ................125
Chapter 9: Doing France .............................127
Chapter 10: Italy, the Heartland of Vino .......................167
Chapter 11: Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Beyond .................187
Part IV: Discovering the New World of Wine ...............211
Chapter 12: The Southern Hemisphere Arises..............213
Chapter 13: America, America ...................231
Part V: Wine’s Exotic Face........................263
Chapter 14: Champagne and Other Sparklers ...................265
Chapter 15: Wine Roads Less Traveled: Fortified and Dessert Wines...........287
Part VI: When You’ve Caught the Bug ........................307
Chapter 16: Buying and Collecting Wine .....................309
Chapter 17: Continuing Education for Wine Lovers................327
Chapter 18: Describing and Rating Wine.................341
Chapter 19: Marrying Wine with Food.......................349
Part VII: The Part of Tens ...................355
Chapter 20: Answers to Ten Common Questions about Wine...............357
Chapter 21: Ten Wine Myths Demystified ...............363
Part VIII: Appendixes....................369
Appendix A: Pronunciation Guide to Wine Terms .............371
Appendix B: Glossary of Wine Terms .............377
Appendix C: Vintage Wine Chart: 1985–2004 .............385
Index ..........389
Table of Contents
Introduction.....................1
About This Book.........................1
Conventions Used in This Book .............2
Foolish Assumptions .....................2
How This Book Is Organized..........................3
Part I: Getting to Know Wine.................3
Part II: Wine and You: Up Close and Personal ........3
Part III: The “Old World” of Wine...................3
Part IV: Discovering the New World of Wine...........4
Part V: Wine’s Exotic Face ...................4
Part VI: When You’ve Caught the Bug...................4
Part VII: The Part of Tens ...................4
Part VIII: Appendixes ........................4
Icons Used in This Book........................5
Part I: Getting to Know Wine
Chapter 1: Wine 101
How Wine Happens..........................................................................................9
What could be more natural? .............................................................10
Modern wrinkles in winemaking.........................................................10
The main ingredient .............................................................................10
Local flavor............................................................................................11
What Color Is Your Appetite? .......................................................................11
(Not exactly) white wine .....................................................................11
Is white always right?...........................................................................12
Red, red wine ........................................................................................14
A rose is a rose, but a rosé is “white” ................................................15
Which type when? ................................................................................16
Other Ways of Categorizing Wine.................................................................16
Table wine .............................................................................................17
Dessert wine..........................................................................................18
Sparkling wine (and a highly personal spelling lesson) ..................19
Chapter 2: These Taste Buds Are for You
The Special Technique for Tasting Wine.....................................................21
Savoring wine’s good looks.................................................................22
The nose knows....................................................................................23
The mouth action .................................................................................25
Parlez-Vous Winespeak? ................................................................................27
The sequential palate ..........................................................................28
The flavor dimension...........................................................................29
The Quality Issue ...........................................................................................30
What’s a good wine?.............................................................................31
What’s a bad wine?...............................................................................33
The Final Analysis: Do You Like It? ..............................................................34
Chapter 3: Pinot Envy and Other Secrets about Grape Varieties
Why Grapes Matter........................................................................................35
Of genus and species ...........................................................................36
A variety of varieties ............................................................................36
How grapes vary...................................................................................37
Grape royalty and commoners...........................................................39
A Primer on White Grape Varieties ..............................................................40
Chardonnay...........................................................................................40
Riesling ..................................................................................................41
Sauvignon Blanc ...................................................................................42
Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio.........................................................................43
Other white grapes...............................................................................43
A Primer on Red Grape Varieties..................................................................45
Cabernet Sauvignon .............................................................................45
Merlot.....................................................................................................45
Pinot Noir ..............................................................................................46
Syrah/Shiraz..........................................................................................46
Zinfandel................................................................................................47
Nebbiolo ................................................................................................47
Sangiovese.............................................................................................47
Tempranillo ...........................................................................................48
Other red grapes ..................................................................................48
Chapter 4: Wine Names and Label Lingo
The Wine Name Game ...................................................................................49
Is it a grape? Is it a place?....................................................................50
Hello, my name is Chardonnay...........................................................50
Hello, my name is Bordeaux................................................................51
Wines named in other ways ................................................................55
Wine Labels, Forward and Backward ..........................................................57
The mandatory sentence ....................................................................58
Some optional label lingo ....................................................................62
Chapter 5: Behind the Scenes of Winemaking
Grapegrowing, Winemaking, and the Jargon that Surrounds Them........67
Viti-vini...................................................................................................68
Vine-growing variations.......................................................................69
Winemaking wonders...........................................................................70
Even More Winemaking Terms.....................................................................72
Part II: Wine and You: Up Close and Personal
Chapter 6: Navigating a Wine Shop
Buying Wine Can Intimidate Anyone ...........................................................77
Wine Retailers, Large and Small ...................................................................78
Supermarkets, superstores, and so on ..............................................79
Wine specialty shops ...........................................................................80
Choosing the Right Wine Merchant .............................................................82
Putting price in perspective................................................................82
Evaluating selection and expertise ....................................................82
Expecting service with a smile ...........................................................83
Judging wine storage conditions........................................................83
Strategies for Wine Shopping .......................................................................84
See a chance, take it.............................................................................85
Explain what you want.........................................................................85
Name your price ...................................................................................87
Chapter 7: Confronting a Restaurant Wine List
The Restaurant Wine Experience.................................................................89
How Wine Is Sold in Restaurants .................................................................90
The choice of the house ......................................................................90
Premium pours .....................................................................................91
Special, or reserve, wine lists .............................................................92
The (anything but) standard wine list...............................................93
How to Read a Wine List ...............................................................................94
Sizing up the organization of the list .................................................94
Getting a handle on the pricing ..........................................................96
What the wine list should tell you......................................................96
Assessing the list’s style......................................................................97
Digital browsing....................................................................................97
Ordering Your Wine .......................................................................................98
Handling the Wine Presentation Ritual .....................................................100
Restaurant Wine Tips ..................................................................................102
Chapter 8: The Insider’s Track to Serving and Using Wine
Getting the Cork Out....................................................................................105
The corkscrew not to use..................................................................106
The corkscrew to buy ........................................................................107
Other corkscrews worth owning......................................................108
Waiter, there’s cork in my wine!........................................................110
A special case: Opening Champagne and sparkling wine .............111
Does Wine Really Breathe? .........................................................................113
How to aerate your wine ...................................................................113
Which wines need aerating? .............................................................113
Does the Glass Really Matter? ....................................................................115
The right color: none .........................................................................116
Thin but not tiny.................................................................................116
Tulips, flutes, trumpets, and other picturesque
wine-glass names ............................................................................117
How many glasses do I need, anyway?............................................119
Washing your wine glasses ...............................................................119
Not Too Warm, Not Too Cold......................................................................119
Keeping Leftover Wine ................................................................................121
Entertaining with Wine................................................................................122
First things first ..................................................................................123
How much is enough..........................................................................123
Part III: The “Old World” of Wine
Chapter 9: Doing France
The French Model ........................................................................................127
Understanding French wine law .......................................................128
Fine distinctions in the ranks ...........................................................129
France’s Wine Regions.................................................................................130
Bordeaux: The Incomparable .....................................................................131
The subregions of red Bordeaux ......................................................133
The Médoc mosaic .............................................................................134
Classified information........................................................................135
Bordeaux to try when you’re feeling flush ......................................137
The value end of the Bordeaux spectrum.......................................138
Practical advice on drinking red Bordeaux.....................................140
Bordeaux also comes in white..........................................................141
Burgundy: The Other Great French Wine..................................................142
Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Gamay........................................................143
Districts, districts everywhere .........................................................143
From the regional to the sublime .....................................................144
The Côte d’Or: The heart of Burgundy............................................146
Côte Chalonnaise: Bargain Burgundies ...........................................152
Chablis: Unique white wines.............................................................153
Mâcon: Affordable whites..................................................................154
Beaujolais: As delightful as it is affordable .....................................155
The Hearty Rhônes of the Valley................................................................158
Generous wines of the south ............................................................158
Noble wines of the north...................................................................159
The Loire Valley: White Wine Heaven........................................................160
Alsace Wines: French, Not German............................................................162
The South and Southwest ...........................................................................163
The Midi: France’s bargain basement..............................................164
Timeless Provence .............................................................................164
Southwest France ...............................................................................165
Other French Wine Regions ........................................................................166
Chapter 10: Italy, the Heartland of Vino
The Vineyard of Europe...............................................................................167
The ordinary and the elite ................................................................169
Categories of Italian wine, legally speaking ....................................170
Italy’s wine regions.............................................................................170
Reds Reign in Piedmont ..............................................................................172
Weekday reds......................................................................................173
Whites in a supporting role...............................................................175
Tuscany the Beautiful..................................................................................175
Chianti: Italy’s great, underrated red...............................................175
Monumental Brunello di Montalcino ...............................................177
Vino Nobile, Carmignano, and Vernaccia ........................................179
Two more reds and a white...............................................................179
Super-Tuscans ....................................................................................180
Tre Venezie....................................................................................................182
Three gentle wines from Verona.......................................................182
The Austrian-Italian alliance .............................................................183
The far side: Friuli-Venezia Giulia .....................................................184
Snapshots from the Rest of Italy ................................................................185
Chapter 11: Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Beyond
Intriguing Wines from Old Spain ................................................................188
Rioja rules the roost...........................................................................189
Ribera del Duero challenges .............................................................191
Priorato: Emerging from the past.....................................................191
Five other Spanish regions to watch................................................192
Portugal: More Than Just Port ...................................................................194
Portugal’s “green” white....................................................................195
Noteworthy Portuguese red wines ..................................................195
Germany: Europe’s Individualist ................................................................197
Riesling and its cohorts.....................................................................197
Germany’s wine laws and wine styles..............................................198
Germany’s wine regions.....................................................................200
Switzerland’s Stay-at-Home Wines .............................................................203
Austria’s Exciting Whites (and Reds) ........................................................204
The Re-emergence of Hungary ...................................................................205
The Glory That Is Greece ............................................................................207
Part IV: Discovering the New World of Wine
Chapter 12: The Southern Hemisphere Arises
Australian Wine Power ................................................................................215
Winemaking, grapes, and terroir ......................................................215
Australia’s wine regions.....................................................................216
The Rise of New Zealand.............................................................................219
Chile Discovers Itself ...................................................................................221
Chile’s wine regions ...........................................................................222
The face and taste of the wines ........................................................223
Argentina, a Major League Player ..............................................................225
Regions and grapes ............................................................................225
Names to know ...................................................................................226
South African Wine Safari............................................................................227
South Africa’s principal wine regions ..............................................227
Steen, Pinotage, and company..........................................................228
Chapter 13: America, America
The New World of American Wine .............................................................231
Homegrown ways ...............................................................................232
Playing by their own rules ................................................................232
California, USA..............................................................................................233
Where California wines grow............................................................234
When the wines are good ..................................................................236
Napa Valley: As Tiny as It Is Famous..........................................................236
The grapes of Napa ............................................................................237
Who’s who in Napa (and for what) ..................................................237
Down-to-Earth in Sonoma ...........................................................................241
Sonoma’s AVAs....................................................................................241
Sonoma producers and wines ..........................................................242
Mendocino and Lake Counties ...................................................................244
San Francisco Bay Area ...............................................................................245
Santa Cruz Mountains..................................................................................246
What’s New in Old Monterey ......................................................................246
Thar’s Wine in Them There Foothills ........................................................248
Contrasts in San Luis Obispo .....................................................................249
Santa Barbara, Californian Paradise ..........................................................250
Elsewhere in California................................................................................251
Oregon, A Tale of Two Pinots .....................................................................252
Oregon’s other Pinot..........................................................................252
Who’s who in Willamette Valley........................................................253
Two other Oregon wine regions .......................................................254
Wine on the Desert: Washington State ......................................................255
Washington’s wine regions................................................................256
Who’s who in Washington .................................................................257
The Empire State ..........................................................................................259
Upstate, downstate ............................................................................259
Who’s who in New York .....................................................................260
Oh, Canada....................................................................................................261
Ontario.................................................................................................261
British Columbia.................................................................................262
Part V: Wine’s Exotic Face
Chapter 14: Champagne and Other Sparklers
All That Glitters Is Not Champagne ...........................................................266
Sparkling Wine Styles ..................................................................................267
How sweet is it? ..................................................................................267
How good is it? ...................................................................................268
How Sparkling Wine Happens.....................................................................269
Tank fermentation: Economy of scale..............................................269
Bottle fermentation: Small is beautiful ............................................270
Taste: The proof of the pudding .......................................................271
Champagne and Its Magic Wines ...............................................................272
What makes Champagne special......................................................273
Non-vintage Champagne....................................................................273
Vintage Champagne ...........................................................................274
Blanc de blancs and blanc de noirs .................................................276
Rosé Champagne................................................................................276
Sweetness categories.........................................................................277
Recommended Champagne producers ...........................................277
Other Sparkling Wines.................................................................................279
French sparkling wine........................................................................280
American sparkling wine ...................................................................280
Italian spumante: Sweet or dry.........................................................282
Spanish sparkling wines (Cava)........................................................283
Southern stars ....................................................................................284
Buying and Serving Bubbly.........................................................................284
Chapter 15: Wine Roads Less Traveled:
Fortified and Dessert Wines
Timing Is Everything....................................................................................287
Sherry: A Misunderstood Wine ..................................................................288
The Jerez triangle ...............................................................................288
The phenomenon of flor....................................................................289
Communal aging .................................................................................289
Two makes twelve ..............................................................................290
Serving and storing Sherry ...............................................................292
Recommended Sherries.....................................................................293
Montilla: A Sherry look-alike.............................................................294
Marsala, Vin Santo, and the Gang ..............................................................294
Port: The Glory of Portugal ........................................................................295
Home, home on the Douro ................................................................295
Many Ports in a storm .......................................................................296
Storing and serving Port....................................................................298
Recommended Port producers ........................................................299
Long Live Madeira........................................................................................300
Timeless, indestructible, and tasty..................................................300
Endless finish ......................................................................................301
Sauternes and the Nobly Rotten Wines.....................................................303
Sauternes: Liquid gold .......................................................................303
Mining the gold ...................................................................................304
Recommended Sauternes..................................................................304
Letting baby grow...............................................................................306
Sauternes look-alikes .........................................................................306
Part VI: When You’ve Caught the Bug
Chapter 16: Buying and Collecting Wine
Wines That Play Hard to Get.......................................................................309
Playing Hardball ...........................................................................................310
Buying wines at auctions...................................................................310
Buying wine by catalog or Internet ..................................................312
Some U.S. wine stores worth knowing.............................................313
Wine online..........................................................................................315
The Urge to Own: Wine Collecting .............................................................316
Balancing your inventory..................................................................317
Organization is peace of mind ..........................................................320
A Healthy Environment for Your Wines ....................................................321
The passive wine cellar .....................................................................321
If you can’t be passive, be bullish ....................................................322
Wine caves for apartment dwellers .................................................325
Chapter 17: Continuing Education for Wine Lovers
Back to the Classroom.................................................................................327
One wine school in action.................................................................328
Wine tastings of all shapes and sizes...............................................329
When in Rome . . ................................................................................330
Dinner with the winemaker...............................................................332
Visiting the wineries...........................................................................333
Armchair Travel ...........................................................................................334
Recommended books ........................................................................334
Wine magazines and newsletters .....................................................337
Internet newsletters and interesting sites ......................................338
Chapter 18: Describing and Rating Wine
Words Cannot Describe . . ..........................................................................341
When It’s Your Turn to Speak .....................................................................343
Organizing your thoughts..................................................................343
Writing tasting notes..........................................................................344
Describing wine: Purism versus poetry ..........................................346
Rating Wine Quality .....................................................................................347
Chapter 19: Marrying Wine with Food
The Dynamics of Food and Wine................................................................349
Tannic wines .......................................................................................351
Sweet wines.........................................................................................351
Acidic wines ........................................................................................351
High-alcohol wines .............................................................................352
Birds of a Feather, or Opposites Attract?..................................................352
The Wisdom of the Ages .............................................................................354
Part VII: The Part of Tens
Chapter 20: Answers to Ten Common Questions about Wine
What’s the best wine?..................................................................................357
When should I drink this wine? ..................................................................358
Is wine fattening?..........................................................................................358
What grape variety made this wine? .........................................................359
Which vintage should I buy?.......................................................................359
Are there any wines without sulfites? .......................................................360
What are organic wines? .............................................................................360
What is a wine expert? ................................................................................361
How do I know when to drink the special
older wines I’ve been keeping? ...............................................................361
Do old wines require special handling? ....................................................362
Chapter 21: Ten Wine Myths Demystified
The best wines are varietal wines..............................................................363
Wine has to be expensive to be good........................................................363
Dark-colored reds are the best red wines.................................................364
White wine with fish, red with meat ..........................................................364
Numbers don’t lie.........................................................................................365
Vintages always matter/vintages don’t matter ........................................365
Wine authorities are experts ......................................................................366
Old wines are good wines ...........................................................................367
Great wines are supposed to taste bad when they’re young .................367
Champagnes don’t age ................................................................................368
Part VIII: Appendixes
Appendix A: Pronunciation Guide to Wine Terms
Appendix B: Glossary of Wine Terms
Appendix C: Vintage Wine Chart: 1985–2004
Index........................................................................389
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