Worth looking at, flaws and all. Much better to watch at home as bathroom breaks will be required.
Literature
-
-
From Publishers Weekly
Anyone who's been swayed by the point system when buying wine—selecting a "93" over an "86," for example—can blame Robert Parker, founder of the newsletter the Wine Advocate and now considered by many to be the most influential wine critic ever. McCoy, a wine writer for Bloomberg and Food & Wine, points out that Parker can ruin a winery simply by stamping a sub-80 label on its product. In this amalgamation of biography and American wine mini-history, McCoy delves into how Parker became such a towering figure. Parker discovered fine wine on a European trip during college; his growing obsession with the grape prompted him to start the publication that would later change the way wine was rated, bought and consumed. Between snippets of Parker's life, McCoy tries to set the scene for his rise by explaining how wine consumption boomed in the U.S. in the 1970s. The background is useful, but it and other distracting forays into social history sometimes make the work feel disjointed. Another failing is McCoy's sometimes hagiographic depiction of Parker. But these quibbles knock this otherwise engrossing book down by only a few points on the taste scale.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. -
A must have for any wine lover. You can't separate wine and geography.
-
From Publishers Weekly
In 1976, a Paris wine shop arranged a tasting as a gimmick to introduce some California wines; the judges, of course, were all French and militantly chauvinistic. Only one journalist bothered to attend, a Time correspondent, looking for a possible American angle. The story he got turned out to be a sensation. In both red and white blind tastings, an American wine won handily: a 1973 Stag's Leap cabernet and a 1973 Chateau Montelena chardonnay. When the story was published the following week, it stunned both the complacent French and fledgling American wine industries—and things have never been the same since. Taber, the Time man, has fashioned an entertaining, informative book around this event. Following a brisk history of the French-dominated European wine trade with a more detailed look at the less familiar American effort, he focuses on the two winning wineries, both of which provide him with lively tales of colorful amateurs and immigrants making good, partly through willingness to experiment with new techniques. While the outrage of some of the judges is funny, this is a serious business book, too, sure to be required reading for American vintners and oenophiles. -
For any lover of French wine, this is a lavish guide to France’s most respected estates and sought-after wines. Internationally recognized wine expert Clive Coates profiles each domaine – from Latour to Romanée Conti to Trimbach – and describes the illuminating stories behind some of France’s most reputable châteaux and most famous wine families. There are extensive tasting notes for each of the domaines which are quoted from specific tasting events that the author has attended with details of dates and locations so that the reader gets a unique insight into the wines in context. -
Coates remains one of the most reliable commentators on Burgundy. Few know the terrain as well as he does.
-
The best basic (and I mean basic) book for the wine novice.
Click to View on Amazon