Product Description
This full-colour, large-format book takes a radically different approach from the traditional geographical perspective and instead, looks at wines grouped by style: dry whites, medium whites, sweet whites, through to dry reds, sparkling and fortified wines. The advantage of this approach is that the reader can really begin to understand the varieties and tastes of wine and gain the ability to compare similar types of wine. It focuses heavily on practical wine tastin… More >>
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This starts with looking at the wine, then moves on to smelling the wine. It includes a page on flavor characteristics which is helpful to have. However, this book seems to fall short because while it gives definitions of all these different wine venues it does not tell me what the definitions mean or where the venues are. Unless you were an experienced sommelier you would have no idea where most of these locations are that the book talks about.
For one example it tells me to look out for “trocken” on the label or wine list but does not tell me why I’m looking for that word. Is it a place? A level of sweetness? I have no idea. I would think a book for beginners to teach themselves how to taste wine would at least tell me why I need to know these terms.
Another example it tells me to compare a Gewurztraminer with an Alsace. But it doesn’t tell me what I’m comparing or contrasting? And I thought Alsace was a place not a grape? Then it says to purchase a supermarket Gewurztraminer with a recognized house. I have no idea what the author is talking about. Is that suppose to mean to buy a cheaply priced bottle and a very expensive bottle? Our supermarkets don’t bottle wine.
Overall, it’s a very confusing and hit or miss book. I’m sure the author knows what he’s talking about but he didn’t get the message across to the rest of us.
Rating: 2 / 5