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Wine Book: How to Choose Wine for Every Occasion
Azioni libro
Inizia a leggereLunghezza: 187 pagine1 ora
- Editore:
- Thunder Bay Press
- Pubblicato:
- Oct 21, 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781626860841
- Formato:
- Libro
Descrizione
Learn how to choose fine wine for every occasion!
Based on the best-selling Book-in-a-Box kits, The Wine Book is just what you need when you face the wine shelves in your local store and your mind goes blank! The book, packed with wine know-how, removes the mystique from keeping, serving and simply enjoying wine. Cheers!
Based on the best-selling Book-in-a-Box kits, The Wine Book is just what you need when you face the wine shelves in your local store and your mind goes blank! The book, packed with wine know-how, removes the mystique from keeping, serving and simply enjoying wine. Cheers!
Informazioni sul libro
Wine Book: How to Choose Wine for Every Occasion
Lunghezza: 187 pagine1 ora
Descrizione
Learn how to choose fine wine for every occasion!
Based on the best-selling Book-in-a-Box kits, The Wine Book is just what you need when you face the wine shelves in your local store and your mind goes blank! The book, packed with wine know-how, removes the mystique from keeping, serving and simply enjoying wine. Cheers!
Based on the best-selling Book-in-a-Box kits, The Wine Book is just what you need when you face the wine shelves in your local store and your mind goes blank! The book, packed with wine know-how, removes the mystique from keeping, serving and simply enjoying wine. Cheers!
- Editore:
- Thunder Bay Press
- Pubblicato:
- Oct 21, 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781626860841
- Formato:
- Libro
Informazioni sull'autore
Stuart George began his wine career working for the wine merchant Haynes Hanson & Clark. He then traveled extensively, visiting over 100 wineries throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In 2003 Stuart won the Circle of Wine Writers/Websters International Publishers Young Wine Writer of the Year Award. He is a regular contributor to many wine publications, including The World of Fine Wine, Wine International and Harpers Wine and Spirit Weekly.
Correlati a Wine Book
Anteprima del libro
Wine Book - Stuart George
WINE
Thunder Bay Press
An imprint of Printers Row Publishing Group
10350 Barnes Canyon Road, Suite 100, San Diego, CA 92121
www.thunderbaybooks.com
Text and maps copyright © 2005 Bibelot Limited
This edition copyright © 2011 BOOKINABOX
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Printers Row Publishing Group is a division of Readerlink Distribution Services, LLC.
Thunder Bay Press is a registered trademark of Readerlink Distribution Services, LLC.
All notations of errors or omissions should be addressed to Thunder Bay Press, Editorial Department, at the above address. All other correspondence (author inquiries, permissions) concerning the content of this book should be addressed to BOOKINABOX, St Chad’s House, 148 King’s Cross Road, London WC1X 9DH, info@bookinaboxeditions.com
Authors: Stuart George and Maggie Rosen
Publisher: Peter Norton
Associate Publisher: Ana Parker
Publishing/Editorial Team: April Farr, Kelly Larsen, Kathryn Chipinka, Aaron Guzman
Editorial Team: JoAnn Padgett, Melinda Allman
eISBN-13: 978-1-62686-084-1
Contents
Let’s get tasting
The basics
Learning the language
How to buy wine
How to store and serve wine
Grape expectations
FRANCE
GERMANY & AUSTRIA
ITALY
SPAIN & PORTUGAL
ELSEWHERE IN EUROPE
NORTH AMERICA
SOUTH AMERICA
SOUTH AFRICA
AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND
OTHER WORLD WINERIES
Index of grapes
Taster’s journal
Acknowledgements
Let’s get tasting
You may know more than you realize when it comes to being a good taster. Think of the things that you drink or eat every day: with tea or coffee, you know right away if it’s too sweet or too milky, and with a piece of toast you can taste if it’s burnt, even with your eyes closed, and so on.
Tasting wine properly is not difficult – it just takes a little practice and requires you to pay proper attention to what’s in the glass. You can probably spot the difference between two grape varieties right now, and making a more conscious effort to do this will enable you to compare different wines and learn the styles and flavours that you like best. You will also be able to tell when a wine is ‘faulty’ and why some is for everyday drinking, while some is considered ‘fine’ wine, to be saved for a special occasion.
Your common senses
The first step in learning how to taste wine is to explain to your wine merchant what you are doing and to ask for recommendations for several wines of the same colour but made from different grape varieties in the same price bracket.
Remember: drinking wine and tasting it are two different activities. If you’ve got six glasses in front of you and are trying to learn something about what’s in them, doing the former instead of the latter will incapacitate you a lot faster! That’s why professional wine tasters always spit. So, in addition to having something to spit into (a pitcher, a large glass, even a flowerpot – without a hole! – will all do), all you really need is a piece of white paper, a decent light source (daylight is best but not critical), a few identical dry, clean wine glasses, a notepad and a pen. Start by pouring each glass about a third full and you’re ready to begin.
The eyes have it
First off, take a good look at the wine. Tilt the glass against a white background. Is it clear? If it’s cloudy or has bits floating in it, it may be faulty. Fizz is ok in a sparkling wine, but not in still. The colour gives you the first clue as to what the wine might be. A deep red, for instance, and the wine is probably young, or from a hot climate. Notice how the colour changes from the centre of the glass to the rim. Young reds are more purple, evolving to brick and rich brown. White wines darken over time, but when young the colour can also hint at the origins and style. Whites that are deep gold are usually very sweet and rich.
SIGNS OF AGEING
All wines turn brown as they get old, and the rim is the first place to look for evidence of age.
What the nose knows
The next step is to sniff the wine. You may already have seen people sloshing wine around in the glass. This isn’t just for show: swirling gets air into the glass and releases the wine’s aromas. The aroma – or bouquet – will tell you first whether the wine is in good condition. You may not like the wine immediately, but it should smell ‘clean’, not unpleasantly musty, and it shouldn’t have a chemical aroma. When someone says a wine is ‘corked’, this means they detect a fault by smelling it (see page 48).
The intensity of the aromas gives hints about the quality of the wine in the glass. The aromas in lower-priced wines sometimes are not so pronounced, while finer wines may have very intense, complex aromas (sometimes called the ‘nose’). Age can also be discerned from the nose – while a young wine smells very fruity, the best older wines will soften and harmonize, and develop all sorts of fascinating aromas.
The taste test
Finally, the part that everyone has been waiting for – taking a good mouthful of wine. This should confirm the impressions you’ve already made, and add a few new ones. Slosh the wine all around your mouth, to your tongue and cheeks. With the middle of your tongue touching the top of your mouth, take a slow breath to draw some air into your mouth – make as much noise as you need to.
Like swirling the glass, slurping the wine is an important part of the exercise. It gets air inside the wine and releases its flavours. Your nose can sense the flavours in a wine but not its constituent parts – its acidity, alcohol, tannin, sweetness and bitterness. Once the mouthful has been swallowed – or better, spat out (there are no tastebuds in your throat) – the persistence of the flavour can be judged. In general, the longer the flavour lingers (the ‘length’), the better the wine.
Analyse this
Professional tasters devise their own shorthand and terms for describing the wines they taste, so they can compare like with like (or dislike!). That’s why you might hear expressions such as ‘cat’s pee on a gooseberry bush’ (the name of a real wine) or ‘jammier than an amateur rock band’.
Take note
Compile notes as you go along, and you’ll come up with your own shorthand and vocabulary (see pages 218–23). This will encourage you to pay attention, concentrate and analyse what you’re tasting. Eventually, if somebody asks what a wine is like, your notes will help you to say something definitive. They will also let you compare the same wine over a period of time – perhaps a year later – or compare different wines on different occasions.
The basics
Wine plays various roles, from thirst-quencher, ice-breaker and religious ritual-sealer, to deal-closer, special occasion-commemorator and end-of-day relaxer. It’s also a critical part of many a country’s economy. But mostly it’s a wonderful drink, a subject of constant fascination.
What is wine?
Wine is a complicated concoction of elements that interact with each other, leaving their trace in the liquid – which, by the way, never stops evolving. Wine is an organic product, ideally a balance of alcohol, tannins, acidity, fruitiness and sweetness. These ‘ingredients’ can be detected by different parts of the tongue and mouth.
Alcohol: the wine’s body
The alcohol in wine is known as ethyl alcohol (ethanol) and, besides giving you a little buzz, it helps preserve the liquid – for a few days once the bottle has been opened, and even for a few centuries if the bottle remains closed and stored properly. In a high-alcohol wine, the fumes will hit you before you even take a sip. Once in the mouth, you can detect alcohol at the back of your mouth. It will produce a slight burning sensation – but it shouldn’t be unpleasant. It is also what gives wine its weight – known as body – in the mouth. The higher the alcohol level, the more body the wine is said to have.
Tannin
Tannins, which
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