Wine Blog

Your questions, expert answers – Washington Post

Your questions, expert answers Washington Post … Range online discussions: I need to buy a bottle of port for a recipe. What's a decent, but inexpensive, brand? I've never had it before, but I figure this could also serve as a way for me to get accustomed to the wine by drinking what's left over. …

Online wine websites get mixed reviews – Reuters

Online wine websites get mixed reviews Reuters Online wine sales, garnered an estimated $4 billion in sales in 2011, according to BEM, which is forecasting that number to grow to $6.5 billion in 2012. Wine.com, WTSO.com WTSO.L, Invino.com, Vitius.com as well as others, rely on Twitter, Facebook and … and more »

A Moveable Thirst: Tales and Tastes from a Season in Napa Wine Country
A rollicking wine country travelogue paired with the only comprehensive guide to Napa’s public tasting rooms

Hank Beal is a wine pro–the executive wine buyer at an upscale supermarket chain. Rick Kushman is an ordinary joe–a guy who enjoys wine but doesn’t know a lot about it. Together, Hank and Rick set out to visit all 141 public tasting rooms in Napa during the course of a year. The result is A Moveable Thirst–an engaging, often hilarious book that’s one part Sideways, one part Frommer’s. The first part recounts their uproarious adventures on the road as Rick learns to sniff and spit like a true oenophile (but never stops asking stupid questions). The second part offers the most complete and detailed guide ever published to Napa’s wine rooms. For wine lovers and the more than 5 million people who visit Napa every year, A Moveable Thirst is a great read and an indispensable guide.

Customer Review: Funniest Wine Book Written
What a funny book. A 12 month journey visiting all wine tasting rooms in NAPA. Not a review of the wines, but a review of the tasting rooms. If you are into NAPA Wines, then this is the book to read. Each chapter is a short story. I would have given anything to be able to take their year long journey. Very well written….

Customer Review: Informative and Engaging Read
I loved this book! Not only is A Moveable Thirst an informative read, it was a pleasure to read. The writing mirrors the rollicking ride these two authors obviously enjoyed while on their “Quest” in the Napa Valley. Highly recommend this to both the wine obsessed and anyone planning a wine tasting trip. Great fun!

Conrad Hilton had ‘marijuana and two bottles of wine in car when he crashed’ – Daily Mail

Daily Mail

Conrad Hilton had 'marijuana and two bottles of wine in car when he crashed' Daily Mail Sgt. OC Smith of LAPD's West Traffic Division told Radar Online: 'By the time the police arrived at the scene Conrad had left but he had exchanged his details with the second driver and a witness. 'He complied with the law and as there were no known … and more »

Hugh Johnson’s the Story of Wine

Customer Review: great!
a comprehensive guide to the history of wine. grape wine that is, they don’t go much into sake or wines made from other products, though some are mentioned. it goes through many countries and time periods and was overall very readable for a history text.

Customer Review: The most delicious wine book
Hugh Johnson’s marvelous book in a partial answer to a question that few of us have had the sense to ask. While many of us will spend valuable hours wondering: `which wine?’ we rarely ask `why wine?’

What’s the big deal? Why so many books, why such intense feeling? Wine is just the fermented juice of grapes. Yes, and music is just organized noise and sex is merely one of the ways in which organisms ensure perpetuation of their type.

The reason for the passion isn’t to be found in alcohol alone. Almost any sugary solution will support fermentation, and it seems that just about every possible sweet liquid has been fermented from time to time. An amateur winemakers’ guide in my library lists recipes for the production of wines from almonds, apples, bananas, barley, beetroot, birch sap, cloves, clover, eggplant, guava, lemons, oak leaves, orange juice, parsley, parsnips, peapods, squash, tea, tomatoes, wallflowers, yarrow and yes, to complete the alphabet, zinnias.

These ‘wines’are all possible, but none of them exist. In fact, we restrict our winemaking to just a few varieties of grape. Why?
Aside from the many economic advantages, the fermented juice of grapes is delicious. At its most common, it’s a fresh and fruity drink that quenches the thirst and gladdens the heart. At its most exalted, the basic flavors of the grape are transformed by fermentation and aging into a symphony of aromas and tastes and lingering associations. Both the bountiful nature of grape vines and the enormous appeal of their fermented fruit’s juice has led civilized man to attach a lot of meaning to wine.

Johnson’s book, a slimmed down version of the earlier Vintage , not only reminds us that the question of wine’s importance needs to be asked, it goes a long way to providing an answer. His range of reference is impressive and his writing-witting and incisive-is impeccable. When you’re ready to try to understand how wine attained its place in the modern world, there’s no better place to start than this book.

Lynn Hoffman, author of The New Short Course in Wine

The All American Cheese and Wine Book
There’s a certain built-in fear factor to be found at any decent wine shop or cheese counter. With The All American Cheese and Wine Book Laura Werlin makes it all go away. This is the author who, with The New American Cheese, so ably demonstrated the fact that terrific cheeses of international quality are being made in the US. In this second volume she shows the reader how it is possible, with a little foreknowledge, to confront that retail fear and start making exciting choices of wines that will open up cheeses, and cheeses that will reveal the true nature of wine. You will find yourself moving gracefully from “Oh my God!” to “What a friend we have in cheeses!”

This is a very straightforward book, with chapters that include “All About Cheese,” and “All About Wine.” Here you will find the seven basic cheeses and how they are made, as well as information on winemaking and tasting. In “Bringing Cheese and Wine Together” Werlin gives us her ten basic guidelines as well as lists and charts that reveal clues for perfect matchings of wine and cheese. And then the heart of the book, the pairings of 50 cheese makers and wine makers throughout the US, which displays a real feel for the passion that underlies these two major product categories. These profiles are delightfully matched with recipes Werlin files under Hors d’Oeuvres, Pizzas, Cheese Plates, Cheese Bar, Picnics, and Desserts. This is a beautifully designed book with outstanding photography underscoring all that Laura Werlin has to share. –Schuyler Ingle

Customer Review: A beutiful cheese book
It is a beutiful book with which a cheese lover will be delighted. The photographs are wonderful. The only reason I gave it four stars, not five is that I think it is a bit pricey.

Customer Review: Wonderful wine and cheese pairings
This book is full of wonderful and interesting information about cheeses and wines that can go with them. Recipes are fun, if a little complicated. Lots of good info on where the cheeses come from.