Winewise, Second Edition

Price: $18.46
(as of Feb 17, 2024 02:06:09 UTC – Details)

Now completely revised and updated, this new edition of the essential consumer guide to wine features all the most current information for today’s wine landscape. The authors, longtime wine educators at The Culinary Institute of America, have added all the latest and most relevant information to their award-winning book, including new picks for the best regional producers, off-the-beaten-path finds, and bargain bottles. With a practical, anti-snob attitude, the emphasis is always on enjoying wine to the fullest in real-world scenarios and getting the best value for your dollar, whether splurging on a special-occasion bottle or deciding on your own “house” wine. All the basics are covered, including the major wine grapes, flavor profiles, and decoding labels, plus up-to-date information on established and up-and-coming regions, advice on pairing wine with everything from Korean short ribs to all-American burgers, opinions on wine gadgets (yea or nay?), and more. Cheers!

From the Publisher

WineWise Wine Tasting: Do Try This at Home

The real fun of tasting wine is tasting for pleasure, exploring what appeals to you about a particular wine, and sharing that enthusiasm, that pleasure with others. The best place to do this is at home, with friends, in a relaxed atmosphere of conviviality and generosity. Some basics are below.

Use wine glasses

Don’t use clear plastic cups, which make the wine taste like clear plastic cups. Most people don’t have enough glasses, so here’s a hint: rather than burdening your guests with a request to bring glasses from home, check out the local party rental folks. You’ll be surprised how inexpensive it is to rent two or three racks of glasses.

Provide spit cups and napkins

Tasting involves four steps: looking (judging the color of the wine), smelling (the “nose” of the wine), tasting (sampling a small amount of wine and swishing it around in the mouth), and spitting. That’s right, part of tasting is spitting the wine into a spittoon or spit cup. While you’re at the party place renting glasses, pick up a sleeve of 16-ounce (480 milliliter) paper cups, and place one at every setting. You may not be able to enforce spitting at a home wine tasting, but especially if your friends are driving away from the tasting, you can certainly encourage it. A couple of good-quality white paper napkins should be placed at each setting, too.

Bread and water

Water should be plentiful and available. A few bread baskets filled with crisp sliced baguettes and/or individual plates with water crackers should be available for cleansing the palate between wines. Make sure the bread or crackers are as neutral tasting as possible: no brioche, croissants, or flavored crackers because these will have a dramatic impact on the wine’s taste.

Tasting mats/tasting sheets

On your home computer you can make a tasting mat, or photocopy the one on pages 330–331 of WineWise. If you are tasting the wines blind—nobody at the tasting knows which wine is which until the big reveal—obviously the wines will be identified by number only. If you know what wines you are tasting, list them by name. We recommend listing each wine this way:

Product; special attribute, if any; producer; subregion, if any; region, if any; state (U.S.) or country; vintage, if any (write “NV” if nonvintage)

On the tasting mat, allow each taster to make notes on the color, nose, body, taste, and finish of each wine. You might also ask “Did you like it?” and/or “What would be a good dish to pair with this wine?”

Maps of the wine regions represented at your tasting

Looking at maps gives people a sense of place for the wines.

Serving size

You should pour between 1 and 2 ounces (30 and 60 milliliters) per person per wine; 1½ ounces (45 milliliters) is ideal. It’s very important to make sure your guests stay for at least a couple of hours after the tasting, and never let a friend drive drunk. If everybody is on the same page with the concept of the tasting, this should not be an issue.

What to serve

Think thematically: New World reds under $15, white wines from the Loire Valley, sparkling wines of the world, American wines not from California, zigging and zagging with Zinfandel. At home, we prefer tasting accessible, affordable wines that our friends can appreciate, enjoy, and can have some fun with, followed by a simple dinner, picnic, or cookout with the “partials,” the leftover wines. For an exotic and unexpected twist, have a tasting followed by a dinner of good Chinese takeout, the best pizza in town, or some exciting dishes from that new Lebanese restaurant. You get the picture.

As for us, we’ll be busy planning our next blind tasting at home: “$10.99 Rieslings: World-Class, Kick-Ass, or We’ll Pass.” See you there.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvest; 2nd edition (October 28, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0544334620
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0544334625
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.49 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 1.1 x 11 inches