Recommend a wine book

The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil is the best all-around wine book I've found. A great introduction for beginners, short course in tasting, descriptions of regions, wines, grapes. Readable, practical, and makes wine approachable. Chockfull of accurate detail too.

A Guide to the Wines of the Loire Valley is authoritative on the region, and despite the dry-sounding title is full of history, local factoids, and makes quite an interesting read. It is very good for explanations of terroir, history of grapes, explanations of why certain regions specialize in certain grapes. If the person is a history buff an EXCELLENT book is Wine and War, an interesting history of how the wine fared during, and was connected to, the world wars.

I'll check out the MacNeil -- that sounds like a good tip. I'm also intrigued by Jancis Robinson's Wine Course; anyone read that? She edited the Oxford book.

Wine And War was fascinating, and I'm familiar with the Loire book too, but can't leave out the New World and its vinous wonders.

Eonuos wonders? What is that wine word? Onology? Eonology?

The Brian Eno book was last year's present.

oenology

and are we going to talk about Beaujolais nouveau? it's out today you know!

OMG I totally forgot about that! Yes, do!

I haven't read Jancis Robinson's Wine Course, but I really enjoyed her autobiographical Tasting Pleasure, about how she fell into the wine industry by happenstance, and as a result got to drink some really amazing wines at a young age.

Mmmm, November is so fine for that reason. Just steer clear of the nasty DuBoeuf.

There's an awesome article in the new issue of Art Of Eating about beaujolais (not the nouveau stuff). It has gotten me very excited about a wine I was previously not so interested in, and Sunday I'm going to a tasting in Brooklyn to "sample all 10 'cru' zones of beaujolais"! I will report.

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Is there such a thing as a budget wine primer? As in - a book for a less-experienced wine appreciator to expand their knowledge without breaking the bank?

Nasty DuBoeuf??!!!

Remy: Robert Parker's buyers' guides include information for the budget-conscious oenophile; I think there's a section on The Best Wines Under $10.

Orbit: Yeah, DuBoeuf's beaujolais nouveaux taste muddyish to me. Plus the company's megamarketing and squeezing of small and medium-sized producers is sort of distasteful. I blame them for flattening the market and making it harder to find the more interesting, varied, organic, etc. beaujolais here very much. Some small producers won't export, or export only to Canada, because it's so hard to compete for shelf space in the U.S.

Jaq: How old is Jancis now, I wonder. Is she single?

I've never had nouveaux actually, I fear it might be too sweet. But you never know, so I want to try!

Alas Paul, she is married to Nick Lander. 50ish I think. Here's her site: http://www.jancisrobinson.com

Agreed about the DuBoeuf's btw. We found a yummy one by Louis Drouhin (but also a thin, pickled beet tasting one called L'Ancien from Terres Dorees) at Whole Foods (aka Whole Paycheck) two years ago. We had the Louis Drouhin again last year. And we are heading back to Seattle for the weekend, so may latch onto some more.

Teeny, I don't know about sweet, but it is a fruity light red. A fun kinda quaff. The first time I tried it was at lunch at the garden cafe place in the Met when we were on holiday. Three glasses went down easy (too easy) and we staggered around in that hall with all the greco roman stuff and weird perspective carved Last Supper thing for a good long while before we felt sober enough to brave the subway.

Oops, that's Joseph Drouhin, not Louis! We found it at Trader Joe's last year for about $9/bottle.

Remy, take a look at the Wine Brats' book or see if there's a chapter where you are. The Seattle chapter had to close up shop when they got askew of the law regarding permits for drinking type events, so I don't know how they are faring in the rest of the country. Good info on finding inexpensive drinkable wines and good ideas on getting more people to drink wine without getting all highbrow.

For the record, the small producers of outstanding beaujolais recommended by the Art of Eating article include: Guy Breton; Louis-Claude Desvignes; Jean Foilard; Paul Janin et Fils; Chateau de Thivin (I've tried this and find it fuller and more complex than most); and, yes, Domaine des Terres Dorees (touted for its low-alcohol, "more traditional" but organic style, with no mention of beets).

It was organic, I remember that being part of what inspired us to pick it up. My tasting notes though are: thin, poorly extracted, earthy like beets with slightly less vinegar. Maybe it was a just a bad bottle though.

One of our stops during the weekend will be at Esquin (http://www.esquin.com/). I'd like to pick up 1/2 a dozen different bottles to try and will see what they've got from the AoE list.

we got a duBoeuf case about a year ago and it was pretty decent but I can only stand so many light fruity reds in a short space of time.

Jancis Robinson does a few tv programmes over here and she's pretty damn good, obviously knows her stuff, avoid anything with the name Oz Clarke on though.

deBouef is a decent negociant wine in my experience. There amy be heat damaged bottles out there as a by product of US shipping and storage. My favorite low priced boujolais noveau is Louis Jadot.

I agree to differ. I've never tried Jadot's nouveau.

Can I recommend a wone website. This is target marketed directly at me:
http://www.macgourmet.com/2004/11/dessert-frozen-mint-chocolate-dessert.html

oops, that was wine website

The only small producer beaujolais nouveau we could find in Seattle was the Terres Dorees, so we got a bottle of that, 2 of the Joseph Drouhin, and one of Pierre something or other. We've already downed a bottle of the Drouhin and will do a tasting of the other two tomorrow.

I cannot get on with Beaujolais at all, I'm afraid.

it was all over the place in Lille last weekend but no, I'm with you Matt, it's all abit... I don't know......light. Not light in a good way though, just a bit airy-fairy.

We didn't pick up any wine at all this time but did find some amazing beers, which I should list somewhere, maybe on the pumpkin.

Ohh yes, please do.

Thing is, I do like light reds, but in any given situation where beaujolais would work I prefer a decent dry rose (most of the ones I've had that were Navarra have been the shiznit, search also South Africa).

HI DERE I R DUMBASS DO YUO HAVE REDCIP 4 CHEETOS SUFFLAY?