[wine] Well Red Reads (fwd - NYT)

FYI/FYE from NYT December 17, 2008 The Pour A Good Read Before You Sip By ERIC ASIMOV NO matter the condition of the economy, the state of the world or the weather, the annual holiday flood of books on wine gushes forth unimpeded. I.m often asked if I can recommend one authoritative introduction to wine. It.s tough, since the most important part of such an introduction, the bottles, are never included. But three new primers have entered the fray. Andrew Jefford.s Wine Course, by Andrew Jefford (Ryland Peters & Small, $29.95), takes a poetically inspirational tour of wines around the world. Mr. Jefford, a British writer whose book .The New France. (Mitchell Beazley, 2006) was terrifically insightful, seems more concerned here with the romantic potential of wine than its humdrum reality. Entreated with glossy photos and glossier words, readers may salivate their way to the wine shop, hoping to find a merlot that lives up to its description as .the most carnal of the world.s red wines,. or a German riesling that .barely seems like wine at all, and more like a subtle summary of the natural world.. Occasionally, his florid language can smother. I can imagine eyes rolling with impatience after reading his description of a well-aged nebbiolo .rolling around the mouth like the sound of gunshot off the hills, scenting the breath like a cachou and stiffening the blood like a national anthem.. Ouch! Still, there.s plenty here to test what your own senses will detect in a glass. To help with that assessment, Jancis Robinson offers a newly revised edition of her 2001 book How to Taste: A Guide to Enjoying Wine (Simon & Schuster, $26). It is indeed about critical tasting, rather than pleasure drinking, yet many of the skills Ms. Robinson teaches can become part of the unconscious routine of enjoying wine, ultimately enhancing the pleasure. Ms. Robinson writes with understated authority and whimsical self-deprecation. Reading this book will no more make you an expert than a guide to skiing will set you up for a downhill run, but it goes down easily. Both the Jefford and Robinson books take a British view of wine, concentrating far more on European than American vineyards. This may be historically just and sound, yet American readers may be more comfortable with more focus on the local. WineWise: Your Complete Guide to Understanding, Selecting and Enjoying Wine (Wiley, $29.95), by Steven Kolpan, Brian H. Smith and Michael A. Weiss, places far more emphasis on New World wines and attitudes. Beginners will find plenty of essential information about geography and winemaking, and the book can be read in easily digestible chunks. Sometimes .WineWise. is indeed wise, as when warning readers away from a dependence on critics. scores. The three authors are professors at the Culinary Institute of America, so perhaps it.s no surprise that .WineWise,. like many textbooks, seems written not to offend. In comparing what they term brand-name wines and terroir wines, .WineWise. asks: .Is one better than the other? Is beer-battered deep-fried cod better than seared yellowfin tuna? No, they are different concepts, different approaches.. To me, a more apt comparison would be of processed fast food to a homemade meal of carefully selected ingredients. They may both fill you up, but they won.t be equally nutritious. One of the biggest stories in American wine has been the explosive growth of pinot noir since the movie .Sideways. came out in 2004. John Winthrop Haeger, who wrote the prematurely exhaustive book .North American Pinot Noir. in 2003, now offers a comprehensive supplement, Pacific Pinot Noir (University of California Press, $21.95). Mr. Haeger does not republish the earlier book.s regional maps or history of pinot noir in North America. Instead, this new paperback offers a useful discussion of the evolution of pinot noir in the last few years, along with profiles of more than 200 pinot noir producers in California and Oregon. I especially appreciate that Mr. Haeger indicates his own favorite winemakers, to get a sense of his tastes in an otherwise dispassionate work. I.ve saved my favorite new book for last. Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country, by Robert V. Camuto (University of Nebraska Press, $24.95), is a slender volume with little obvious utility. Yet, to paraphrase the merchant and writer Kermit Lynch, an obvious model for this book, it inspires thirst and curiosity. Mr. Camuto, a journalist, moved to the south of France with his family several years ago, and a general interest in wine quickly became a passion for the wine itself, the people who produce it and the land. It.s fashionable now to bash France for its troubled wine industry, saddled by an entrenched bureaucracy, changing social mores and an inability to compete with less-regulated nations. Yet .Corkscrewed. reveals how little we understand the depth and richness of the relationship between the French and their wine. Just as a trip around the French countryside reveals dozens of dishes that never make it to French restaurants in the United States, Mr. Camuto.s adventures will introduce readers to little-known French wines like Domaine Borrely-Martin of Provence, Châau Mosséf Roussillon and Domaine des Tres Cantous of Gaillac, and to the passionate individuals that persevere despite the absence of monetary reward. These may not be the wines that earn one spurs as a connoisseur, but they certainly may produce a worthy sense of humility at how much there is to learn. I can.t wait to drink them. -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *