Screwpull WA-121 Wine Cooler -

Tuscany: How to Find Great Wines Off the Beaten Track (Mitchell Beazley Discovering Wine Country) Customer Review: Tuscany revealed
Waldin has done it again! A terrific read.

This is a writer that really knows his subject. But his knowledge is conveyed in such a way that he doesn’t make the whole subject of wine intimidating. Nor does he patronize his readership.

Monty Waldin is one of the few wine writers out there that both literally and metaphorically is willing to get his hands dirty; he goes to these vineyards, he works on the vines and the soil and he is not beholden to any paymaster.

WARNING: It’ll make you want to go to Tuscany.

Gonzo Red Wine Out 356ml / 12oz large bottle -

Wines of Spain (Mitchell Beazley Wine Guides)

Wall Mounted Wine Rack -

The World Atlas of Wine Customer Review: Excellent book for the right audience
The ever increasing size of this book reflects the increasing interest in wine, so it now lands with an impressive thump on your desktop. Though its content doesn’t always reflect who that new market is.

The authors start with a, rather meandering, description of the history and production of wine and some basic notes on tasting, appreciation and handling of wine. Some of this is very useful, most of it is very basic for someone who already knows the subject and all of it could do with some editing to make the best of their material. Some of it punctures some of the myths about wine such as how long wines should be laid down and do you really need to let wine breath. Elsewhere they perpetuate some of those myths, for example they still seem to give the whole concept of ‘terroir’ an almost mystical reverence.

That introduction, however, is not really the point of this volume. This appears to be aimed at the new wine connoisseur or someone who wants to be a connoisseur. The real body of this is a fairly comprehensive atlas of vineyards and producers. The detail with which they cover their subject is variable but excusably so as it reflects the varying national interest in wine. So France is covered in incredible detail while England, however much it’s wine industry may be growing, is given one brief page. Annoying when you had hoped for something comprehensive but understandable. As long as you stick to well established wine producing regions and buy from those regions this will have something to tell you.

Which, excellent as it is, is also a problem this book has. Ninety per cent of the wine buying public, whether they are buying something cheap and nasty from tescos or something better from a merchant will be buying a blend; a chardonnay or shiraz whose provenance can be narrowed down no more closely than southern Australia, South Africa or so on. Good as those wines are this book doesn’t help in selecting them.

If you’ve moved from just buying a muscadet or whatever to buying ’something from the Loire Valley’ then this is ideal for you. If you want to do so then this is ideal. If you like wine and maps then this is interesting if not useful. If you, like me, are happy buying muscadet and merlot but have no real desire to take your wine buying much further then this is probably not for you. So, interesting but impractical for most of us but excellent for the right audience.

Customer Review: The World According to Wine
At 400 pages, British wine experts Huge Johnson and Jancis Robinson have created their most exhaustive atlas yet, and a tremendous resource. The book is gorgeous - with a generous amount of color illustrations, photos, and maps, including 2 page spreads. All told there are 48 extra pages over the previous edition.

The 6th edition contains 200 maps, all revised and updates, including 20 new maps. The introduction contains essays on wine in the ancient world, vine types, grape varieties, weather, terroir, the wine growers calendar, how wine is made, etc. etc. Robinson has said this new edition took two years of concentrated effort. It was worth it!

Then the authors dive deep into wine regions organized by country. Each region or country covered has a colored map, an essay about the characteristics of the reason, vital statistics, and a few wine labels. France has the most with 55 regions featured, indeed, a quarter of the volume (100 pages) is on France. Italy features 18 regions. Spain 9. Portugal 6. Germany 12. United States 17. Australia 12. New Zealand 4. Other countries covered include: England and Wales, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Western Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania, Former Soviet Republics, Greece, Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, South Africa, China, Japan, and the rest of Asia. I find the information scant on Chile and Argentina, which is odd given their increased market exposure and rising excellence of wines.

The authors have expanded New World coverage, in keeping with expanded exposure and quality of the wine produced in these regions, for Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, South America, and South Africa. These are additions, with nothing taken away from the previous fabulous coverage of Old & New World wine regions.

Since the first edition in 1971, the World Atlas of Wine has sold more than 4 million copies and I’m happy to add this new 6th edition to my library, especially at such a reasonable price. It’s always a pleasure to look up some background information on tonight’s glass of wine.

Barcraft Acrylic Double Walled Wine Cooler- gift boxed -

Understanding Wine Technology: The Science of Wine Explained Customer Review: Distinction
If you are studying for your WSET Diploma this is the book that will get you a distinction. Well written and engaging it demystifies a somewhat dry subject (forgive the pun).

Gonzo Red Wine Out 356ml / 12oz large bottle -

Wine Investment for Portfolio Diversification: How Collecting Fine Wines Can Yield Greater Returns Than Stocks and Bonds

Vacuvin Rapid Ice Wine & Champagne Cooler Classic Gift Set -

Best Italian Wines Customer Review: A must-have for Italian wine lovers
I’ve read most of Burton Anderson’s books on Italian wine and have always admired the author’s very personal approach to the wine and its producers. One of the good things about Anderson’s books is that he’s both a good critic on Italian wine as well as an enthusiastic Italophile.

“Best Italian Wines” has a very good mix of valuable information for readers who know a lot about Italian wines but also for the newcomer: Valuable information about labels and law, vinification on each favorite, a short but good glossary, vintages, price brackets, etc. … This man really knows what he’s talking about.

By the way, if you ever come across his older book “Vino” from 1982, read it. It’s an even closer look at Italian wine and its producers. I wish he one day would revise that book…
Customer Review: A must-have for Italian wine lovers
I’ve read most of Burton Anderson’s books on Italian wine and have always admired the author’s very personal approach to the wine and its producers. One of the good things about Anderson’s books is that he’s both a good critic on Italian wine as well as an enthusiastic Italophile.

“Best Italian Wines” has a very good mix of valuable information for readers who know a lot about Italian wines but also for the newcomer: Valuable information about labels and law, vinification on each favorite, a short but good glossary, vintages, price brackets, etc. … This man really knows what he’s talking about.

By the way, if you ever come across his older book “Vino” from 1982, read it. It’s an even closer look at Italian wine and its producers. I wish he one day would revise that book…

Fully assembled Wine Rack Dk Wood/Metal 30 Btle -

An Omelette and a Glass of Wine (Cook’s Classic Library) Customer Review: A SELECTION OF ED’S JOURNALISTIC WORK .
318 high quality pages casually interspersed with charming black and white illustrations and some photographs, this book is sure to appeal to the ‘Elizabeth David’ book collector.

REAR COVER QUOTE from JANE GRIGSON:-
“Every time we begin to feel fussed by the cookery elaborators with their flashy tricks and colour photos, we can restore confidence by returning to Elizabeth David.”
From Artemis Cooper’s ‘Writing at the Kitchen Table’, pg 307 - ‘An Omelette and a Glass of Wine’ delighted Elizabeth’s legion of fans. Jane Grigson praised it for including all the dishes most closely associated with her, Spiced Beef, Salted Welsh Duck and Syllabub.

‘Here for the first time is a selection of ED’s journalistic work written for a wide range of publications.
Articles, book reviews and travel pieces, they will be new to many of her readers and a delight to all for their highly personal flavour.
Her subjects range from the story of how her own cookery writing
began to accounts of some restaurants in provincial France, of white truffles in Piedmont, wild risottos on the islands of the Venetian lagoon and odd happenings during rain-drenched seaside holidays in the British Isles.
Here we can share the ED appreciation of books, people who influenced her, places she loved and the delicious meals she enjoyed. She writes so vividly that we can see, taste and even smell the dishes she describes.
pgs 50-51 ‘……everyone knows that the success of omelette-making starts with the pan and not with the genius of the cook…….As to the omelette itself, it seems to me to be a confection which demands the most straightforward approach.
What one wants is the taste of fresh eggs and fresh butter and visually a soft, bright golden roll plump, spilling out a little at the edges. It should not be a busy, important urban dish but something gentle and pastoral………And although there are those who maintain that wine and egg dishes don’t go together, I must say I do regard a glass or two of wine as, not obviously, essential - but at least as an enormous enhancement of the enjoyment of a well-cooked omelette……..
…….But we are not in any case considering the ‘great occasion’ menu but the almost primitive and elemental meal evoked by the words:-
‘Let’s just have an omelette and a glass of wine.’
Customer Review: The title says it all
In the UK today you could be forgiven for thinking that the era condemned by Ms David in many of her writings was a figment of someone’s imagination. Post-war shortages? Nasty and ersatz flavourings recommended as ingredients in recipes? Over-complicated and over-priced dishes in mediocre restaurants? How quaintly historic.

After all, we live surrounded by food and its images. There seem to be as many magazines featuring food as there are featuring improbably-breasted women on the top-shelf of the corner shop; book-stores are piled high with recipe books by chefs who have achieved celebrity status; and the question is often not ‘does your local supermarket sell balsamic vinegar,’ but, ‘how many kinds, and where from, exactly’?

So what is the point of reading this (or indeed any) of Elizabeth David’s books? The answer is as simple as the title of the book. David’s culinary lifetime was spent in encouraging the fresh, the simple and above all the fitting meal. This is much more than giving hints and recipes, or stunning yourself and your guests with exotic and hard-to-achieve perfection, it is an attitude of mind about eating and appreciating food. Lost in a welter of food from every country and culture in the world (I even discovered an Inuit recipe for seal-blubber ice-cream the other day, which is one ingredient I suspect my supermarket-of-choice has not got around to selling, at least as yet), David’s often ascerbic style when she writes about bad food provides as much relish as her descriptions of what is good.

And much as I might enjoy the occasional beautifully seared loin of some imported fish I’ve never tried before, on a bed of ginger and lemongrass flavoured veggies, with a something-or-other salsa,(to say nothing of the possibility of seal blubber ice-cream for pud), there are those days when only the perfectly simple will do. Perhaps a beautiful and simple omelette, with of course, a glass of chilled white wine. Enjoy!

Vacuvin Rapid Ice Wine Cooler Guy Buffet -

Bordeaux (Mitchell Beazley Wine Library)

Rta Folding Wine Rack 10 Bottle -

The Penguin Good Australian Wine Guide 2007 Customer Review: A Real Gem of a Book
I discovered this very helpful book while on holiday in Oz. As a novice wine taster,a previous edition served as my bible while visiting the Hunter Valley Region.The wine descriptions are still very vivid in this edition and will fire the imagination of any wine lover. The book is very well laid out providing clear quality and value ratings as well as background information on the different wine regions, on top of all that the book also gives recommendations on food/wine combinations. The only flaw in this book is that quite a few of the wines just aren’t easily available in the UK, if at all (which is why it only got 4 stars). But don’t let this dissuade you as new Aussie wines are always appearing in the UK.

Solid Pine 12 Bottle Wine Rack Kit -

Wine and Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking