Is this the right book for me? Wine Tasting will help you to discover wines you enjoy, and to feel confident about your choices in every situation. It will give you a step-by-step guide to wine appreciation and explain the facts you need to find wines that suit your taste. It covers all the major grape varieties and wine-making styles, and offers plenty of practical information about how to buy, store and serve wine, whatever your personal preference. Wine Tasting includes: Part one: where to begin Chapter 1: Getting started Chapter 2: How to taste wine Part two: the flavours of wine Chapter 3: Grape varieties Chapter 4: Climate and place Chapter 5: The winemaker Chapter 6: Understanding your own taste Part three: Wines of the world Chapter 7: How to identify wine styles Chapter 8: Wine regions: Europe Chapter 9: Wine regions: the new world Part four: Buying, serving and storing wine Chapter 10: Wine with food Chapter 11: Serving wine Chapter 12: Understanding wine labels Chapter 13: Buying wine Chapter 14: Storing wine

Is it naff to take a bottle of wine to a dinner party? Are red wine and cheese really a match? Should you stick to the house plonk in restaurants? What's so funny about wine? Is it the fact that we take it so seriously? Ned Halley's affectionately irreverent wine jaunt unearths some of the quaint histories and dark secrets of many of the world's most famous wines. Instead of lordly suggestions for the cellar, here is vulgar advice on investing in wine for profit. Wine and health also comes under the spotlight: is it good for us or bad for us? And then there's wine criticism: are writers who tell you what to drink, and what not to drink, simply insane? There's a look, too, at wine marketing: are the biggest-selling brands as good as the hype?

An epic, scandal-plagued story of the immigrant family that built--and then spectacularly lost--a global wine empire

Set in California's lush Napa Valley and spanning four generations of a talented and visionary family, "The House of Mondavi" is a tale of genius, sibling rivalry, and betrayal. From 1906, when Italian immigrant Cesare Mondavi passed through Ellis Island, to the Robert Mondavi Corp.'s twenty-first-century battle over a billion-dollar fortune, award-winning journalist Julia Flynn brings to life both the place and the people in this riveting family drama.

The blood feuds are as spectacular as the business triumphs. Cesare's sons, Robert and Peter, literally came to blows in the 1960s during a dispute touched off by the purchase of a mink coat, resulting in Robert's exile from the family--and his subsequent founding of a winery that would set off a revolution in American winemaking. Robert's sons, Michael and Timothy, as passionate in their own ways as their visionary father, waged battle with each other for control of the company before Michael's expansive ambitions ultimately led to a board coup and the sale of the business to an international conglomerate.

A meticulously reported narrative based on thousands of hours of interviews, "The House of Mondavi" is bound to become a classic.

Features:

• Exciting New Drinks
• Frozen Blender Drinks
• Beer and Wine
• Punch
• Low-Calorie Drinks
• After-Dinner Drinks
• Non-Alcoholic Drinks
• Hot Drinks
• Aperitifs
• Holiday and Seasonal Drinks

Plus...

• Stocking the Bar
• Selecting Barware
• A Guide to Ingredients
• Making Toasts
• Responsible Bartending
• Responsible Drinking
• Party Planning
• Creating Theme Parties

For most people giving up the day job and moving to a beautiful area of France and living off the vines is an impossible but delicious dream. In 1990, Patricia Atkinson and her husband decided to sell up in Britain and emigrate to the Dordogne. Their idea was to buy a house with a few vines attached and employ someone to tend to the wine while they earned their living with some financial consultancy work. There followed a series of disasters: the stock market crashed leaving their small holding as their sole source of income; the first red wine harvest turned to vinegar; and Patricia's husband returned to Britain, unable to cope with the stress. He never returned. Patricia Atkinson, whose only knowledge of wine up to that moment was 'that it came from a bottle' and who had not a word of French, was left to salvage their life savings form the vineyards. What follows is a remarkable story of struggle and transformation whereby her tiny 4 hectare plot has become a major estate of 21 hectares, where her Clos d'Yvigne wines have won awards and been adopted by wine merchants throughout the world and where she has been hailed as a superstar by UK wine writers.

During the thirty-five years wine critic and writer Paul Gregutt has lived in the state of Washington, its wine industry has ballooned from a mere half dozen wineries to nearly five hundred. "Washington Wines and Wineries" offers a comprehensive, critical, and accessible account of the nation's second largest wine-producing region. Gregutt, who has covered Washington wine in books, newspapers, and magazines since the mid-1980s, enthusiastically dispenses information along with his editorial opinion, displaying the depth of his knowledge of the area, the players, the regions, and the wines. He points out the best vineyards, the most accomplished winemakers, the must-have wines, and the newcomers to watch. He rates wineries - not wines - with a unique and detailed 100-point scale, providing an insider's view of the best that Washington state has to offer. As the global wine industry reinvents itself for twenty-first-century palates, Washington is poised to become as important and influential as California on the world stage. "Washington Wines and Wineries" is the definitive reference book on the subject.