"Wine is, above all, about pleasure. Those who make it ponderous make it dull . . . If you keep an open mind and take each wine on its own terms, there is a world of magic to discover." So wrote the renowned wine expert Kermit Lynch in the introduction to Adventures on the Wine Route, his ultimate tour of France, especially its wine cellars. The "magic" of wine is Lynch's subject as he takes the reader on a singular journey through the Loire, Bordeaux, the Languedoc, Provence, northern and southern Rhone, and Burgundy. In Adventures on the Wine Route, the wine lover will find wisdom without a trace of pretension and hype. As Victor Hazan wrote, "In Kermit Lynch's small, true, delightful book there is more understanding about what wine really is than in everything else I have read." Praise for Lynch and for Adventures on the Wine Route has not ceased since the book's initial publication thirty years ago. In 2007, The New York Times called it "one of the finest American books on wine." And in June 2012, The Wall Street Journal proclaimed it "the best book on the wine business." Full of vivid portraits of French vintners, memorable evocations of the French countryside, and, of course, vibrant descriptions of French wines, this new edition of Adventures on the Wine Route updates a modern classic for our times.

For anyone who wants to understand the full story that lies within a glass of wine, this book opens up the inner secrets of the geology, the vineyards, the wines, and the growers of the northern Rhone Valley in France. Home to the spicy Syrah, or Shiraz, and the floral Viognier grapes, the northern Rhone Valley is one of France's oldest wine-growing regions; its appellations include Hermitage, Cote-Rotie, Condrieu, Crozes-Hermitage, St-Joseph, and Chateau-Grillet. With evocative descriptions and marvelous insights, this accessible, elegant book, the culmination of more than thirty years following the Rhone, is a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the various estates, winemakers, and their wines.Taking a deeper look at the northern Rhone than Livingstone-Learmonth's highly regarded previous volumes on the Rhone Valley, this revised and up-to-date edition covers more producers and includes more in-depth information on the various terroirs, the histories of the wines, and the methods for making the wines. Livingstone-Learmonth concentrates on letting the producers explain their outlook and methods and includes much local color. "The Wines of the Northern Rhone" includes: assessments of thousands of wines, with guide dates on when to drink and how long to age them; winemakers' views on what foods best accompany their wines; new vineyard maps for each appellation; detailed descriptions by growers discussing the effect of different soils on their wines; precise information on how each domaine makes its wines; and, new research on the historical links between Hermitage and Bordeaux.