Wine books

by Darryl Beeson

With the holidays approaching, the following two classic wine books and two new contenders might make excellent gifts.

Windows on the World Complete Wine Course: 2009 Edition by Kevin Zraly (hard cover $24.95) Windows on the World, the restaurant, may be gone along with The World Trade Center towers. Zraly, after some personal time off to deal with the tragic loss, not of priceless wines but of fellow employees, resumed his teaching and writing. Each edition is even sharper than those before. "One of the best start-from-scratch wine books ever written."--Frank Prial, The New York Times. "A visually exciting, intelligently structured reference...an amusing and interesting format...asks all the pertinent questions, and then answers them in concise and uncomplicated language."--Anthony Dias Blue, Bon Appetit.

Wine For Dummies, by Ed McCarthy and Mary Ewing-Mulligan (soft cover $24)

Don't let the name fool you, even if you are an expert of sorts, this easy to read text teaches you what’s in and shows you how to take your passion for wine to the next level. If you’re new to wine, it will show what you’ve been missing. It begins with the basic types of wine, how wines are made, etc... Then it gets down to important specifics, including how to handle snooty wine clerks, the best ways to navigate restaurant wine lists, how to decipher cryptic, sometimes Gothic wine labels, and most importantly how to remove difficult corks. Authors Ed McCarthy, CWE, who is a regular contributor to Wine Enthusiast and The Wine Journal and Mary Ewing-Mulligan, MW, who owns the International Wine Center in New York, have co-authored six wine books in the For Dummies series. "We visit wineries all the time, and when we do, we usually end up talking with the winemaker about how he makes his wine," boasts McCarthy. This married couple does their research.

The Sommelier's Guide to Wine, by Brian Smith (hard cover $14.95)

Brian Smith, a leading wine educator at the Culinary Institute of America, AKA "the CIA," is a well-qualified guide to this sometimes intimidating subject. "If you want to make wine complicated, you can," Smith says, "but to select and serve wine effectively, you simply need to know the basics." He's included all of those basics in this lively and comprehensive guide to the world of wine. Fast track to all about the various wine styles, grape types, and wine regions, how to pair wines with specific foods, how to decipher wine labels like an expert. how to order, taste, and decant wine with confidence and much more in a very concise format. There are detailed maps and color of vineyards, bottles, labels.  

Bottlenotes Guide to Wine- Around the World in 80 Sips, by Alyssa Rapp (spiral-bound soft cover $14.95)

Once again, here is a concise overview of wine with emphasis on emerging geographical regions, including China and Israel. Alyssa J. Rapp is the Founder and CEO of Bottlenotes based at www.bottlenotes.com. Alyssa previously served as the sales/marketing manager for RO Imports, an importer of boutique New Zealand wines in New York and co-presided over a 500-person wine club at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

Darryl Beeson teaches professional certification for www.internationalsommelier.com. Says writer Roy Blount, Jr., "Wine is tough, but I know Darryl can do it."