Lexington Herald Leader Logo

Wine books for holiday giving | Lexington Herald Leader

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • All News
    • Business
    • Communities
    • Counties
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Lexington
    • Local
    • Most Wanted
    • Nation/World
    • News Photos
    • News Videos
    • Politics
    • Searchable Databases
    • State
    • Watchdog
    • Columns
    • Tom Eblen
    • All Sports
    • UK Sports
    • College Sports
    • Next Cats Recruiting
    • High School
    • Horses
    • Kentucky Speedway
    • Lexington Legends
    • Reds
    • MLB
    • NBA
    • NASCAR
    • NFL
    • Sports Photos
    • Sports Videos
    • Columns
    • John Clay's Columns
    • Mark Story
    • Next Cats Recruiting
    • All UK Sports
    • Next Cats Recruiting
    • Baseball
    • Basketball - Men
    • Basketball - Women
    • Recruiting
    • Ex-Cats
    • Football
    • UK Photos
    • UK Videos
    • More UK Sports
    • Columns
    • John Clay's Blog
    • Mark Story
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • All Entertainment
    • Books
    • Celebrities
    • Comics
    • Puzzles & Games
    • Events Calendar
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Restaurants
    • Stage & Dance
    • TV
    • Visual Arts
    • Entertainment Photos
    • Entertainment Videos
    • News Blogs
    • Kentucky Weather
    • Photo Archive
    • Sports Blogs
    • John Clay's Blog
    • High School
    • UK Football
    • UK Men's Basketball
    • UK Women's Basketball
    • Lexington Legends
    • Entertainment Blogs
    • Walter Tunis on Music
    • All Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Joel Pett
    • Letters to the Editor
    • National Columnists
    • Op-Ed
    • Submit a Letter
    • All Living
    • Celebrations
    • Family
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Fru-Gal: Deb Morris
    • Health & Medicine
    • Home & Garden
    • Paul Prather
    • Religion
    • Travel
    • Readers' Choice
    • Kentucky Obituaries
    • Obituaries in the News
    • Submit an Obituary
    • Customer Service
    • Contact Us
    • About Us
    • E-edition
    • Page Reprints
    • Photo Reprints
    • RSS Feeds
    • Special Sections
    • Site Information
    • Advertise With Us
    • Archives
    • Mobile
    • Mobile Apps & eReaders
    • Newsletters
    • Social
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Google+
    • Today's Circulars
    • Classifieds
    • Jobs
    • Cars
    • Homes
    • Homeseller
    • Legal Notices
  • Place an Ad
  • Mobile & Apps

Food & Drink

Wine books for holiday giving

By Fred Tasker - McClatchy Newspapers

    ORDER REPRINT →

December 09, 2010 12:00 AM

Don't know which bottles to buy for your wine-loving friends? Avoid the problem by giving them books about wine. Here are some good choices:

■ Wine Secrets: Advice From Winemakers, Sommeliers, and Connoisseurs by Marnie Old (Quick Productions, $19.95)

You're ordering wine in a restaurant and want to ask the wine steward for advice, but you're afraid he'll recommend a $200 wine. Whaddyado? Find a wine on the list that costs just about what you want to pay. Point to its price and say, "This is what I would normally order, but I'm looking to explore this evening. What can you recommend?" A savvy steward will get the hint, says Fred Dame, founder of the American branch of the Court of Master Sommeliers. It's part of a compilation of tips from wine gurus Gina Gallo and Michael Mondavi, chef Jacques Pepin and others. It's a face-saving gem.

■ The Art and Design of Contemporary Wine Labels by Tanya Scholes (Santa Monica Press, $45)

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Lexington Herald-Leader

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

You can't judge a wine by its label, but you'd never know that by the lengths to which winemakers go in designing them. As more brands clog shelves, labels have become more eccentric to grab attention. Cycles Gladiator wine has a nude cyclist with flowing red hair. Bully Hill has a smiling goat. Other eye-catchers include The Idiot shiraz, Fat Pig rosé and Therapy merlot (with a Rorschach blot of God knows what). Big and colorful, this is the best coffee table book ever.

■ Liquid Memory: Why Wine Matters by Jonathan Nossiter (Farrar, Straus Giroux, $26)

Wine is not the sublime expression of hedonism in the human experience. It's far more important than that. That's the premise of this finely reasoned book by the director of the wine world-skewering 2004 film Mondovino. He explores "the fact of wine itself, its taste, its use, its physical existence and what has always fascinated me the most: its profound relation to the general culture." He skewers condescension, jargon and snobbery but also populists who "dumb down wine." This is entirely inside baseball, but it should provoke some fistfights at the wine bar.

■ The New Connoisseurs' Guidebook to California Wine & Wineries by Charles Olken and Joseph Furstenthal (University of California, $27.50)

California wineries open and close so fast, you need a new guide nearly every year to keep up with them. This is that guide. It's organized around the understanding that a book can't possibly keep up with 500 wineries' Web sites. It gives you the Web addresses, then it supplies what the Web sites don't: objective, blind-tasting notes and expert opinions on the wines. It's a very helpful guide.

■ From Demon to Darling: A Legal History of Wine in America by Richard Mendelson (University of California, $19.95)

When Prohibition ruled the land (1920-33), savvy California wineries stayed open by providing sacramental wines to churches. Beaulieu signed a contract to supply altar wine to the Catholic diocese in San Francisco. Religion flourished. The convenience-store wine called Thunderbird came about when E. & J. Gallo Winery noticed that liquor stores were attaching envelopes of lemon Kool-Aid to bottles of Gallo white port. It required an act of Congress to market it. The legal machinations of wine, described here, are a hoot.

  Comments  

Videos

Holiday specialty cocktails to try in Lexington

Hot Dickel! We try a Tabasco barrel aged whiskey to spice up our bourbon tasting series

View More Video

Trending Stories

Pazzo’s, Magee’s Bakery, Texas de Brazil, Sonic, Qdoba and more on probation

February 15, 2019 06:45 AM

Updated list of restaurants on probation as of February: Read before you eat

February 15, 2019 07:00 AM

‘She has to come home.’ Here’s how you can help find missing Kentucky mom

February 15, 2019 03:03 PM

UK student got a chance to win $19,000 with a half-court shot. He nailed it.

February 16, 2019 12:41 PM

A new $12 million school scheduled to open last fall is sitting empty. Here’s why.

February 15, 2019 03:12 PM

Read Next

Updated list of restaurants on probation as of February: Read before you eat
Video media Created with Sketch.

Restaurant News & Reviews

Updated list of restaurants on probation as of February: Read before you eat

By Janet Patton

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 15, 2019 07:00 AM

The Lexington health department added more than two dozen restaurants and food service providers to the list of those on probation. Here’s the full updated list.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Lexington Herald-Leader

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE FOOD & DRINK

Pazzo’s, Magee’s Bakery, Texas de Brazil, Sonic, Qdoba and more on probation

Restaurant News & Reviews

Pazzo’s, Magee’s Bakery, Texas de Brazil, Sonic, Qdoba and more on probation

February 15, 2019 06:45 AM
Which new restaurant is coming to the former Julep Cup space in The Woodlands?

Restaurant News & Reviews

Which new restaurant is coming to the former Julep Cup space in The Woodlands?

February 15, 2019 09:23 AM
‘Top Chef’ Kentucky: ‘Somebody’s going home for a good dish’ after Ali dinner

TV

‘Top Chef’ Kentucky: ‘Somebody’s going home for a good dish’ after Ali dinner

February 15, 2019 09:30 AM
Many people were thinking they’d get delivery for Valentine’s Day. It did not go well.

Food & Drink

Many people were thinking they’d get delivery for Valentine’s Day. It did not go well.

February 14, 2019 04:29 PM
‘Top Chef’ Kentucky: Will it be a fight to the finish at the Ali Center episode?

TV

‘Top Chef’ Kentucky: Will it be a fight to the finish at the Ali Center episode?

February 13, 2019 07:00 AM
‘Top Chef’ Kentucky: Rupp Arena trash talk gets brutal

Kentucky

‘Top Chef’ Kentucky: Rupp Arena trash talk gets brutal

February 08, 2019 07:00 AM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Lexington Herald Leader App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Archives
Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Place a Classified Ad
  • Local Deals
  • Digital Solutions
  • Media Kit
Copyright
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story