Adventures On The Wine Route

Kermit Lynch's recounting of his experiences on the wine route and in the wine cellars of France takes the reader through the Loire, Bordeaux, the Languedoc, Provence, Northern and Southern Rhone, and the Cote d'Or.

One of the world's most revered wine merchants and importers, Kermit Lynch changed the way Americans drink wine and the way the French make it. Kermit Lynch's retail shop in Berkeley, California, is a legendary mecca for people who enjoy good wine. Lynch is also a greatly admired writer on the subject. His monthly brochure has been the medium for expressing his philosophy since the early seventies, offering readers not only a wine education, but entry into moldy old cellars and glittering three-star restaurants. It is full of passion, principle, and humor, and peopled by a cast of characters like Patricia Wells, Richard Olney, Lulu Peyraud, Jim Harrison, and many more. In INSPIRING THIRST, Lynch presents under one cover the best of his engaging, highly personal (sometimes cantankerous) accounts of winemakers and their rare potions. Illustrated by the photographs of Gail Skoff, here is a thirst-inspiring treat for wine lovers.

Robert V. Camuto s interest in wine turned into a passion when he moved to France and began digging into local soils and cellars. Corkscrewed recounts Camuto s journey through France s myriad regions and how the journey brought about a profound change in everything he believed about wine. The world of great wines was once dominated by great Bordeaux ch'teaux. As those ch'teaux were bought up by moguls and international corporations, the heart of French winemaking moved into the realm of small producers, whose wines reflect the stunning diversity of regional environment, soil, and culture terroir. In this book we follow Camuto across France as he works harvesting grapes in Alsace, learns about wine and bombs in Corsica, and eats and drinks his way through the world s greatest bacchanalia in Burgundy. Along the route he discovers a new generation of winemakers who have rejected chemicals, additives, and technologically altered wines. His book charts an odyssey into this new world of French wine, a world of biodynamic winegrowing, herbal treatments, lunar cycles, and grape varieties long ago dismissed as difficult. A celebration of the diversity that makes French wine more than a mere commodity, Camuto s work is a delightful look beyond the supermarket to the various flavors offered by the true vintners of France.

Inspired by Jules Verne’s classic adventure tale, celebrated editor-in-chief of The Wine Economist Mike Veseth takes his readers Around the World in Eighty Wines. The journey starts in London, Phileas Fogg’s home base, and follows Fogg’s itinerary to France and Italy before veering off in search of compelling wine stories in Syria, Georgia, and Lebanon. Every glass of wine tells a story, and so each of the eighty wines must tell an important tale. We head back across Northern Africa to Algeria, once the world’s leading wine exporter, before hopping across the sea to Spain and Portugal. We follow Portuguese trade routes to Madeira and then South Africa with a short detour to taste Kenya’s most famous Pinot Noir. Kenya? Pinot Noir? Really! The route loops around, visiting Bali, Thailand, and India before heading north to China to visit Shangri-La. Shangri-La? Does that even exist? It does, and there is wine there. Then it is off to Australia, with a detour in Tasmania, which is so cool that it is hot. The stars of the Southern Cross (and the title of a familiar song) guide us to New Zealand, Chile, and Argentina. We ride a wine train in California and rendezvous with Planet Riesling in Seattle before getting into fast cars for a race across North America, collecting more wine as we go. Pause for lunch in Virginia to honor Thomas Jefferson, then it’s time to jet back to London to tally our wines and see what we have learned. Why these particular places? What are the eighty wines and what do they reveal? And what is the surprise plot twist that guarantees a happy ending for every wine lover? Come with us on a journey of discovery that will inspire, inform, and entertain anyone who loves travel, adventure, or wine.

Adventures with Old Vines offers an engaging and knowledgeable guide to demystify wine for novice enthusiasts. Richard Chilton provides detailed information about buying and storing wine, how to read a wine list, the role of the sommelier, wine fraud, how wine is really made, and how weather patterns can influence the quality of a vintage. A vineyard owner and lifelong wine lover, the author encourages readers to discover wine by tasting, taking notes, and tasting again. The book also includes a richly illustrated, full-color reference section on a select group of vineyards from all over the world, describing their history, winemaking philosophy, terroir, and top vintages—what Chilton calls benchmark wines. The characteristics of these memorable wines provide the essential starting point to understand what to look for when evaluating any wine. Equipped with this easy-to-read reference, readers will have all the tools they need to begin their own wine journey.

When Adventures on the Wine Route was first published, Victor Hazan said, "In Kermit Lynch's small, true, delightful book there is more understanding about what wine really is than in everything else I have read." A quarter century later, this remarkable journey of wine, travel, and taste remains an essential volume for wine lovers. In 2007, Eric Asimov, in The New York Times, called it "one of the finest American books on wine," and in 2012, The Wall Street Journal pro-claimed that it "may be the best book on the wine business." In celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary, Adventures on the Wine Route has been thoroughly redesigned and updated with an epilogue and a list of the great wine connoisseur's twenty-five most memorable bottles. In this singular tour along the French wine route, Lynch ventures forth to find the very essence of the wine world. In doing so, he never shies away from the attitudes, opinions, and beliefs that have made him one of our most respected and outspoken authorities on wine. Yet his guiding philosophy is exquisitely simple. As he writes in the introduction, "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." Adventures on the Wine Route is the ultimate quest for this magic via France's most distinguished vineyards and wine cellars. Lynch draws vivid portraits of vintners—from inebriated négociants to a man who oversees a vineyard that has been in his family for five hundred years—and memorably evokes the countryside at every turn. "The French," Lynch writes, "with their aristocratic heritage, their experience and tradition, approach wine from another point of view . . . and one cannot appreciate French wine with any depth of understanding without knowing how the French themselves look at their wines, by going to the source, descending into their cold, humid cellars, tasting with them, and listening to the language they employ to describe their wines." Here, Kermit Lynch assures a whole new generation of readers—as well as his loyal fans—that discussions about wine need not focus so stringently on "the pH, the oak, the body, the finish," but rather on the "gaiety" of the way "the tart fruit perfume[s] the palate and the brain."

There were, and still are, great restaurants all over Europe, but the greater part of Blue Trout and Black Truffles is devoted to the eatingplaces and vineyards of France. It is a vicarious experience to read about the culinary wonders of the notable establishments of another era that have become the last epicurean haven in this materialistic, mechanized world of fastfood chains and frozenfood dinners. Mr. Wechsberg reaches back to the twilight days of the Habsburg monarchy, when those splendid monuments to the haute cuisine in central Europe, Meissl and Schadn of Vienna and Gundel's of Budapest, were in their prime.

The remarkable untold story of France’s courageous, clever vinters who protected and rescued the country’s most treasured commodity from German plunder during World War II. "To be a Frenchman means to fight for your country and its wine." –Claude Terrail, owner, Restaurant La Tour d’Argent In 1940, France fell to the Nazis and almost immediately the German army began a campaign of pillaging one of the assets the French hold most dear: their wine. Like others in the French Resistance, winemakers mobilized to oppose their occupiers, but the tale of their extraordinary efforts has remained largely unknown–until now. This is the thrilling and harrowing story of the French wine producers who undertook ingenious, daring measures to save their cherished crops and bottles as the Germans closed in on them. Wine and War illuminates a compelling, little-known chapter of history, and stands as a tribute to extraordinary individuals who waged a battle that, in a very real way, saved the spirit of France.

No one can describe a wine like Karen MacNeil. Comprehensive, entertaining, authoritative, and endlessly interesting, The Wine Bible is a lively course from an expert teacher, grounding the reader deeply in the fundamentals—vine-yards and varietals, climate and terroir, the nine attributes of a wine’s greatness—while layering on tips, informative asides, anecdotes, definitions, photographs, maps, labels, and recommended bottles. Discover how to taste with focus and build a wine-tasting memory. The reason behind Champagne’s bubbles. Italy, the place the ancient Greeks called the land of wine. An oak barrel’s effect on flavor. Sherry, the world’s most misunderstood and underappreciated wine. How to match wine with food—and mood. Plus everything else you need to know to buy, store, serve, and enjoy the world’s most captivating beverage.

Inspired by a deep passion for wine, an Italian heritage, and a desire for a land somewhat wilder than his home in southern France, Robert V. Camuto set out to explore Sicily's emerging wine scene. What he discovered during more than a year of traveling the region, however, was far more than a fascinating wine frontier.