Books for the Winelover’s Library

If you’ve ever contemplated a world without wine, I’m guessing you quickly put the thought out of your mind! What’s not to love about our favorite beverage? Complemented by food and friends, enjoying a delicious glass of wine comes close to paradise for many. Recently, I received two books, as sample review copies, that remind me (once again) that wine is an important facet of any winelover’s culture. Root Cause by Steven Laine will entertain with an “I can’t put this book down” plot and Wine for Dummies by Ed McCarthy, CWE and Mary Ewing-Mulligan, MW, will educate without pretense.

Pour yourself a glass of your favorite wine and settle in for two good reads. Enjoy!

Root Cause by Steven Laine

Scheduled for release on February 19, 2019, Root Cause (around $20) is one to add to your list, thanks to Steven Laine’s riveting plot defining the phrase “it all begins in the vineyard”. Rife with all things wine (of course), international travel, intrigue, double-crossing, and a promise of romance, the plot centers around the crucial mission of main character, Corvina Guerra, a flying winemaker from Italy. During one of her many trips, Corvina discovers that phyloxxera, the aphid that destroyed vineyards in Europe during the end of the 19^th century, has infested the vines… again. With her wine industry companion, Bryan Lawless, Corvina digs deeper into the mystery of who is responsible for this devastation. An entertaining page turner, the adventures of Corvina and Bryan (and plenty of characters along the way) have a twist at every corner and plenty of fascinating wine tidbits along the way.

“I like to believe there’s a story in every bottle of wine, and every time a new bottle is opened it marks an occasion. For me, the cork is like a bookmark, marking the place in the story where the wine was opened and what was happening in my life, who I was with, and what I was doing. I have a cork for virtually every milestone in my life and career.” He passed the cork with the chateau’s name on it to Corvina. Why don’t you keep this one? It marks an important moment in your life”. Bryan responding to Corvina’s question as to why he has taken the cork from every bottle opened throughout their journey together in Root Cause by Steven Laine

Wine for Dummies, 7^th edition by Ed McCarthy, CWE and Mary Ewing-Mulligan, MW

There are plenty of books that promise to inform about wine and a large number of people who are craving more knowledge. Ed McCarthy, Certified Wine Education (CWE) and Mary Ewing-Mulligan, Master of Wine (MW), authors of Wine for Dummies, 7^th edition (around $23) deliver exactly what we’ve been waiting for. Well organized with an easy to understand narrative and comprehensive table of contents and index, this interesting, well written book covers a vast number of topics, from the basics to the more intricate.

Tips for tasting wine, pairing wine with food, purchasing a few bottles at the wine shop, grocery store, online (wherever!), decoding the oft-complicated information on a wine label, and navigating a wine list are just a few of the many subjects clearly addressed before getting into more nitty-gritty: details about the wine regions around the globe. I appreciated honest, accurate information about some of my favorite wine regions of the Old World and New World where I’ve been fortunate enough to visit and those that are on my bucket list. To propel our wine knowledge even further, the authors suggest specific wines to seek and reference items to read. Lifelong learning at its best!

“Warm, misty autumns encourage the growth of a fungus called botrytis cinerea in vineyards. (See What’s noble about rot?” in Chapter 12.) The best wines from botrytis-infected grapes are among the greatest dessert wines in the world, with intensely concentrated flavors and plenty of acidity to prevent the wine from tasting excessively sweet. The greatest nobly rotted wines are made in the Sauternes district of Graves (Bordeaux) in France, in Germany (described in Chapter 12), and in the Tokaji district in Hungary, but they are also produced in Austria and California, among other places.” About “Sauternes and the Nobly-Rotted Wines” in Wine for Dummies, 7^th edition by Ed McCarthy, CWE, and Mary Ewing-Mulligan, MW