The best Wine Buying Guide books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

I HAVEN'T READ THE ZRALY BOOK THAT WAS RECOMMENDED, BUT I SEE IT RECOMMENDED OFTEN. I HAVE NOT READ "THE WINE BIBLE" IN ITS ENTIRETY, BUT I OWN IT AND IT SEEMS GOOD, AND IT IS ON AMAZON FOR ONLY $14 IN PAPERBACK.

https://www.amazon.com/Wine-Bible-Karen-MacNeil/dp/0761180834

Another is titled Wine Folly.
It's jacket cover matches what's on the side of his copy.

I’m a trained somm who doesn’t work in the industry. I’ve nailed wines before on nose alone (specifically getting the grape, country, region of origin, year, and even specific vineyard right occasionally). Each little clue in a wine tells you something different about it, and with enough training you can learn to interpret everything to essentially put together that wine‘s story. It takes years and tons of rigorous practice (not just casual drinking), ideally with more advanced tasters to guide you. I’d say single best book on learning to taste & interpret wines is How to Taste by Jancis Robinson, a god in the wine world.

At this point I’m a bit out of practice but when I was preparing for my exams and analyzing a dozen wines a day I’d say my success rate (at least for grape and place of origin) was around 65-75%. More advanced somms will be in the 90% range. Again though, it’s all about practice and continuous study. But it’s definitely a thing.

Buy this book and start buying wines and gaining some knowledge that you can dump on your rich friends, worked for me and now I know way too much about wine. But that is never a bad thing. It's so easy to impress your dates with a blind taste and correctly guessing the varietal/year of the bottle.

If you want a book to read, I recommend the Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil. It is approachable, and easy read, yet informative. Amazon

For pairing, there are some basic rules that apply to many (not all) situations but you can decide for yourself what you like. In general, match intensity. Bold, rich food should have bold rich wine just as delicate foods will do better with delicate wines. You ideally don’t want food and wine to compete with each other. You can also stick with some flexible wines like Chianti, Oregon Pinot Noir and other reds that typically have good acidity. Or just pair everything with Champagne. It literally will go with just about anything. It won’t necessarily always be a good pairing but will almost never be a bad pairing.

Body refers to the mouth feeling of the wine. Thinner bodies like Riesling or Pinot Noir feel like 2% milk, medium is like whole milk while a full body is more half&half feeling.

If you're looking to learn more about wine i suggest the following.

Wine Folly put out a VERY beginner friendly wine book, heres the amazon link.

http://www.amazon.com/Wine-Folly-Essential-Guide/dp/1592408990/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446576150&sr=1-1&keywords=wine+folly

Or you can check our this site for free education. http://www.wineeducation.com/index.html

I'm reading this book, and have found it to be a great help in understanding different varieties of wine. I knew very little when starting.

Each chapter tells you a little about a particular type of wine, and then gives you recommendations for styles to buy and taste. The emphasis is on learning by actually drinking the wine, which I like.

You're welcome.

Years ago when I was first dipping my toes into the world of beer, the selection was a bit less diverse and I found that I wanted (needed) to understand the classics a bit better. Kind of a similar situation that you are in right now. I picked up a book

The Complete Beer Course: Boot Camp for Beer Geeks: From Novice to Expert in Twelve Tasting Classes https://www.amazon.com/dp/1402797672/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_68RRV8P5VZZSJ6KQDGEZ

and I thought it did an excellent job of explaining basically everything about beer, from history to brewing process, to archetypes, without becoming too dense or too light. It may be a bit out of date at this point - some of the American beers listed as examples may not be around still - but still a solid starting point.

Also,

>Does this mean that all dunkles are also inherently different from weissbeer?

Yes. Because weissbier is top fermented; it's an ale. So it is inherently different than a dunkle that is brewed with bottom fermenting yeasts, even if it is also clearly a wheat beer.

The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil.

It’s still very approachable for beginners but has more thorough and nuanced information than Wine Folly, and it’s valuable even for intermediate and hardcore wine lovers. I’d honestly describe it as a must-have.

The Wine Bible is an easy read, and explains everything you need to know about wine in straightforward terms. I highly recommend it, and have often used it when developing training programs for servers.

https://www.amazon.com/Wine-Bible-Karen-MacNeil/dp/0761180834/ref=sr\_1\_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+wine+bible&qid=1632862936&sr=8-1

You can also just take home a copy of your menu, and Google the wine name and "tasting notes", which will give a good generalized description of the wine, and some good choices on which types of food to pair it with.

For Liquor, you'll have to do a little more research on your own. I'm not sure what kind of bar setup your restaurant has, but you'll likely want to know a bit about different Scotches, Whiskeys, the difference in the tiers of Tequila, a few Rums, etc. The might have various cordials and aperitifs also. It's not too bad, and you can make easy cheat sheets until you memorize the basics.

Food is so specific to each place, it's best you get a lot of information from your chefs. Depending on the place, they might have a breakdown of the menus and all ingredients, so that you can get a printed copy and study it in your free time. You can ask for a copy of the server test they might have, so you can study those types of questions while you're learning as well. Scan your menu, and write down anything you don't understand or know the answer to. Then research those items and topics, and discuss them with your chef if you come across some things you're unsure of.

Be confident and have a strong table presence. You want to be professional and approachable, but not too chummy.

Study the shit out of the wine and food menus, and know them like the back of your hand. What I do is, literally, hand write the menu myself about 10-15 times until I memorize it. If you don't have a lot of wine knowledge, grab a copy of the Wine Bible and study it thoroughly. It's a pretty easy read, and you'll learn a lot from it.

https://www.amazon.com/Wine-Bible-Karen-MacNeil/dp/0761180834/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=wine+bible&qid=1629260793&sr=8-1

Spend a lot of time learning about their cuts of beef and where it's sourced from, along with the other menu item specifics, like where the Tuna, etc is from, if the pasta is hand made, or if the vegetables are from local farms. People will ask.

While it's not likely a "silent service" type place, you don't spend very much time chatting with tables in comparison with a more casual restaurant. It's more about knowledge and efficiency.

South Jersey has a ton of great local and regional beers! I would suggest going to one of the liquor stores like Wegman's and getting a mixed six-pack. Keep an open mind and take notes.

Some suggestions: Forgotten Boardwalk Funnel Cake Cream Ale (pretty sweet)

Double Nickel Vienna Larger (malty goodness)

Yards Philadelphia Pane Ale (floral, good intro to a little hops)

Spellbound Porter (smooth and chocolatey)

Tonewood Fuego (accessable hazy IPA. Their flagship)

Dogfish head 60 minute IPA (great into into the traditional American IPA. Citrus and Pine, bitterness)

One other suggestion -- this book is a good intro into understanding beer and the various styles. The beer recommendations are a little dated, but the content is great. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Beer-Course-Tasting-Classes/dp/1402797672#:~:text="%20The%20Complete%20Beer%20Course%20belongs,and%20thirst-provoking%20stories."

Good luck!

The World Atlas of Wine is a great book. It helped me understand regions and appellations a lot better. The Wine Bible is also great. It's a good reference book for producers and regions and is pretty inexpensive.

Personally the Scotch flavor map I've been using the most is from The World Atlas of Whisky (link below). Its an awesome book and a great resource for exploring the world of whisky. It outlines the basics of whisky making and styles along with a ton of information on the world's whisky distillers and regions. I highly recommend it.

There is also a flavor map located in the FAQ section of r/scotch that I occasionally reference as well. Google image search will also bring up a bunch but the one I link below I've found to be incredibly reliable and accurate.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bc/ea/b9/bceab9eace0849b3436f56175ad840af.jpg

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845339428/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_NHgsFb321XACS

I really enjoyed Joshua Bernstein's The Complete Beer Course. He gives a good history and description of tons of different beer styles and has a nice easy going writing style.

The Complete Beer Course is a fantastic read. Bernstein provides a great overview, history, and examples of tons of styles. He writes pretty conversationally, so despite lots of history and beer jargon, it never felt like a beer textbook if that makes sense.

Hrm. Some questions I have for you:

1. Is she a huge fan of getting drunk, and wine is just her weapon of choice, or...

2. Is she a connoisseur of wines and very particular about which she drinks? (not entirely mutually exclusive, but probably one or the other)

3. Does she have nice wine glasses, or el-cheapos? (and can she have nice things, or will they be broken by Thursday?)

4. Would she appreciate or be insulted by a case of wine? You could essentially make her a wine tasting menu of bottles. 6/12 bottles representing different regions/varietals of wine. She invites people over so they can watch her down them like a pro (or maybe she shares, whichever).

Then there's things like a caraffe so wine can breathe more quickly. Or a wine rack to keep bottles on (if she has unopened bottles, not every wine fan has such a thing around the house)

Also: this which my girlfriend got for me, and I enjoyed. (It's on my table outside my office now)

I found The World Atlas of Whiskey a great book to start with. I found it while I was touring the The Scotch Whiskey Experience in Edinburgh, Scotland but bought it when I came back to Canada.

It covers the 4 general ways to distill whiskey and the different flavour profiles you get with each whiskey. In addition, it gives you an overview of the major whiskies in different regions (Scotland, Japan, America, Canada, etc). I didn't find it biased since it gives no ratings; instead, it just give flavours, profiles (Nose/Palate/Finish) and similar whiskies.

I will admit that it is a bit biased toward Scotch (about 1/3 to 1/2 the book is whiskey from Scotland) and it's lacking on the craft distillery scene.

If you're interested in learning about wine I recommend picking up a copy of Windows on the World. It was recommended to me by my first somm when I was just getting started.

As others have said, start with Blue Moon. That was definitely my gateway into craft beer. It's light, but packs enough flavor to differentiate it from Coors, Bud, Miller.

You might also try exploring some craft lagers. Ballast Point has a decent lager I tried the other night that my wife really liked. Maybe try a Mexican beer/lager, like Negra Modelo. I've found that i enjoy beer more when I pair it with the right food.

Just don't start with an IPA.

[EDIT] I'd also suggest getting this book. It's a great intro into beer that will help you develop an appreciation for all of the nuances of it and the industry. Pretty fun to read. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Beer-Course-Tasting-Classes/dp/1402797672

I don't know how seriously you want to take it, but Jancis Robinson wrote an awesome book on wine tasting called How to Taste: A Guide to Enjoying Wine (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1416596658/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_B2x9wbQJK15HZ) that really helped me develop a better understanding and vocabulary as to what I was really tasting. Which in turn helped me appreciate and enjoy both wine and beer a lot more.

Also yeah, as mentioned by others, most of it is just finding what you like and developing your taste in that area and kind of branching out from there. So basically: just drink more beer. But that's my solution to most things.

Really digging this book.. Might be exactly what you are looking for.

A terrific layman option is the Scratch and Sniff Guide to Wine. There is also a whiskey equivalent.

There's a great book called The Essential Scratch and Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert.

I know, it sounds like a joke book but it'll teach you the basics of wine and how to figure out not only what types of wine you'll enjoy, but what goes into the tastes of the wine. My rule of thumb when it comes to wine is first figure out what your palate likes which it seems you've already started to figure out.

Next I'd start tasting and buy wine. The more you taste the more you'll start to figure out what you like. Don't worry about ratings and prices right off the bat. Figure out what you like. It's a huge world but you'll pick it up quickly! Cheers!

This craft beer book is pretty awesome to have around too http://smile.amazon.com/Complete-Beer-Course-Tasting-Classes/dp/1402797672/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1422250472&sr=8-2&keywords=craft+beer+book

My introduction to wine course used Windows On the World Complete Wine Course. Excellent book because it starts with the basics and gives a good foundation to build on.