Winetaster's Secrets

Taste is a funny thing. Not ha-ha funny, but peculiar funny. Even the definition of the word is a little confusing. It is both a verb and a noun. It means to eat or to drink; to have or to get experience ; a manner or style. This, then, is the first barrier to enjoying wine.

All too often the wine lover is fed information from a taster rather than from his own palate because the tools necessary, the how-tos of tasting itself, arent` readily available. Sure, we all know what we like and dislike, but the world of wine, once it is opened up, is a wonderous and varied one. What is needed to capture the full breadth of wine is a knowledge of how to read your own senses and an understanding of what factors determine your preferences.

Winetaster`s Secrets focuses on this very facet of wine.

Step-by-step this book reveals how it`s done; how the experts, and now you, can determine and evaluate wine quality. It does son in a manner that neither simplifies or complicates the subject. The object is threefold:

- to encourage the reader to expand the use of his/her natural senses, increasing the enjoyment of all wines

- to help develop the ability to judge consistently and accurately the quality of a wide array of wines, independent of the tastes of others

- to foster appreciation of the differences in qualitative and nonqualitative wine characteristics.

In addition, Winetaster`s Secrets addresses the issues that have often been avoided in previous publications, including:

- age in the taster and the wine
- burnt wine - brandy
- how to taste it and judge it
- a chilling experience
- ice wine
- tasting techniques
- scoring systems, how they work and which systems work better than others.

The result is a precise, enjoyable book.

Taste can be a barrier to enjoying fine wine if wine lovers are given information based on the tastes of 'experts' rather than personal preference. Sharp imparts the basics of how experts determine and evaluate wine quality, with chapters covering both technical aspects of wine production and aging and the art of distinguishing the fine wine from the ordinary. -- Midwest Book Review