Mastering Wine: A Learner's Manual Book

This completely new and updated edition of the 1985 classic Mastering Wine, winner of the Cliquot Prize for best wine book of the year, provides a complete course in tasting and understanding the virtues and flaws of wine of all kinds -- in your home and without bankrupting you. Tom Maresca's ingenious do-it-yourself guide to mastering wine is based on comparing two wines at a time; his one unyielding rule is that there is no wrong answer to the question 'Which wine did you like better?' Each pair leads you to the next, and your own taste charts the course. You may proceed through the carefully planned sequence of over 40 different pairs of reds, whites, roses, and sparkling wines, or follow the directions to the wines of a particular region or a particular class, such as Cabernets.

Whichever route you opt for, Mastering Wine can provide you with an acquaintance with the major kinds and classes of dry dinner wines, a painless introduction to wine terms, and practice in the art of tasting and analyzing wine -- of any kind. Anyone who would like an introduction to wine or a wider appreciation of the infinite variety of wines will find Mastering Wine the only practical, enjoyable, and affordable choice.

Edward Guiliano

The best choice for a broad and basic wine text. -- The Wine Spectator