Adventures in Wine (True Stories of Vineyards and Vintages Around the World)

Adventures in Wine takes you to the wine country like no other wine book: behind the scenes, into the vineyards and cellars, with some of the world's finest wine writers. Here the emphasis is not on the wine - though it's always present - but on the richly textured tapestry that wine has woven into our world for centuries. Each story is a personal exploration of a place on earth that is fortunate enough to be called wine country. Yes, you'll visit Napa and Provence and Tuscany, but also Greece and Hungary, Arizona and Alsace, Georgia and Georgia (the state and the country). These writers let the world of wine affect them deeply: Gerald Asher discovers a moment of rare happiness with a wine he can never name, Karen MacNeil is led inexorably from midtown Manhattan to a mountaintop vineyard in California, vintner Steve Edmunds discovers that perhaps the wine is making him, not the other way around - and novelist Jim Harrison reveals how wine helped save his life. These are the stories that wine country travelers tell each other late into the evening, when pretense is put aside and deeper truths are revealed. There's also plenty of rollicking good fun, such as learning how Kit Snedaker craftily gets the upper hand on snooty sommeliers; joining Bob Blumer, the Surreal Gourmet, as he works the harvest at Burgundy's most august domaine, Romanée-Conti; and wading into the Seine with DeAnne Musolf Crouch to catch trout - with a net. There's something for every wine lover in Adventures in Wine, including history, technology, and Peter Mayle searching for a spittoon. So uncork a bottle and take a trip to the wine country with some of the most observant, engaging, and enlightening guides you'll ever meet between the covers of a book.