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Columns to Savor
Michael De Loach
Wine Experts?, Wines for Spring, and Wine
Hunting 104
More Wine Myth Busting, To Cork or Not to Cork, and Romatic Wines for Valentines
New Stuff for the New Year, and Shut Up and Drink
Champagne and Sparkling Wine, Starbucks—The REAL Reason Americans Have Switched to Wine, The Annual Holiday Wine Gift Hot List
Sweet Relief, Another Wine Myth Bites the Dust, and The Basic Types of Wine Shoppers
Reading Wine Labels, The Real Meaning of "Sideways", Picnic Essentials for Harvest
The Truth about Sulfites and Headaches,
The Mystery of the Disappearing Sommelier,
and Wine Cocktails
Proliferation of Brands, Picking for a Party, Pink Prejudice, and Follow your Bliss
The Home Wine Tasting Myth, and Why Most Wine Rating Systems are Basically Worthless
Wine Tasting Season Survival, Standards, Darlings and Trendy Wines, and A Quick Planning Guide to Visiting the Wine Country
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Wine Expert
Michael De Loach
Are any wine books worth reading?
Intentions are right; message often wrong.
When Lettie Teague’s publishers announced the arrival of her new book, Educating Peter, in stores, I was hopeful and intrigued—but a little put-off by the title. Anyone who has read me knows that I chafe at the notion that wine-drinkers need an education in order to enjoy their wine. Perhaps this book, though, would de-bunk the unfounded claptrap about memorizing a huge mundane body of wine information, and offer a refreshing, contemporary perspective.
Before I launch into my findings, let me tell you why I was so hopeful: Lettie Teague is the wine editor for Food & Wine Magazine. Although she sometimes writes about esoteric wines nobody can actually find, most of the time I think she’s pretty spot-on. Furthermore this book, from Scribner in hardback (256 pages), has a particularly promising premise. It details Lettie’s experience exploring the wide world of wine with Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers. Here’s a guy who hangs with Scorcese and Soderberg and knew Kubrick and Fellini, for God’s sake. He hobnobs with Jann Wenner and partied with Hunter S. Thompson. This is going to make for great reading, I thought. |
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Of Points, Pundits and Profiteers:
The Wine Oligarchy that Wags
the Dog.
Who’s deciding which wines you buy? You? If you’re a regular reader you already know how I feel about “pointy head” —the avid collector who purchases only top-rated wines in the 100-point wine rating system. Pointy-head depends almost entirely on two publications, each one chock full of forceful opinions from self-described “Wine Experts” (who are in most cases physically and psychologically ill-suited to their task—see previous article). And of course there’s the 100-point scale itself; a rating system which I find dubious, if not completely without basis. This unlikely triumvirate of Pointy-heads, publications and points has been in cahoots for years, selecting your wines for you. And chances are, you never even noticed.
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What Wine Beginners Really Want to Know, But “Experts” Never Tell You:
PART ONE
Start by drinking lighter wines, not with mannerisms.
It’s so frustrating to be talked down to like a three-year-old learning to cut his food by some arrogant Wine Expert (sometimes half your age). Normally the conversation starts with “you’re holding your glass all wrong.” (This is why I love stemless glasses—it takes away the Wine Expert’s intimidating glass-holding mystique.) How you hold your glass is the absolute last thing you need to know. That’s like going to finishing school and learning to balance a book on your head as you walk, before you’ve even learned to read.
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Created for
Barbara Adams
Beyond Wonderful by
Wine Expert,
Michael De Loach. |
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