George M. Taber

This is more than just the story of the 1976 Paris tasting. It is also a great read for wine novices, as it covers most wine-making regions and grapes used around the world, as well as the process of growing grapes and making wine, with a particular focus on the history of wine production in Napa (and California in general).

Let me start by saying I don't know much about wine, so this book was clearly not aimed at me. However, I'm not sure who the audience is for it. The part that talks about the famous Paris tasting in 1976 was fascinating. The intensive history of the California wine industry was a little dry but also fairly interesting. The crazy amount of detail the author provides in his overview of all wine traditions the world over was a little much.

The author himself admits that wine names are almost show more impossible to remember and then goes on to sling a large number of wine names and wineries around along with their history and details of how they are made and the general price. My head was swimming! I like the history but didn't care for the rest. show less

Not just an account of the famous wine tasting that put California wines on the map. Taber goes into the history of California winemaking, giving first-rate biographical profiles of the California vintners that produced (and still produce) world-class wines. Also excellent are the chapters about the impact of the 1976 tasting, which spurred the development of New World wine regions and exposed Old World producers to innovative winemaking practices.

Finally getting around to reading this. First, I had no idea that corks came from Cork Tree bark & that there were different varieties. I also didn't know that there were different non-cork types of bottle fasteners.
This did spur some good debated with my Uncle who considers himself somewhat of a wine expert.
I learned a lot, but now this one is ready to travel again