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Understanding the World of Wine

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Understanding the World of Wine

By: Brian Wheaton
Narrated by: Brian Wheaton
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About this listen

Gain the wine know-how you’ve always wanted in this comprehensive course.

Choosing the right wine for an occasion can be a challenge even for the experienced. To help you master that challenge and deepen your appreciation of wine and its inexpressibly rich lore, Master of Wine Brian Wheaton recorded Understanding the World of Wine.

Whether you're a seasoned oenophile or a beginner, you will discover new insights in this set of 36 easy-to-use audio lectures. You'll explore the rich history of winemaking, learn how wine is created today, and understand what makes each of the world’s great grape varieties special. You will journey through winemaking regions across the globe, from classic areas like Bordeaux, Burgundy, and the Rhone Valley to New World vineyards in the US, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

You will find practical tips and advice. Can wine improve your health? How is wine best matched with food? What are the biggest pitfalls to avoid? What is the essential wine vocabulary? What are the best ways to shop for wine?

You can enjoy these lively 25-minute lectures while you commute, run errands, or exercise - wherever and whenever you want.

Discover the wonderful world of wine today.

This course is part of the Learn25 collection.

©2009 Now You Know Media, Inc. (P)2009 Now You Know Media, Inc. Diets, Nutrition & Healthy Eating Education Fitness, Diet & Nutrition Food & Wine Guided Tours Wine & Beverages
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This is all you need about wine from locations,to harvesting and brewing. Although sometimes it becomes boring.

Informative

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Covers just about every aspect of wine you'd want to know about, in a detailed but approachable way. My main criticism is that too much time was spent on going through the many wine regions, without always having much of substance to say. It sometimes felt like a tedious geography lesson as he catalogues region after region, often with little to say about the wines themselves other than 'the wines here are good; the wines there are mediocre.'

I also sometimes felt that he sometimes (understandably) had limited knowledge of certain more fringe wine regions or grapes. For example, in the section about South Africa he recommended people avoid Pinotages as he found them to be harsh or too tannic. I don't presume to have half the skilled palette he does, but I really think that he just hadn't tried many, or had a couple of bad bottles. When I was in South Africa, I drank a lot of Pinotage, and whatever else you might criticise it for, being harsh or tannic just doesn't seem right. It frequently has notes of banana or chocolate - hardly harsh qualities - and one of the reasons I drank it so much is because I found it less harsh and tannic than cabernet sauvignon, which I often dislike for that reason (but which he praises, as of course most wine lovers do). This makes me less confident about what he has to say about other lesser-known regions.

So I wish he had taken a less completionist approach, but spent more time on those regions he really knew a lot about. His chapters about France, for example, were excellent. I also would have liked more depth about the various grapes. He devotes just one chapter to them, and ends up whizzing through them a bit.

Overall though, I really enjoyed it and learnt a lot. Yes, as another reviewer mentioned, his mic picks up a lot of mouth noises, but it didn't really bother me, and I actually tend to be hypersensitive to things like that. Listen to the sample and if you can handle that, you'll have no problem. He actually has a very pleasant demeanour, and I found him very likeable indeed. Definitely recommended.

Comprehensive and full of useful info.

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The author’s passion for wine is evident in every chapter, as they take the reader on a captivating journey through vineyards, regions, and varietals. The vivid descriptions transport you to the heart of wine country, making you feel as though you're sipping alongside the author

Great book

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