Andrea Robinson’s 2008 Wine Buying Guide for Everyone: An American Master Sommelier’s Simple Guide to Great Wine and Food Matches (Andrea Immer Robinson’s Wine Buying Guide for Everyone)

The Red Wine Diet Wine is good for you, and we finally know why.

Wine drinkers are less prone to heart disease, diabetes, and dementia than non-wine drinkers. But what exactly is it about wine that keeps us healthy? Which is better for you, a California Cabernet or Syrah from the south of France? How can you choose wines that both suit your tastes and benefit your health?

In a landmark study, Roger Corder revealed that compounds called procyanidins are the key components of wine for preventing illness. Now, in The Red Wine Diet, he argues that drinking the right kinds of red wine and eating procyanidin-rich foods such as dark chocolate, apples, and berries can help us live to a ripe old age-while enjoying all the pleasures of life.

Corder’s own tests show that, as a result of grape variety, wine-making style, and other factors, some red wines contain much higher levels of procyanidins than others. With a unique personal rating system, he describes the most beneficial wines he’s found to date. And to round out his lifestyle plan, he includes fifty delicious recipes featuring foods that are high in procyanidins.

Corder’s prescription is an easy pill to swallow: Drink red wine every day and live a long and healthy life.
Customer Review: The Red Wine Diet
Roger Corder’s new book provides solid laboratory evidence for the health benefits of red wine. The book is written in a readable style suited for the non-scientist interested in maintaining good health. The key product found in red wine which mediates this healthy effect particularly on the blood vessels of the heart is procyanidin. Dr. Corder has surveyed over 300 red wines from most of the world’s wine regions and has awarded each a heart rating score from 1 to 5 hearts based on procyanidin levels. The book provides the reader with a list of foods and diets which are high in procyanidin as well.The book serves as a ready resource for anyone interested in locating wines and foods rich in procyanidin.
Customer Review: Wine and beyond wine
By starting with red wine, then identifying the compounds in red wine that are responsible, and then showing that other foods containing the same compounds can have the same health benefits, Dr. Corder helps his readers step away from fad science onto solid science. In passing he trashes resveratrol (p36-7) - a further service. As with all one-topic books, this one is fluffed out to book length by including general nutrition & health information and about 50 pages of recipes. For the hard-core scientists there are about 20 pages of references.

Reflections of a Wine Merchant

Wine Bar Food: Mediterranean Flavors to Crave with Wines to Match After the workday, in places like Seville, Milan, Barcelona, and other cities that dot the Mediterranean, people gravitate to wine bars to relax, meet friends, savor small dishes of flavorful food, and, of course, enjoy the local wines that perfectly complement the moment.

In Wine Bar Food, acclaimed restaurateurs Cathy and Tony Mantuano show you how to re-create this irresistibly appealing part of the Mediterranean lifestyle at home. Organized by city, from Lisbon to Rome, and paired with accessible wines from each region, the delightfully unpretentious, simply prepared dishes can be shared as small plates by many or make a sit-down dinner for two or more. The 100 recipes emphasize flavor and ease of preparation over strict authenticity, so you’ll be able to round up the ingredients effortlessly to create delicious meals any night of the week, including:

Flaming Ouzo Shrimp (from Athens)
Pork Ribs with Garlic, Chilies, and Tomato (from Naples)
Pea, Bacon, and Pecorino Salad (from Nice)
Amaretto Polenta Pound Cake (from Venice)

Rich with great advice on affordable wine gems and recipes for some killer wine cocktails, Wine Bar Food has everything you need to make weeknight dinners and gatherings with friends simple, fun, and flavorful affairs.

Blackberry Wine: A Novel

As a boy, writer Jay Mackintosh spent three golden summers in the ramshackle home of “Jackapple Joe” Cox. A lonely child, he found solace in Old Joe’s simple wisdom and folk charms. The magic was lost, however, when Joe disappeared without warning one fall.

Years later, Jay’s life is stalled with regret and ennui. His bestselling novel, Jackapple Joe, was published ten years earlier and he has written nothing since. Impulsively, he decides to leave his urban life in London and, sight unseen, purchases a farmhouse in the remote French village of Lansquenet. There, in that strange and yet strangely familiar place, Jay hopes to re-create the magic of those golden childhood summers. And while the spirit of Joe is calling to him, it is actually a similarly haunted, reclusive woman who will ultimately help Jay find himself again.
Customer Review: I Prefer Tea….
I have mixed feelings about Blackberry Wine, unfortunately more negative than positive. For the first ten chapters I despised this book: I didn’t care about the characters, couldn’t care about the plot and wanted nothing more than to just get through the thing so I could move on to another story. Even though the chapters are short, fifty-seven pages is more than I want to wait for a story to get interesting.

Blackberry Wine describes the life of Jay, a one-hit-wonder in the literary arena who fell victim to the freshman curse and now lives as a writer of trashy sci-fi novels and part-time fantasy-conference attendee. One day he impulsively buys a farmhouse in France that brings back childhood memories and moves in, hoping to find what he thinks he’s lost. Via astral projection, his friend/mentor Joe, visits the farmhouse to continue giving the advice he started in Jay’s youth. Jay the adult reverts back to the child he was time and again in his bitterness at being abandoned by the old man’s sudden parting, continuing the legacy. Blackberry Wine is written as a piece of literary fiction, but has definite elements of fantasy that feel out of place. This inconsistent tone added to my discomfort.

One of the reasons I had trouble with this book is because of the way Jay is written. Personally, I thought he was schizophrenic, but I don’t think that was the author’s intention. He seems like an intelligent person, but has the insight of a fifteen-year-old boy coupled with a dog’s manic need to defend his territory (or in this case, Jay’s righteous indignation). Jay’s lack of maturity and poor decision-making ability mark him as a victim, a martyr, so I had trouble caring about him.

This book jumps back and forth in time about every other chapter which I found distracting. The copious descriptions were a bit much and repetitive: how many times did I have to hear about the canal, or that something was yeasty- an odd word to be given such prominence? And don’t get me started on the magically animated bottles of wine….

On the upside, once the story warmed up it was engaging. Jay’s garden renovation and the relationship with his neighbor and her daughter were nice, the practical peculiarities of Joe added color and interest and the French townspeople formed a nice backdrop. All in all I thought Blackberry Wine was flawed, but it did have moments.
Customer Review: Left Me Wanting More
Beautifully written, this book left me wanting more. I was sad when the book came to the end. I had grown fond of the characters (excluding Kerry, who I found utterly irritating) and wanted to know what came next. I could feel the main characters disappointment, his fears and loneliness. I enjoyed how the book balanced between the main characters childhood and adulthood, 1975 to 1999. It was wonderful to see the character develop throughout the story. And of course, there was Joe, the most colorful character of all. His presence throughout the book, even in spirit was truly charming. I certainly recommend this book and cannot understand why some people gave it only 1 or 2 stars. I definitely plan to order more of Joanne Harris’ books based of reading this one.

First Big Crush: The Down and Dirty on Making Great Wine Down Under The story behind the bottle, First Big Crush is Eric Arnold’s wild account of his year immersing himself in all things wine…and somehow not winding up in rehab.

Never having held a meaningful job for very long (and getting fired from most of them), Eric Arnold heads to New Zealand — to Allan Scott Wines — seeking adventure and hoping to learn a little bit about wine. What could be better than working outside in the fresh air and drinking wine all day? Before he knows it, he is dirty, wet, cold, and at the mercy of a tank of wine that just might explode and take him with it. So begin Eric’s adventures in the world of wine. He gets sunburned, sore, and drunk — and then does it all over again the next day.

First Big Crush is a story that is as outrageous as it is compelling. Here are tales of first pressings, pruning, and tasting competitions. There are also rowdy nights at the local pub, girls, meat pies, girls, rugby, and tales of hunting wild pig. Along the way, each step of the winemaking process is explained in a way that humans can actually understand. Almost against his will, Eric becomes an expert.

Customer Review: Plow through the puerile…it’s enlightening
The author’s unrelenting use of tacky sexual simile might be difficult to deal with if the overall content of the book wasn’t quite so interesting…his ‘hands dirty’ insight to this small piece of the wine making business is compelling, though, and I found myself ignoring his hormonal excess. This is one that I’ll read again.
Customer Review: immature, forced and generally just embarassing
you know when you’re with a group of people, and one person is just trying way too hard to be entertaining and you just feel embarassed for him? this is how eric arnold comes off in this book.

look, i’m all for a fun wine read. the last thing we need is another dry ‘how to’ wine guide or buttoned up encyclopedia. and i’m certianly no prude when it comes to off color humor or language. but within the first 30 pages of this book, arnold uses more bad sexual one liners than i can count on all my fingers and toes, and has used the F word at least twice as much. all well and good, if it worked. but the jokes are lame, they don’t land, and you just feel like the author is a teenager trying to show the older kids how cool he is.

i wanted to like this book. i loved the accidental connoisseur by lawrence osborne, and thought this sounded like it too could provide an interesting, informative, yet informal and light hearted look at a wine experience. unfortunately any hope for this is destroyed by the author’s juvenile, labored writing. skip this one.

The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Customer Review: fantastic
It’s strange to read a book that you wished you had read years earlier. If I had read this book 20 years earlier, there would’ve been so many times I would’ve reflected on it.
Customer Review: ghostly
The introduction to My Life In the Bush of Ghosts, the first book in this two-for-one volume, makes you think that it’s an anthropological work for class, not a story you’re reading for fun. That’s a shame, because these two stories are worth reading in their own right. But in comparison to the standard Western literary format, they are unquestionably different.

Most Western literature I read focuses on a cohesive narrative with a beginning, middle and end, a specific plot, and rich descriptions of characters, places, and emotions. That’s not what happens here. Rather, the story unwinds in a very linear fashion, bit by bit, as the character passes through the ghost world he has stumbled into, seemingly at random. There is no surprise expressed by the protagonist when, for example, he meets a ghosts with televisions on her hands, or is transformed by a ghost into a monkey to go climb trees and pick nuts for the ghost to eat. These things are just stated as given, a part of the ongoing adventure. The passage of time is also a very fluid thing. A chapter, or several, can describe the events of a single hour and then a single sentence can describe the passing of a decade. It’s a loose, free-flowing narrative built on the imagination of the author, and his ability to dream up ghosts wild, unexpected, and grotesque. It’s an enjoyable ride but it takes some getting used to.

Oldman’s Guide to Outsmarting Wine: 108 Ingenious Shortcuts to Navigate the World of Wine with Confidence and Style For the thousands of people who know nothing about wine and want to rectify that swiftly and painlessly, Mark Oldman—the “Naked Chef” of wine—is here to help with the kind of information readers can use right now:
• Australian Shiraz is the most instantly likable red under $15
• Drink slightly sweet wine with spicy food
• Judge a wine shop by whether it has homemade shelf signs
• Don’t store unopened wine in the refrigerator for more than a week

Loaded with his personal recommendations—including the top 100 wines less than $15—Oldman’s Guide also includes the wine picks of an eclectic mix of collectors, from Le Cirque owner Sirio Maccioni to Morley Safer of 60 Minutes. This is a wine guide like no other and is sure to be savored by anyone who wants their wine without the attitude.
Customer Review: Make it your first book on wine!
If you are buying your first book on wine, let it be this one. I have previously bought some other books that were advertised as aimed towards non professionals, but I found many parts of them very hard to read. Oldman’s guide is worth reading, and it can awaken the love for wine in you. It is made as one or two page shortcuts which you can easily read, grab off the shelf when you feel like it or when you want to know more. This is the ultimate guide for beginners!
Customer Review: Brilliant, Very Funny and Entertaining
Love this! For wine there is no better tome to make you feel like you know what you’re talking about. Mark Oldman is brilliant, very funny and entertaining…and iconoclastic and ironic. The book is SO WELL PACED. Before starting it, I would say I was about a 2 in knowing about wine…now I feel like I’m at 7 or 8.

Washington Wines and Wineries: The Essential Guide During the thirty-five years wine critic and writer Paul Gregutt has lived in the state of Washington, its wine industry has ballooned from a mere half dozen wineries to nearly five hundred. Washington Wines and Wineries offers a comprehensive, critical, and accessible account of the nation’s second largest wine-producing region. Gregutt, who has covered Washington wine in books, newspapers, and magazines since the mid-1980s, enthusiastically dispenses information along with his editorial opinion, displaying the depth of his knowledge of the area, the players, the regions, and the wines. He points out the best vineyards, the most accomplished winemakers, the must-have wines, and the newcomers to watch. He rates wineries–not wines–with a unique and detailed 100-point scale, providing an insider’s view of the best that Washington state has to offer. As the global wine industry reinvents itself for twenty-first-century palates, Washington is poised to become as important and influential as California on the world stage. Washington Wines and Wineries is the definitive reference book on the subject.
Customer Review: Essential
I agree with the book’s bold subtitle. And not only is this survey essential, but it is engaging and entertaining — my standard for good writing is that I would enjoy reading it whether or not I’m interested in the subject, and Gregutt passes that test with aplomb.

Of particular value — and at the heart of the book — is Gregutt’s well researched and knowledgeable summary of each of wine grape grown in the region, with a listing of “best bottles” of each varietal. This section of the book by itself would make a handy stand-alone pocket publication.

Gregutt’s choice to limit his reviews to the top 20-25% of wineries, in terms of quality/style/value, regardless of size, leaves off the radar screen some fairly large wineries that might have broader national distribution (Hogue, for example), but out-of-region readers with favorable shipping laws would do well directly purchase wines from some of the smaller wineries that he suggests.
Customer Review: An exceptional book by an author who really understands Washington wine.
Paul Gregutt truly understands Washington wine, and it is very well demonstrated in his book (Washington Wines and Wineries). Paul does a terrific job covering the history of the Washington wine industry and many of the top vineyards. The most intriguing part of the book has to be the way Paul provides detailed information on the “Top 25%” of the states wineries. Since many of the top Washington wines are produced in limited quanity by very young wineries, this book provides a much needed resource to help navigate through the current releases. Whether you are a newcomer to Washington wine or a connoisseur, this book is a must read.

Bread & Water, Wine & Oil: An Orthodox Christian Experience of God Worry, despair, insecurity, fear of death . . . these are our daily companions, and even though we attempt to ignore them or try to crowd them out, they are there, waiting for us in our quieter moments. It is precisely where we hurt most that the experience of the Orthodox Church has much to offer. The remedy is not a pep talk, or any simple admonitions to fight the good fight, cheer up, or think positively. Rather, the Orthodox method is to change the way we look at the human person (starting with ourselves). According to two thousand years of experience, Orthodoxy shows us how to be transformed by the renewing of our mind — a process that is aided by participation in the traditional ascetic practices and Mysteries of the Church. In this unique and accessible book, Archimandrite Meletios Webber first explores the role of mystery in the Christian life, then walks the reader through the seven major Mysteries of the Orthodox Church, showing the way to a richer, fuller life in Christ.
Customer Review: A Spiritual Gift
I highly recommend “Bread & Water, Wine & Oil.” Father Meletios states it best: “We (Orthodox Christians) identify ourselves most clearly by being quite sure who we are not.” True to his “who we are not” theme, Father Meletios explores every dimension of Orthodoxy and its Mysteries, and richly interprets the almost unexplainable. Anyone seeking Orthodoxy will find his engaging style, and clarity of thought about Orthodox teachings most illuminating and spiritually eloquent. Those already engaged in the Orthodox spiritual life will be refreshed with deeper understanding. His genuine and practical anecdotes connect an ancient Faith with modern life, ever so adeptly. Father Meletios’ writings are an immeasurable gift to his readers, and I am grateful for his monumental effort. This book is to be read carefully and savored. It is a treasure; certainly it will be an enduring one. Thank you, Father Mel, from one of the lucky ones who has grown under your spiritual guidance.
Customer Review: a book destined to become a classic
A key passage at the beginning of “Bread and Water, Wine and Oil” focuses on the on the Orthodox use of the word “mystery”:

“One of the most noticeable features of Eastern Christianity is that it is this word, `mystery,’ rather than the word `sacrament,’ which describes those actions of God which have a specific, decisive and eternal significance in the lives of those who take part in them. Everyday substances — oil, water, bread, wine — together with simple actions — offering, blessing, washing, anointing — become the means by which God intervenes in our lives. These interventions — in which God does all the work, and our only contribution is to be prepared and present — color and shape our lives beyond the extent that would be possible through any human encounter. However, unlike most human interactions, they do not take us from a place of ignorance to a place of knowledge. Rather, the Mysteries lead us deeper and deeper into the Mystery — the Mystery which is the presence of God Himself.”

Mystery, in the Orthodox sense, has nothing to do with mystery novels and films. The divine mystery has no solution. As the author writes:

“In the East, on the other hand, a mystery is an area where the human mind cannot go, and where the heart alone makes sense, not by `knowing,’ but by ;being.’ The Greek word mysterion leads you into a sense of `not-knowing’ or `not-understanding’ and leaves you there. All a person can do is gaze and wonder; there is nothing to solve.”

Father Meletios’s book is a profoundly challenging book about the journey from the mind (always struggling to explain, solve and de-mystify, yet always seething with emotions and passions) to the depths of the heart, the center of being rather than of knowing.

“Bread and Water, Wine and Oil” seems likely to become a Christian classic, the sort of book the reader returns to again and again and keeps recommending to friends.