Review: Wine Simple: A Totally Approachable Guide from a World-Class Sommelier

Wine Simple: A Totally Approachable Guide from a World-Class Sommelier by Aldo Sohm
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My main issue with this book is that I wanted to buy half the bottles he mentions. All in all this was extremely interesting and broad, covering pretty much all the main types of wine any of us will encounter. 

I'm guessing I'll be referring back to this book often, when discovering new wines and/or traveling to the regions they're from. 

Some of my (random) notes:

Alto Adige has Italy’s best white wines and Trentino has great reds (he mentions Schiava)

A town called tramin in alto adige has the best Gewurztraminers in the world

Traditionally Chianti was Sangiovese blended with Canaiolo nero and a small amount of Trebbiano (white). In the 80s they started blending it with Cab and Merlot. Then in the 90s they started using oak barrels to make them more marketable worldwide. So now it's difficult to find the original variety anymore.

Old world wines are going to have problems due to climate change, since their accreditation (appelation, denominazione, etc.) depends on strict rules, and the European governments won't be able to keep up with the changes in climate, etc. 

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Review: Chinese Wine

Chinese Wine by Zhengping Li
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Please Note, this book uses the term "wine" to mean "liquor", and uses the term "grape wine" to mean "wine", except toward the end, and a bit in the middle, when it just stops using "grape wine" altogether so you sort of have to guess. This also means that "white wine" actually means a white type of liquor, and "red fermented wine" is another type of liquor, neither of which have anything to do with wine.

Given that, there are some interesting factoids in this book. I especially enjoyed the section on the most famous forms of liquor in China, and some of the history and myths having to do with liquor, as well as some of the customs in various areas (although these are sort of glossed over, and Taiwanese aboriginal tribes are all grouped under "gaoshan". Also, the legend of "nu er hong" is mentioned twice, but the story is slightly different each time.

The section on drinking games could have been skipped, and the section on beer is out of date at this point, since it doesn't even mention craft beers.

2.5 stars

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