Wine on Tuesdays: Be a Serious Wine Drinker without Taking Wine too Seriously

Let me first disclose that the authors of "Wine on Tuesdays" are geographically distant cousins of mine who first told me about this book at a recent family event. Curious, I read it this weekend, then decided that it would be a disservice to its potential audience to not write a brief review... This book is perfect for someone (like me!) who loves to drink wine and wants to know a bit more about it, but has been overwhelmed by (and thus has retained just about nothing from) every other wine book he or she has read and wine course he or she has taken (and I've done both several times). It's written in a casual, fun style, and is concise enough that you don't need to edit through the "more than you really want to know stuff" in order to get to "the important stuff"; the authors here have done that editing for you, thus leaving you with a body of wine knowledge that's both easy to absorb and easy to remember. Look at it this way: With this book, for the cost of one moderately-priced bottle of vino that you'll p--s away the next morning and probably forget about shortly thereafter, you can have a reference base of knowledge that will last a lifetime.

I thought this was such a fun, charming read. I loved the little stories about "wine pioneers" and other little anecdotes--they were wonderful little tidbits of information and made this book very approachable. But "Wine on Tuesdays" contains lots of solid information and common-sense advice, too. The weekend after I read the book, I was out for dinner, saw "Fume Blanc" on the wine list, and remembered from "Wine on Tuesdays" that Fume Blanc is basically Sauvignon Blanc--and knew that wasn't what we wanted to order. I also appreciated the breakdowns of wine recommendations into "everyday," "Friday night," and "high roller" categories. After all, sometimes you just want to celebrate making it through another week!