Wine Folly – The Essential Guide to Wine Book
I’m a big fan of the Wine Folly team and the way they share their excellent wine knowledge with the world. I was lucky enough to interview the one and only Madeline Puckette last year and when I heard she was producing a physical wine book with Justin Hammack, well I just had to have it!
After pre-ordering it early September and receiving it a few weeks later I was so happy to find my expectations met.
It’s a very visual wine appreciation book which is quite different from other wine books on the market. It flows with the same infographic driven model as the Wine Folly website which makes it very approachable and you actually do want to sit down with a glass of wine in the sun and read it like you would a novel – for hours at a time.
In my opinion it would appeal to dedicated wine aficionados as well as those wishing to take their first sips into the wine world.
The colourful book covers all the ‘essentials to wine’, really giving you a good overview of the wine world. From learning the basic fundamentals of tasting wine to handling wine and there’s even some wine & food matching tips. The book describes different wine styles from light to full-bodied wines, sparkling, white, rose, red and dessert wines alongside different wine regions from Argentina to Australia, Chile, France,the US and more (12 wine regions of the world in total)!
And the book ends with a glossary explaining some of those more technical wine terms such as ‘appellation’ and ‘residual sugar’. Which is quite handy.
For an essentials guide to wine book of its size, I would most definitely say Wine Folly has hit the cork on the head with this one. I can imagine it was a hard task of what to include and what not to include. I also like that the book is still light enough in terms of weight, that I can read it in bed without the fear of it giving me a broken nose if I were to fall asleep and drop it on my face!
With Christmas just around the corner I think this pretty and informative wine book would make an excellent Xmas present for all levels and intensities of wine-lover. For around AU$40 inclusive of delivery to Australia via Amazon you definitely won’t find any other wine books of this caliber on the market. Now I wonder when volume two will come out!
Do you have a favourite wine book? If so what one, comment below and let us know…