The new book, The Finest Wines of Rioja and Northwestern Spain, made me do just that. Up-to-date, with gorgeous photos, the book is by a trio of writers and tasters, well-known in Spain and possibly outside: Jesus Barquin, a criminology professor and sherry lover whose passion led him to co-found Equipo Navazos, a boutique producer of excellent sherries; Luis Gutierrez who recently started contributing to jancisrobinson.com; and Victor de la Serna, deputy editor of El Mundo, a leading Spanish daily, who heads El Mundo Vino.

Although the book is largely a collection of 85 producer profiles, the authors open the book with several good discussions, one about the grape varieties (they acknowledge the resurgence of indigenous varieties in the northwest) and another about traditional versus modern winemaking. This latter discussion is of most importance in Rioja where modern style has been ascendant. The authors dispute the notion that the modern style of dark, extracted, fruity wines has been a “curse” for the region and are surprisingly accommodating of it saying that the best of the moderns “will in turn become classics.” I guess it would have been a short book if they didn’t adopt a non-partisan, ecumenical stand on the modern-traditional issue. They also admit that their personal collections have many examples of traditional producers from the best vintages.

The profiles bring the producers to light in one to six pages and include traditional producers (Lopez de Heredia and La Rioja Alta), modern (Roda), mixed (Muga) and up-and-coming (Olivere Rivière). They also discuss Txakoli, Albarino and wines from Ribeira Sacra and Bierzo. Throughout the book, they highlight a top wine from a producer with a star; I agreed with enough of their starred wines that I will look for some other of their suggestions to try. They also tuck in a list of restaurants and shops with good supplies of aged Rioja (though how many will be modern?) that would be helpful to travelers to the region. In fact, with its wealth of practical information and advice, I wouldn’t head to the region without it.

If you have 51 minutes that you just don’t know what to do with, you can now check out a video of a talk I gave at the New School recently. Andy Smith, editor of the Oxford Companion to American Food & Drink among many other book projects, had assigned my book to his class, “Drinking History.” It ended up becoming a public talk at the university, filling the room, and even being taped! So here it is, including a discussion of contemporary topics such as the primary source bill in New York. While I certainly don’t challenge Martin Luther King’s legacy of oratory, perhaps there’s a nugget or two of interest in there.

Orders are fulfilled from the Dr. Vino world headquarters and signed by yours truly. Yes, mortgage documents may have been signed by robo-pen but these books will be signed by my own hand!

Books ship via Priority Mail to domestic addresses; shipping is included. (For international shipping, please inquire about postage.) Use Paypal to send $20 per book with the destination address and recipient name to tyler @ drvino dot com and your order will be ship the next business day. You can use all credit cards on Paypal and it is super easy. So don’t delay for this personalized gift!

You saw the book on GMA. After the jump, see photos of illustrious people holding the book, blurbs, and a fuller description!

“Usually, I feel as though reading about wine instead of drinking it is a bit like going to the Playboy mansion bound, gagged and blindfolded. But that’s never been the case for Tyler Colman’s writing, whether it’s his books or his blog. This is fun, inspiring stuff that’ll make you excited about wine, not send you running, screaming from it.”– Eric Arnold, author of First Big Crush: The Down and Dirty on Making Great Wine Down Under

“Here is an approach to wine sure to open a lot of people’s eyes to a lot of pleasure. It replaces the numerical scoring system with some strongly flavored common sense. And it answers the question: what is the best way to enjoy wine.”– Kermit Lynch, wine importer and author of Adventures on the Wine Route and Inspiring Thirst

“To me, nothing says ‘summer’ like a big, sweet, alcohol-rich glass of Amarone alongside a briny bowl of linguine and clams. I’m just kidding. That would be disgusting. This is Tyler Colman’s point and it’s a good one: Wine is all about place and context. Lots of books give you the ‘whats’ of wine, but this one gives you the ‘whens,’ ‘wheres’ and ‘whys’ as well.”– David Lynch, co-author of Vino Italiano and The Wine Snob’s Dictionary

“A Year of Wine offers a unique way to enjoy and appreciate wine. As a world traveler I will follow Tyler Colman’s advice next time I’m enjoying the sunset on the Caribbean coast of my native Venezuela or looking at the beautiful red roofs of Florence, Italy. Choosing the perfect wine for a special occasion is like selecting the perfect pitch to hit an RBI double with men in scoring position.” — Bobby Abreu, starting right fielder, New York Yankees

Product Description
A lively and informative guide to a year of wine enjoyment and appreciation from acclaimed wine expert and blogger Tyler Colman, aka “Dr. Vino”
In A Year of Wine, award-winning educator Tyler “Dr. Vino” Colman, whose wine blog was hailed by Food & Wine magazine as “one of the seven best,” views winter, spring, summer, and fall through the glass of his favorite impact-resistant stemware, pairing each month with its perfect ports, Pinots, and bubblies — and offering good value recommendations for them all. Throughout, Colman reminds readers to try to pair their pours with context, which is wildly underrated when it comes to enjoying your favorite bottle. And while people tend naturally to drink lighter, more refreshing wines during the warm months and heavier, more serious wines during the winter months, Colman takes the seasonal approach a step further by offering innovative recommendations and enlightening facts that will allow readers to impress their friends for twelve months straight.

Is there a perfect wine to serve with chips and salsa on Super Bowl Sunday? Which bottles will help you drown away your tax- day blues without blowing your new budget? Colman answers these questions and much more as he pairs wines with each season, occasion, and moment. Recommending thoughtful and affordable wines for special celebrations and everyday enjoyment, offering tips on beginning a wine collection or spring cleaning the one you have, exploring how to drink with the smallest possible carbon footprint, and explaining how to maximize your wine experience when you dine out, Colman makes wine easy to understand and, most important, to savor.

Colman also shares the secret gems of his favorite wine tourism destinations — where to find the best wine shops in Paris, which Portuguese vintners still crush grapes with their bare feet, and how you can take a ten-tasting-room tour with one stop in a tiny Oregon town — and turns to some of the country’s top sommeliers for their take on wine appreciation as well.

Perfect for both seasoned wine enthusiasts and oenophobes, A Year of Wine is an innovative approach that will encourage readers to drink outside the bottle.

Get background information and analysis on important wine topics such as why French wine advertisements aren’t allowed to show women looking sultry, how appellations can strangle originality, and why it’s easier to ship a case of wine from Bordeaux to Berlin than from Napa to New Jersey.

I’m giving away three personally inscribed copies of the new paperback to three people here! To qualify, leave a comment on this post noting the state or country where you live and if you’re happy with the ability (or not) to have wine shipped to you. Fortunately, books can be shipped to all 50 states but we request domestic addresses only for the giveaway; leave your comment by midnight Thursday to qualify for the drawing of three random winners on Friday.

The highly skimmable book starts off with a worthwhile discussion of pairing food and wine. The goal, says Goldstein, a former sommelier, is to turn food-wine pairing from a lengthy, possibly agonizing process to simply picking a wine that will work and then sitting back and enjoying the pairing. The various charts and cheat sheets provide quick help toward this laudable goal. Further, he lays out five important elements of wine (acidity, sweetness, tannin, oak, and alcohol) and elaborates who they will work best with certain foods (salty foods are best with either high acid wines or slightly sweet wines but bomb with high alcohol wines). He also suggests how to tweak recipes to make them more wine friendly (e.g. varying cooking methods or replacing vinegar with verjus–juice from unripe grapes). Any given meal, he writes, will either highlight the food or the wine, which may seem somewhat controversial, but actually could be a great excuse for hosts who are wine enthusiasts to provide simple food.

Goldstein admits that most people start with food and then add a wine pairing. That said, the bulk of the book’s 364 pages discusses 36 grapes, their taste profiles, various winemaker interpretations of the grapes, and which pairings work and which will fail miserably. A recipe from a chef, often well-known, such as Charlie Trotter or Fergus Henderson, also follows each grape and if you have a lot of time and ambition, you can make the recipe that won’t overshadow the wine you’re probably trying to highlight. The mouthwatering photography certainly stokes ambition.

The grapes are probably not all that “daring” to many readers of this site. But I just led a tasting over the weekend that included Gruner Veltliner, Albarino, and Aglianico among others, and, astonishingly, there were people who had never tried these varieties! The book certainly can help casual drinkers who are reaching for a new wine by offering a range of food pairing tips. I like wine recommendations in context; in my own pairings book, I suggested adding seasonality to further round out the picture.

Daring Pairings provides a lot to chew on. Maybe Goldstein’s next book will crank up the degree of difficulty even further–”impossible pairings” anyone?

Even though its themes were widely discussed in the wine world, audiences did not flock to see Nossiter’s 2004 documentary, Mondovino, which racked up only $200,000 in box office gross according to IMDB. (Sideways was north of $100 million, by contrast.) I found Mondovino to be shaky, not stirring.

The first review of Liquid Memory came in the NYT Book Review, written by Jim Holt (who is credited as “writing a book about the puzzle of existence”). He offered this warm beer as criticism: “Nossiter didn’t completely win me over.” Despite this, the book soared on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Now get a hold of Mike Steinberger’s review, just published on Slate.com. He writes that the ”solipsism, self-regard, and preening” on display in the book would make the subtitle “Why I Matter” more apt. He also catches Nossiter displaying faux populism both in Nossiter’s lexicon for talking about wine that (literature) as well as the high prices of the wines that Nossiter recommends (Roumier, Roulot, and Dominique Lafon). And he accuses Nossiter of fighting yesterday’s battles.

A great line line from the review summarizes Nossiter’s regrettable tendency to paint his villains with a partisan brush: “The wine world is certainly no Eden, but at least among the grape nuts I know, there seems to be a tacit understanding that politics should end at the rim of the glass—that arguments over wine are spirited enough without injecting politics into the discussion.”

One of the questions he asked me was about a time when I had trouble opening a bottle. Being smoother than Rico Suave with corkscrew, I could only think of crumbly corks as difficult-to-open situations.

But later, Mrs. Vino reminded me of The Rabbit!

I haven’t ever confessed this to you, but The Rabbit and I are not friends. We once brought a celebratory bottle of red over to some friends at their new home. New as in brand new. And freshly painted. They presented me with The Rabbit to open the bottle and I confidently pushed down on the lever in such a manner as to thrust the cork into the bottle and force a geyser of red wine up to the ceiling. Whoops! Fortunately the painter was due back soon. But still, not one of my finer bottle opening moments.

What about you? Do you have any embarrassing moments in bottle opening that you’d like to share?

The irony of this comment was not lost on Mike Steinberger. In his new book, after noting that London is now, actually, a great food city, he turns the tables on Chirac, saying, “Where once the mere mention of food by a French leader would have elicited thoughts of Gallic refinement and achievement, its invocation now served to underscore the depths of France’s decline. They’ve even lost their edge in the kitchen.”

Mike is probably best known to wine geeks as the wine columnist for Slate.com. But in Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France, available on Amazon today, he broadens his focus to include food, specifically, haute cuisine in France. Unlike much food writing, which is prone to sometimes excessive praise, Mike takes up the task of analyzing the decline of French food through the lens of a love lost. Imbued with nostalgia and occasional bafflement at the new French ability to turn gold into lead, Mike wolfs down raw milk camembert and praline mille feuilles, talks with leading chefs and restaurateurs, probes the inner workings of the Michelin Guide, cross examines bureaucrats, journeys to Spain, has a glass of water with the head of McDonald’s Europe, meets a struggling vintner who sold his house in order to keep his winery, and contemplates the lack of ethnic diversity in French restaurants with a Pakistani-born chef.

It’s a meaty tale that provokes thought and stimulates the palate: wine and food lovers will want to savor it this summer.

Thanks to Bloomsbury, the publisher, we have three signed copies of the book to give away to readers of this site. To qualify for the drawing, hit the comments below and tell us where you had your best (or at least a great) meal, restaurant and city. If you’re not feeling in an haute cuisine spirit, tell us about your favorite street food experience. Enter by Thursday to qualify; randomly selected winners will be announced here on Friday morning.
UPDATE: Slate has just posted an excerpt about “How the Michelin guide crippled France’s restaurants.”

On another book related note, in case you are puzzling what to get for Father’s Day, I’m happy to reinstate my offer of signed gift copies. Send me via PayPal the amazon price, tax, and shipping (say, $25) of either Wine Politics or the practical guide, A Year of Wine: Perfect Pairings, Great Buys, and What to Sip for Each Season (which actually has more wine-related Father’s Day gift ideas in it), and I’ll send a copy of either book inscribed as you please to whatever domestic address you like. So much more interesting than a tie! Don’t delay since Father’s Day is rapidly approaching! There’s also a Kindle edition of A Year of Wine but I can’t sign that one for you without smudging your screen.

I was fortunate enough to have been able to give a talk there last year for my other book, Wine Politics, and the turnout was great and the discussion was excellent. Because A Year of Wine dovetails on the seasonal food movement by suggesting varying the wines you drink with the seasons, I’m thrilled to be heading to this gastronomic institution for this discussion. Hope to see you there!

Wednesday, June 10, Noon – 1 PM
167 W. 12th Street
Suggested donation: $20; students free. Event page on their site.

It was only November when I first heard about the Korean edition of my book, Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink. And now it has been printed–and with a better cover, I might add. Wow, that was fast.

In news about my other book, A Year of Wine: Perfect Pairings, Great Buys, and What to Sip for Each Season, we have blog reviews!

Jeff at goodgrape.com writes: “It has ascended to the top of my intro. guide favorites list…Not only is his crystalline writers voice clear, concise and accessible, but he’s truly done something inventive with the introductory wine guide genre by interspersing his wisdom very suitably within the context of the calendar.”

Cathy Huyghe writes: “…this book makes wine fun. Relevant. Not stodgy. Easy reading. And by the end of it – or by the end of the month if you prefer – you’ll have learned something new. When it comes to books on wine, you cannot ask for anything more.”

Vinography posts Tim Patterson’s review of Wine Politics: “Dr. Vino knows his stuff–and rest assured, the writing is clean, clear and lively, not the least pedantic, and in no way requiring an advanced degree in econometrics.”

And, finally, you can check out a video Q&A with me done by the good folks at Organic Wine Journal. They also have some other vids there about cow horns with Mike Benziger or how to spit with Lyle Fass so you might just click away from mine to surf around their site.

Beppi also happens to the be wine columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail. His column today is about changing what’s in your wine glass with the seasons, which is the heart of my book, A Year of Wine: Perfect Pairings, Great Buys and What to Sip for Each Season. It’s a really good article that is part book review, part profile and part wine picks. Be sure to check it out!

Which wines are you looking forward to having in your glass as the weather warmer, the days get longer and more vegetables become available?

(image)

As the author, it is slightly nerve-racking to see reviews coming in right at the point of sale. Fortunately the reception has been excellent. But this point-of-sale review is the future (er, present?) of online retail. As more wine sales shift online in coming years, particularly through the prospect of Amazon entering wine retail, wineries will have to adjust to this form of popular criticism, which could certainly serve as a sharp break with the dominant sales model of the past couple decades, selling wines based on the scores of critics.

There’s also a new video embedded on the Amazon page. In the still shot, my head looks like that member of the Jedi Council with the enormously long head. But if you roll it, things get proportional.

The book is now also available on the Amazon e-reader, Kindle!

To balance my appearance on Fox Business in December, I went on The Lionel Show on Air America last month. The segments are available here and here.

Wine & Spirits magazine wrote in February that “”this is a guide you’ll want to keep near the top of your reference pile.”

>Pittsburgh Post-Gazette flagged it on their Santa short list, calling it a “user-friendly book…[where] pairings can venture from the ordinary.”

Joe Roberts, aka One Wine Dude, provides a soaring endorsement of the Year of Dr. Vino. Even his baby daughter had her own tasting notes on the book (or chewing notes). Thanks, Joe!

Wine in the ‘Peg recommends A Year of Wine as their first wine book ever recommended! They dig the seasonal enjoyment of wine and say, “His writing style keeps your attention and he brings a fresh perspective to the topic of wine. I’m about a third of the way into it and am just loving it. It’s a fabulous read and is highly recommended.”

The Balanced Grad even stumbled on this wine book saying “has a great writing voice and talks about wine in a relaxed and totally unimposing way. He looks at wine from a seasonal approach, hammering down the point that wine should complement the mood and temperature of each season. I’m really into seasonal eating (hello, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle!) so I can’t help but gravitate towards this idea…”

And don’t forget my other book, good old Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink, which got a very positive review in the Journal of Wine Economics.

Send in your comments on either book and we will link ‘em up! See previous review roundups.

Dear Mr. Tyler Colman,

The translator inquired about the meaning of “scientific wild-ass guess” in page 93 of this book. Would you please explain this to me?

I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best wishes,

The reference was from a California winemaker who, upon launching his new wine, pulled the price out of thin air. Or elsewhere.

In the photo snatched from a video, the black backdrop isn’t from Charlie Rose; I actually did a video podcast at the swanky new studio in the offices of Simon & Schuster and they have it now on their web site. Hear the exciting backstory of how this blog was forged in an artisanal workshop and then launched on an unsuspecting world! And an overview of what’s in the book! And where the stock market will bottom! Okay, maybe not that last one.

Bill Daley had very nice review of A Year of Wine in the Chicago Tribune, calling it “charming…witty, lively and loaded with common sense. [Colman] offers up wine suggestions for every holiday on the calendar. Just what we all need.” Click through to see the other books he reviews!

I also went on the New Hampshire Public Radio show, Word of Mouth, for the second time this year. Host Virginia Prescott and I chatted about plotting your wines to the seasons and some holiday wines. Listen here.

At the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, columnist Elizabeth Downer writes Santa that “All I want for Christmas is a cool wine gift” and includes A Year of Wine on her list.

Over at Slashfood, Gretchen Roberts writes about A Year of Wine that “the key to writing a successful and engaging book is in organizing the material in a new way, or what editors like to call “packaging.” Colman’s packaging is what makes the book worth buying. Talking about drinking wine with the seasons is new, different, and it makes so much sense to regard wine in this way…I absolutely recommend [it] as a great buy for your bookshelf and your comfy chair.

Tom Wark, the first to post a review, writes on his blog, Fermentation, that A Year of Wine is “a terrific addition to the Wine Guide genre that will enlighten many a wine drinker by making their relationship to wine deeper and more meaningful…and probably more fun too.”

Richard, the Passionate Foodie, writes that AYOW is “far more than just a buying guide, more than just a dry recitation of recommended wines. So I bought the book and eagerly devoured it in its entirety the next day.”

Over on Smells like Grape, Taster B writes about AYOW that “fans of the Dr. Vino blog will certainly want to have this book around for a handy reference, or buy it as a gift for the wine newbie on their list.”

Also about AYOW, Jesse at Young Winos of LA writes, “Dr. Vino’s stately hardcover is the one you display on your coffee table and read with a big glass of Zinfandel. If it’s winter, that is. Because if it’s summer, you’d read it on the porch with a Prosecco, and if it’s fall, you’d pop a Mourvedre.”

UPDATE: Dr. Debs posted a review today including it on a list of gift books, saying AYOW is “the perfect choice if you have someone on your list who is new to wine or is intimidated by wine.”

Sharon Kapnick, an experienced freelance wine writer, actually pops off a thoughtful review of both books, noting my Dr. Vino and Dr. Colman sides. Of A Year of Wine, she writes, “there aren’t many wine books — if any — organized around seasons…The book is laced with Colman’s sense of humor and charm…Also included are 12 wine tourism destinations, short interviews with some of the country’s best sommeliers, and numerous useful sidebars: “How to Chill a Wine Bottle in Five Minutes,” “How to Tell If It’s Sulfur That Gives You Headaches.”

Of Wine Politics, she writes “At last, a topic that has long deserved attention has gotten it, in a well-written book that is as compelling as its subtitle is catchy. It will change the way you think and may even change the way you shop and the wines you buy.”

I also discuss both books on the KDVS (UC Davis) radio show, “It’s About You!” for almost an hour with host France Kassing. (see 11/24 show)

And I also talked with host Jerome McDonnell about Wine Politics on his Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ) show “Worldview.”

Vancouver Wine Info says “Wine Politics is the type of book you can pick up and read 6 months later and still be intrigued. I give it 93 points!”

Wine Marketing + Law Canada says of Wine Politics: “Excellent book discussing how politics affects the quality, cost and availability of wine. Although the book barely mentions Canada, the issues and topics are nowhere more relevant and applicable than here in Canada, and particularly in BC and Ontario.”

The Spanish glossy wine mag, Sibaritas, gives Wine Politics four stars (out of four)!

Jeff Lefevere of the blog Good Grape, features briefly in Wine Politics as Mr. Frustrated Wine Consumer in Indiana, writes “this book should be required reading for all wine lovers. Everybody.” And then he proceeds with ten things that he learned in the book. Check out his list!

Finally, Thomas McGowan calls it “eye opening” and a “must read” in his review on Amazon. If you liked the book and don’t have your own blog, consider heading over there and posting your comments.

Thanks to everyone for the support and I hope you enjoy the books too!