Wine, made and drunk locally, has been a part of life in the sunlit Mediterranean basin since ancient times. Now, all the temperate regions of the world produce wine. With that geographical expansion has come a new flowering of aromas and flavours. Socially, too, wine is now accessible to all. Its pleasures are no longer the preserve of a wealthy elite. The first part of the book, The Tools, introduces you to the kit you'll need for tasting and thinking...

"Naked wine is wine stripped down to its basics-wine as it was meant to be: wholesome, exciting, provocative, living, sensual, and pure. Naked, or natural, wine is the opposite of most New World wines today; Alice Feiring calls them "overripe, over-manipulated, and overblown" and makes her case that good (and possibly great) wine can still be made, if only winemakers would listen more to nature and less to marketers, and stop using additives and chemicals....

"When journalist Kevin Begos sets out to discover the origins of wine, he finds a whole world of forgotten grapes and meets the archaeologists, chemists, and botanists who are deciphering wine down to molecules of flavor"--

Still drinking Cabernet after that one bottle you liked five years ago? It can be overwhelming if not intimidating to branch out from your go-to grape, but everyone wants their next wine to be new and exciting. How to choose the right one? Award-winning wine critic Alice Feiring presents an all-new way to look at the world of wine. While grape variety is important, a lot can be learned about wine by looking at the source: the ground in which it grows....

The history of civilization is, in many ways, the history of wine. This book is the first comprehensive account of the earliest stages of the history and prehistory of viniculture, which extends back into the Neolithic period and beyond. Elegantly written and richly illustrated, Ancient Wine opens up whole new chapters in the fascinating story of wine by drawing on recent archaeological discoveries, molecular and DNA sleuthing, and the writings and...

Wine comes in many forms and flavours, and has been a part of man's social history for thousands of years, the earliest evidence of a fermented drink based on grapes originating from China around 7000 BC. Today, winemaking is big business, both in Europe and the New World. This book provides a fascinating insight into how wines and winemaking techniques have developed around the world, and offering practical advice on how to produce successful homemade...