I’m a wine writer, winemaker, organic wine farmer, and an accredited wine educator with decades of experience. I have loved wine since my first sip as a university student and wine is one of my life’s passions. I love how wine can connect you to a place, how it is like travel in a bottle, to a vintage, a place, a person. I’ve written five books about wine; I offer wine courses, tours and vineyard walks in South-West France and I live on the organic vineyard and winery that I co-founded with my husband. In my writing life, I’m also wine writer for Living magazine.
I wrote
Saving Our Skins: Building a Vineyard Dream in France
This book is my favourite wine book in recent times. In it, Bianca Bosker follows her quest to become a sommelier.
We follow her wine-tasting experiences, which include tasting with a high-flying circle of New York sommeliers from top restaurants and learning about wine while having sex. How is the last part possible? You’ll have to read it to find out!
You’ll also learn about wine, wine tasting, how your brain works, and the underworld of restaurants and sommeliers. This book is entertaining and well-written; I laughed out loud many times.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' PICK
"Thrilling . . . [told] with gonzo elan . . . When the sommelier and blogger Madeline Puckette writes that this book is the Kitchen Confidential of the wine world, she's not wrong, though Bill Buford's Heat is probably a shade closer." -Jennifer Senior, The New York Times
Professional journalist and amateur drinker Bianca Bosker didn't know much about wine-until she discovered an alternate universe where taste reigns supreme, a world of elite sommeliers who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of flavor. Astounded by their fervor and…
This is a voyage of stories about wine from the old world and new world, some very amusing.
Nathalie travels to Burgundy to explore Pinot Noir, Champagne to learn about sparkling wine, California and Australia to learn about New World wine, and many more places. Through her exploration you’ll learn about the wine regions she visits and about wine tasting.
This book is written in a very easy and humorous style, as hinted at by the title. I loved this book for its unstuffy, friendly approach to wine.
Alice’s book is a manifesto against homogenization, wine consultants, and 100-point scoring systems.
She travels to the Loire and Champagne in France, to Piedmont in Italy, and to Spain. She reveals what goes into industrial wines, the mechanical treatments like reverse osmosis, and the additives like yeasts and enzymes, tannins, sawdust, and oak chips.
This book is an excellent compendium of anecdotes, interesting people in the wine world, and why natural wine is good. You’ll learn about the world of wine, but especially about the world of wine through the lens of Alice Feiring’s passion, natural wine.
An “entertaining and passionate” connoisseur tours the vineyards of Europe and California, arguing for an old-fashioned appreciation of authenticity (The New York Times).
The drastic effects that influential wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. has had on the winemaking industry are best described as wine Parkerization. Many vintners are leaving old techniques behind and turning to chemistry and technology in order to please Parker’s palate. This led to the disappearance of James Beard Foundation Award–winning writer Alice Feiring’s favorite wines—and she was determined to learn why.
In a one-woman crusade that will have you wondering what exactly is in your…
Mike Veseth is a writer and economist. His book offers insight into the economics and business of wine via analysis, anecdotes, and entertainment.
Branded industrial single varietal (single grape type) wines simplify the wine shelf and help wine-lovers to understand wine as they start their wine journey, but they also dumb down wine and destroy part of what makes wine so special: its unique ability to take us to a place, a time, a person.
Mike asks if this trend toward standardisation will kill wine or if there will be a swing back to small lot wines. I found the case studies he explored enlightening. This book sheds new light on the complicated business of wine.
Writing with wit and verve, Mike Veseth (a.k.a. the Wine Economist) tells the compelling story of the war between the market trends that are redrawing the world wine map and the terroirists who resist them. Wine and the wine business are at a critical crossroad today, transformed by three powerful forces. Veseth begins with the first force, globalization, which is shifting the center of the wine world as global wine markets provide enthusiasts with a rich but overwhelming array of choices. Two Buck Chuck, the second force, symbolizes the rise of branded products like the famous Charles Shaw wines sold…
For a structured, academic book on wine this is a favorite for the easy diagrams and clear, concise ways of explaining the differences between wine styles and regions.
For people who learn best from images, this is a winning book. This book revolutionized wine education by creating something that is graphic rather than boring, difficult-to-remember academic text.
There are many other great structured wine books I could recommend for learning about wine, but the graphic style of this makes it the winner (and for the hardcore, there is a larger expanded hardcover Wine Folly Magnum version of this).
This book is about building our vineyard dream into a sustainable business and overcoming challenges that included devastating frost, bureaucracy, and major renovation hiccups. The name has a double meaning. In this book, we ‘save our skins’ in a figurative way–from going bankrupt–and in a literal way by turning our waste grape skins into a sought-after product.
This book is about love and taking risks. It includes nature, delicious food and wine, family life, and wine travel: to Napa and Sonoma regions in the USA and to Alsace, Bergerac, Bordeaux, and Burgundy regions in France.
A Mediterranean Feast: The Story of the Birth of the Celebrated Cuisines of the Mediterranean from the Merchants of Venice to the Barbary Corsairs, with More than 500 Recipes
A groundbreaking culinary work of extraordinary depth and scope that spans more than one thousand years of history, A Mediterranean Feast tells the sweeping story of the birth of the venerated and diverse cuisines of the Mediterranean. Author Clifford A. Wright weaves together historical and culinary strands from Moorish Spain to North Africa, from coastal France to the Balearic Islands, from Sicily and the kingdoms of Italy to Greece, the Balkan coast, Turkey, and the Near East.
In A Mediterranean Feast, Wright also shows how the cuisines of the Mediterranean have been indelibly stamped with the uncompromising geography and climate…
A Mediterranean Feast: The Story of the Birth of the Celebrated Cuisines of the Mediterranean from the Merchants of Venice to the Barbary Corsairs, with More than 500 Recipes
A groundbreaking culinary work of extraordinary depth and scope that spans more than one thousand years of history, A Mediterranean Feast tells the sweeping story of the birth of the venerated and diverse cuisines of the Mediterranean. Author Clifford A. Wright weaves together historical and culinary strands from Moorish Spain to North Africa, from coastal France to the Balearic Islands, from Sicily and the kingdoms of Italy to Greece, the Balkan coast, Turkey, and the Near East.
The evolution of these cuisines is not simply the story of farming, herding, and fishing; rather, the story encompasses wars and plagues, political…
