The Pleasures of Wine

by Gerald Asher

As wine editor of Gourmet magazine for more than 30 years, Gerald Ashers unsurpassed knowledge of wine, wineries, and vineyards-and his refreshing ability to write about them with-out technical... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811834972
• ISBN13: 9780811834971
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

The Pleasures of Wine

You had better bone up on your wine language before attempting to keep up with author Gerald Asher. This book takes you on a journey through wine country. Along the way you meet several friends within the wine industry. Asher does a great job of spinning an interesting story while giving you small doses of wine education at the same time.

The very best wine writer there is, period

The best collection yet of the erudite, entertaining, cheerful, informed, graceful, friendly, gentle, many-layered essays of a wonderful writer who happens to often write about wine. Yet the feat of Asher's essays is that they are NEVER snuffy proclamations about bouquet and pseudo-rankings; these essays are about men and women, soil and climate, science and history, stories and fascinations, nations and cultures; his work chases after how wine elevates and enlivens our lives. Like the best novels, Asher's essays are about people and their curious adventures; the fact that Asher's work makes you want to read while sipping an excellent pinot noir or a fat happy shiraz or a burly cabernet is value added, and then some. This is a very fine American writer at work on a subject he loves dearly and knows everything about; he is that unique writer on wine who can and should be read by everyone and anyone, winehead or no.

A Fun, Charming and Informed Read

I enjoyed this book.... Reading it was like having a conversation with the author across the table. Only someone who knows his subject well can write about it as simply and engagingly as this. There are no percentages, maps, or endless, boring tasting notes. The author doesn't rank wines and tell the reader what to drink or when. But after reading his discussions of wines - from California to Burgundy and from Germany to Chile, almost always in the context of food or travel - I felt better informed in making my own choices and now get more pleasure from them. I enjoyed (and learned from) Asher's discussion of how the chef and the sommelier of a good restaurant work together to make sure the wines on the list match the food on the plate and now know what it means when a bottle is "corked" (and how to recognize it). The chapters are short and fun to read. I felt entertained even as I was getting a fresh perspective on a subject I thought I already knew well.