The Bluffer's Guide To Wine

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Entertaining and informative

I thought this was terrific. I had the good fortune to be sent a few of these Bluffer's Guides for review by the publisher: they are pocket-sized and only around 150 pages long and I have found them all amusing, informative and very enjoyable. This is one of the best. The Guides are, in fact, a bluff in themselves because although they purport to be a handbook for those who simply want to bluff their way, they use this as a cover for providing lots of very sound fact, written by people who really know and love their subject while being very witty about it and often scathing about the pretence which surrounds it.

I suspect that this will be read by a lot of people who, like me, aren't experts by any means but drink quite a lot of wine (yes, doctor, I know - sorry) and have picked up a fair bit of basic knowledge of grapes, regions and so on from the experience and from reading labels. This Bluffers' Guide is a witty, erudite, shrewd and pretence-free guide to may of the things we know a bit about and lots and lots we don't from super-basics to some quite out-of-the-way snippets. It contains invaluable tips on where good wine is currently made and what to look out for, in the guise of giving you nuggets to show off with. As an example of their style: "Napa's wines are like Hollywood teeth: huge, unnervingly bright and faintly unbelievable," which made me smile.

Where it is really helpful is in the deep knowledge of its authors who are ruthless and direct in separating quality and important fact from myth and pretension. They explain (and debunk where necessary) a lot of the stuff written and said about wine, and it's a delightfully unpretentious and enjoyable read throughout.

Warmly recommended to anyone with any interest in wine. It's fun to read and a source of masses of really helpful information and opinion.