Wine Peeps is an independent wine blog dedicated to helping you get the most bang for your buck in wine. We do this through blind tastings of wine from around the world and calculations of 
Book Review: Secrets of Wine
By John ~ May 1st, 2009.
Secrets of Wine by Giles Kime is the wine book in the “52 Brilliant Ideas†book series. It’s an easy read in a very approachable format. I believe it’s a book for someone just past the wine novice stage who is looking to explore beyond just the old standards like Chardonnay and Merlot.
Author Giles Kime was editor of Decanter magazine and wrote the wine column for the Sunday Telegraph (UK). He is now deputy editor of Homes & Gardens magazine. The basic premise of the book is that the only way you will deepen your understanding of wine is through extensive tasting. He says that great tasters are not necessarily people who have been born with a special gift; they are simply people who have had the opportunity to taste a lot of wine, preferably in large flights, so that comparisons can be easily made.
Each of the 52 short chapters contains a specific theme, an “idea for you,†“try another idea,†a “defining idea,†and a “how did it go†section in a Q&A format. It gets right to the point and is an easy book to put down tonight and pick up tomorrow without rereading a lot.
As the book says, “one good idea can change your life.†I believe that you will find more than one good idea in this book. For example, in idea 52, Kime says the more that you taste the more you’ll begin to realize that some expensive wines can taste like battery acid and some cheap wines like nectar. The key is tasting enough different wines to find that good value nectar.
Have you already read Secrets of Wine? If so, what did you think of it?
Cheers!
Filed under: Wine Books
