Cleveland Plain Dealer

Check This Out:

John S. Long

Who it’s for: Whether you know much about wines or are a beginning wine drinker, Oldman will entertain you as well as teach you things you never imagined about wine.

Why it’s worth the read: This book is good from beginning to end, starting with a list of the top 15 wine producers that give you great value. It ends with useful information on sulfites and tips on how to get VIP treatment in Napa Valley.
Star power: Interspersed throughout the book are lists of wines in the cellars of a bevy of celebrities including Morley Safer, Mario Batali, Tori Amos (a big collector of Bordeaux) and champagne lover and rapper Ludacris.

Getting down to cases: Oldman takes readers through all the wine varietals and lets them know why specific wines taste the way they do. He also discusses pairing wines with food, explaining why certain wines are a good match with specific foods, and what foods can make any wine taste awful. Oldman even provides a list of wines that will pair well with vegetarian meals.

And a bonus: This book isn’t simply for the wine consumer. There are a slew of restaurateurs I wish would read this - if for no other reason than so they can learn the proper temperature at which to serve red wine. (Some in that business seem to think that red wine should be stored next to a furnace and served at 75 degrees and that white wines should be pulled from a block of ice.) Oldman will steer them in the right direction. That will make a lot of our restaurant experiences much nicer than they are now.