If you have a wine enthusiast or two on your holiday gift list, but feel intimidated at the very thought of trying to find just the right bottle of wine to give them, give the gift of words instead.
The 2011 vintage was a robust and satisfying one for wine books. There are some very fine reads available on bookstore shelves and online at various book-seller Internet sites, and the price is right.
Your gift recipients can light a warming fire, pour themselves a sampling from one of their favorite bottles, snuggle into the couch and learn a thing or two about the contents of their glass.
Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines
Natalie MacLean — author of “Red, White and Drunk All Over” — has emerged as one of the most gifted, entertaining and downright funny wine writers to put pen to paper (figuratively speaking, of course). Here, MacLean goes globe-trotting to the wine world’s most prestigious zip codes and introduces us to the personalities behind the wines. A chapter on Port — in which she is served a vintage-dated tawny from 1893 at a dinner party and at one point briefly hides the decanter from the other dinner guests — is among the many highlights of this engaging book from an accredited sommelier and winner of four James Beard Foundation awards, including the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award.
You can read more reviews of my new wine book Unquenchable here.
