Good wine references

[Ken Birman]

I strongly recommend the recent book "American Wines" by Anthony Blue. His
style is very straightforward and he has a long section on what one looks
for in the different styles of wine. This is followed by information on
many hundreds of wineries and their winemakers, plus descriptions and ratings
of a tremendous number (literally, thousands) of wines. The descriptions are
straightforward and to my palate, at least, very accurate. The book is very
current and many of the recommended wines are still available.

Also interesting is a magazine called "International Wine Review" (about $4/issue,
6 times a year). This publishes results of blind tastings of currently
marketed wines and accepts no advertising. Some of the results are remarkable,
like $8 wines that beat $60 wines. Once you start to drink really good
wines, it gets much easier to understand what one looks for in a wine. Plus,
it is a lot of fun to open a fantastic (cheap) bottle of something the store
didn't even realize was good. If anyone wants their address, I can post it.

Unlike some magazines they have no extreme biases (like Parker, who you
may have heard of -- he only likes "immense wines with layers and layers
of unctuous blackberry fruit, bordering on the corpulant" and some others).

If you are learning to taste wines, Hugh Johnson's book on "Enjoying Wine"
is much better than his pocket guide. With this book and a few bottles that some
reputable source recommends, you and a few friends can educate yourself pretty quickly.