How to Love Wine

"The primary purpose of wine is to provide pleasure and refreshment. It can do so much more than that, but should never do less."
For most, choosing the right wine comes with strong feelings of anxiety - there's the sense of inadequacy when you find yourself, clueless, scanning the shelves of your local wine store, or even embarrassment when a restaurant sommelier approaches you to taste the bottle for your table. Do you twirl the glass? Inspect it carefully? Drink the full amount or just take a sip?
New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov knows that while wine anxiety is normal, it's also the greatest obstacle to deriving pleasure from this incredible yet complex beverage. In HOW TO LOVE WINE, Eric weaves in stories of his love affair with wine that began as a graduate student on a budget, and also incorporates in-depth discussions of beautiful and rare wines in order to help readers overcome their feelings of dread and instead instill in them a sense of discovery. Part manifesto, part memoir, Eric addresses subject matter such as The Rise of American Connoisseurship, The Tyranny of the Tasting Note, What's Wrong With Scores?, and How to Learn to Enjoy Wine, while paying special attention to wines that have been particularly meaningful to him. Thought-provoking and vicariously enjoyable, HOW TO LOVE WINE will inspire readers not by offering tricks and methods for memorizing arcane data, but by isolating and diminishing the sense of anxiety that so burdens would-be wine lovers.