Is This Bottle Corked?: The Secret Life of Wine
by Michael Bywater, Kathleen Burk
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kathleen Burk, Michael BywaterEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-09-08
ISBN: 0307462919
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Book Reviews of Is This Bottle Corked?: The Secret Life of Wine
Book Review: Expectorate to exasperate
Summary: 5 Stars
A thorough preparation to be randomly glib as you share your next bottle of claret or zinfendel. The more random quotes of this quirky little companion you can expectorate after four glasses of fine riesling, the more you will elicit either awe or exasperation from your drinking mates.
Not a collection of factoids and quotes, but a studied (and rather impractical) saunter through wine history. Is This Bottle Corked? is also notably well-written. Some of the best moments of the book are when the authors deem to share personal anecdotes. A typical (and rather remarkable) paragraph:
(speaking of a British hotel dining room): "...(it) smelled as British hotel dining rooms are supposed to smell- of gravy, soup, damp, and the poetry of Philip Larken....It was sad to see these probably harmless chaps spending an evening in the Midlands rain telling lies to each other ("We're very confident in the prospects Stateside") while the one couple, a man and a woman obviously married and equally obviously not to each other, attracted such glances of loathing and envy that we half expected to see them run shrieking from the room"...
'There was, of course, a sommelier: a worn-down, rotund, small man with a hairdo remeniscent of Dirk Bogard in the last reel of Death in Venice...."
Prose as good as some of the wines they pointedly do not rate on a 1 to 100 scale.
Summary of Is This Bottle Corked?: The Secret Life of Wine
We?ve all come across those suave, confident, and all-so-knowing books that tell us precisely what to drink with which dish, how to swirl, sniff, slosh, and pronounce on our wine, and, above all, how to impress our friends and business associates with our expertise.Well, this is not one of those books. Is This Bottle Corked? is something different: a book that poses?and answers?the really important questions about wine.
?What was Falstaff drinking when he called for more sack?
?What was actually drunk at Plato?s Symposium?
?When is rot "noble"?
?Who was the first American connoisseur of wine?it wasn?t George Washington, but speaking of the general, what was his favorite wine?
?Why on earth do wine connoisseurs talk like that?
?Was Pliny the Elder the first Robert Parker?
?Why do we drink to forget?and why doesn?t it work?
These and many other intriguing, amusing, and curious questions are answered within, guaranteeing the reader a "Yes, but did you know . . .?" for every occasion at which a cork is drawn.
Best read with a glass of aged German riesling, or perhaps a soft, consoling Constantia (recommended by Jane Austen for heartbreak and, to boot, gout) or maybe even a glass of St. Anne?s Rhubarb and Ginger Wine, this book is as much for bon vivants and those of us who just enjoy a good bottle or two as for the committed oenophile.
Simply open, pour, and relax.
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