Complete Wine Course [antikvár]

Introduction This book grew out of my involvement with the Wine School. WHEN I FIRST Started the Wine School, I searched everywhere for a simple, straightforward wine guide to use as a textbook. I picked the few that came closest but by the end of each semester I would be looking again. Every book was either too encyclopedic or too scientific. I wasn't the only one who was frustrated; My students were, too. Teaching and learning had stopped being fun; my students were finding the texts too complicated, and I referred to them less and less. So I began developing my own course material, which I kept simple, giving my students only the basic information they needed for understanding and enjoying wine. I taught from a handwritten outline and photocopied labels, lists, and other information for each class, handing out copies to students for home study and future reference. This proved so popular that many of my students asked me to write a wine book around the materials. In 1981, five years after I started working at Windows on the World and ten years after teaching my first wine class, I set out to write this book. Full of naive enthusiasm, I started researching pubUshers, looldng for the best and reading as much as I could about the business of publishing. I soon learned that, although I thought my idea for an easy-to-understand wine book was brilliant, finding a publisher who agreed was an entirely different matter. At least five of the largest publishers in the industry turned down my book, telling me that a simple guide to wine would never seU. Rejection was becoming an all-too-familiar word. Eventually I was introduced to Sterling Pubhshing, a company I like to call the "little engine that could." Back then it was a small, family-owned "niche-marketing" publisher, laiown for its beautiful craft books. (Or, more accurately, unknown: Sterling was probably the most successful small pubhsher you'd never heard of!) Five years ago, this "little" company was purchased by Barnes & Noble, and I am proud and honored to say that Windows on the World Complete Wine Course, with more than 2 mU-Uon copies sold to date, is the best-selling wine book in the United States! The success of this book is due, in part, to timing; In the igSos, when this book was first pubhshed, many Americans were becoming interested in wine. They wanted to learn about all the aspects of tasting and buying wine—and they were looking for the material to be presented in an informative and entertaining way So what has happened in the wine world over the last thirty-seven years? I've given a great deal of thought to the changes the wine world has undergone over the past thirty-seven years as I tackled the revisions for this edition. As I reread the first edition, I was struck by the enormous growth in the quality and selection of American wines. In 1970 there were fewer than two hundred wineries in the United States; today there are more than four thousand—with wineries and vineyards in all fifty states. I've also made many changes to the book's organization over the years. For example. On Tasting Wine has been moved up front to the Prelude to Wine; With wine's increased acceptance and popularity, I think understanding the history of wine is far less important than understanding how to taste and appreciate wine. Another change is the inclusion of a 6o-Second Wine Expert section in the Prelude to Wine, which I hope readers will find of value; it's been my most effective classroom teaching tool. VMI • INTRODUCTION