When Teague, the wine editor for Food & Wine
, first takes Rolling Stone
film critic Peter Travers in hand, he's the sort of uninformed drinker who rarely spends more than $10 on a bottle and inevitably ends up selecting bad vintages. So Teague (Fear of Wine
) starts pouring him selections from around the world. Each region gets its own chapter, transitioning between the tastings and Teague's general recommendations. Later, after a visit to Napa Valley, she takes Travers out to dinner to see if he'll be able to interact with sommeliers and match wine to various courses, then visits an assortment of shops to show him what to look for when building his own collection. She corrects his vocabulary when he says a wine has "a fatness to the swirl" instead of "good viscosity." He stubbornly resists New Zealand vintages because director Peter Jackson criticized them, and complains that green wine bottles keep him from seeing how red the wine is. Novice tasters can add this pleasure to more traditional guides, while enjoying the entertainment value. (Mar. 13)
