Wine Style: Discover the Wines You Will Love Through 50 Simple Recipes

Food writer and former chef Leahy (La Buvette) covers wine basics and pairs popular varieties with inventive recipes in this enchanting guide. She starts with an accessible explainer of the winemaking process and clearly defines body and flavor categories in a list of wine notes (for instance, she describes “earthy” as wine tasting more like a forest than fruit, with tobacco and walnut as some common descriptors). Each chapter centers on a type of wine (rich white wines, sparkling wines, big red wines) and begins with a quick primer on the most common varieties of each (Grüner Veltliner, for example, is a popular crisp white wine). She also provides general guidelines for why certain foods are paired with certain wines; sparkling wine, for instance, works well with fried food because “the bubbles seem to scrub your mouth clean and brighten the flavors of the food.” Once the varieties are parsed, she follows with enticing recipes that complement each wine—such as onion jam (ideal with Syrah and zinfandel), garlic bread–flavored popcorn (perfect with sparkling rosé), and ginger chicken salad (paired with a Riesling or sauvignon blanc). Packed with recipes ripe for a celebration, this is ideal for home cooks who love to entertain and need a bit of help getting acquainted with the wine world. (Aug.)