The Curious World of Wine: Facts, Legends, and Lore About the Drink We Love So Much

by Richard Vine

The Curious World of Wine is a fascinating miscellany about the colorful characters, celebrated places, and quirky events surrounding wine-making. Recounting wine tales that are by turns amusing, surprising, and occasionally a bit naughty, wine expert Richard Vine reveals little-known facts such

• The oldest vineyard still producing grapes is thought to be in Maribor, Slovenia, where vines up to four hundred years old remain fruitful.

• “Plonk,” a term used to insult any modestly priced wine, got its name from the French words for white wine—vin blanc, pronounced “vawn blawnk,” which was corrupted to “plawnk” or “plonk.”

• Thomas Jefferson was so eager to plant native French vines at his Monticello mansion that he nearly went bankrupt fruitlessly hiring experts to defeat a condition that caused European vines to mysteriously die in North American soil.

• Touching wineglasses as a toast was originally a deft move to exchange a splash of wine into each other’s cup to ensure that neither party was being poisoned.

The Curious World of Wine will keep any wine fan entertained and enlightened—from the most erudite connoisseur to Two Buck Chuck devotees.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food and Drink

224 pages, Hardcover

First published November 6, 2012

About the author

Richard Vines was a British food critic. He was the chief food critic for Bloomberg News.

Reviews

[Alex.Rosetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Du-te, dar, de mănâncă-ți pâinea cu bucurie și bea-ți cu inimă bună vinul; căci de mult a găsit Dumnezeu plăcere în ce faci tu acum." (Ecleziastul 9:7)

"De acum nu bea numai apă, ci folosește puțin vin, pentru stomacul tău și pentru desele tale slăbiciuni." (Timotei 5:23)

ps1. Am apreciat mai mult "povestirile" despre vinul în Lumea Veche
ps2. "Cine nu iubește vinul, femeile și cântecul rămâne toată viața un prost." (Martin Luther)

[Wind Campbell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I was hoping for a book more along the lines of "Salt" or other books about food or spice. This is not that kind of book. I suppose it's written for those who are real wine fans and have a lot of background in wine. I am neither, and although a number of the little vignettes were interesting or amusing, I skipped a lot of the biographical ones because I just didn't care. The names of great chateau and vineyards mean very little to me.

I think the audience for this book is people who go to wine-tastings and stand around at parties talking about the wine. If that's you, you may enjoy this book a whole heck of a lot better than I did. I found it a rough read because it's NOT my gig.

[Roxana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Plina de anecdote si povesti, half of which may even not be true. Primele două capitole sunt interesante, dar nu reușesc sa salveze cartea. Mare parte din carte se refera la vinurile americane, dar tot in stil anectodic.
This book is a joke.

[Kerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like a dry red but I read this and found it unbearably dry.

[Horia Bura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little pieces and anecdotes about the history of wine. Nicely written.

[Connie Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book from the Goodreads First Reads Giveaway. This book is easy to read, humorous, and full of little tidbits about wine and people who enjoy it. I am not knowledgeable about wines, how they started in Europe, the US and other countries. Mr. Vine gives the reader facts, legends, how the famous wineries came into being. As I'm from the US, I found parts about the founding fathers of the United States and their relationship in trying to start wineries here in the US intriguing. Also how different parts of a country can influence what type of grapes are grown. Before reading this book I had never really thought about it. The next time I buy some wine, I will look a little closer, thanks to Mr. Vine's introduction into a fascinating world of wine.

[Leanna Manuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was hard to rate. I'm not a wine expert. In fact, I rarely drink wine. Therefore, the topic wasn't one I could generally connect to. Some of the information was interesting and I particularly liked the legends and customs part. All of the names of people, regions, and wineries was somewhat dull and boring for me. What I was most taken with with the page layout of the book. It fascinated me. If you enjoy wine, you'll probably rate this book much higher than I did. I received this book from a free Goodreads giveaway and probably should have left this to someone much more interested than I.