Reverse Wine Snob: How to Buy and Drink Great Wine without Breaking the Bank

by Jon Thorsen

Most rational people don't pay $40 for $20 items. And yet with wine, it happens all the time. Wine can be an expensive hobby. Founder of the popular site ReverseWineSnob.com, Jon Thorsen is an unapologetic frugal wine consumer. He flips wine snobbery on its head by pushing a $20 or less mantra. Reverse Wine Snob is designed to help wine drinkers stop wasting money and get the most satisfaction out of their drinking dollars. It reveals Thorsen's Ten Tenets of Reverse Wine Snobbery--ten beliefs that eliminate myths about wine--as well as a unique rating system that includes the cost of the bottle so that there is satisfaction in both taste and price. In Jon's unique system, the more expensive a wine, the better it must taste.Reverse Wine Snob number one rule all wine drinkers should follow, no matter what the wine snobs say.How to shop for wine at stores like the nation's #1 wine retailer Costco and Trader Joe's.The regions and varieties of wine that give the best value.Why the price of a wine has nothing to do with its taste.Why the distribution system in the US is broken which costs you money and limits your wine choices.Tons of Jon's very favorite wine picks.Jon dapples in every kind of wine from $10 kitchen sink blends to the $20 "Saturday Night Splurge," so delicious it's worth twice the price. Reverse Wine Snob brings plain old common sense to the wine industry and encourages wine lovers to explore the world of inexpensive quality wine.

Genres: Wine, Nonfiction

282 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 5, 2015

About the author

Jon Thorsen is a wine consumer helping other wine consumers find great grape without breaking the bank. His website ReverseWineSnob.com has grown into one the most popular wine sites on the Internet with a massive social media following. The website is ranked fifth on the list of most influential sites in the entire wine industry and Jon Thorsen is ranked as a top five social media influencer. He lives in Minnesota.

Reviews

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guidance in a range of areas, from specific bottles, to regions to try for particular wines, to specific bottles, to geography and climate that are best for certain styles of wine. Also explains a lot about wine tasting and rating practices (boy what a racket!)

[lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of course the wines listed in this book are sadly out of date, but I found a new website!!!! One that recommends wines from Costco and Trader Joe’s, sadly the only places available to buy wine these days.

[Ernest J Mattern · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good inexpensive Wine guide

The author and I am on a similar quest, to buy the best Wine you can find for under $ 20. This book is a good starter guide.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice book to break everything down for the novice wine drinker.
Lots of value and instruction to be found here. Gets right to the point.

[Marcelo Ferranti · Rating 1 out of 5]

Opportunistic and outdated.

[Eden Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has some helpful tidbits. But if you know ANYTHING about wine - even just a little - you’ll have to dig through some painfully obvious information to find anything worthwhile.

[Cinematic Cteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who for years routinely spent a lot more than $20 for a bottle of wine, I've discovered many good values thumbing through this book. More refreshing, though, is the author's clean and unpretentious approach to enjoying wine -- and getting your money's worth. I shudder to think how many $80 bottles of Napa Cab Franc and Pinot Noir I've bought when careful research or this book might have yielded an equally good bottle for $20-$30. We have to part ways on wines priced below $15 the bottle, as I've never found anything at this price point that tasted better than Witch Hazel astringent.

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

An unpretentious and straightforward primer on ratcheting up your wine appreciation without spending a ton. The tips on unsung but quality varietals from some of the more famous wine producing regions--e.g. Petite Sirah from Napa, Pinot Gris from Alsace, etc.--I found particularly useful.

I should probably give it another star simply due to Thorsen's passion and inclusiveness, but a good half of the book is dedicated to specific wine recommendations, which, however useful at the moment, won't likely age very well (pun intended). For this type of info, I'll turn to Thorsen's blog, which, honestly, is a much better venue than a book for what he's doing.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciate the report on New Zeland reds, Argentian Malbec, and Californian Petite Sirah, also 2012 La Granja Tempranillo (North of Spain) at Trader Joe's.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it cover to cover. A great addition to a home library.

[LadyT · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Really enjoyed reading about the different wine recommendations.