Wine for beginners

Wine doesn't have to be complicated.With thousands of grape varieties, regions, styles and labels, wine can seem intimidating to anyone just starting out. Wine for Beginners makes it simple.This practical and accessible guide gives newcomers the essential knowledge they need to understand wine, choose bottles with greater confidence and enjoy what is in their glass. Without unnecessary jargon or snobbery, Stefaan Van Laere explains how wine is made, what distinguishes red, white, rosé and sparkling wines, how grape varieties shape flavour and how climate, soil and winemaking techniques influence the final result.You will learn how to taste wine without turning it into a performance, how to understand labels, how to recognise important wine styles, how to serve wine correctly and how to combine wine with food.The book takes a genuinely international approach. Famous regions in France, Italy and Spain are included, but so are wines from Central and Eastern Europe, Georgia, Greece, South Africa, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, Asia and emerging cool-climate regions such as Belgium and the Netherlands.Wine for Beginners is not an encyclopaedia to memorise. It is designed to give beginners a solid foundation in a relatively short time. After reading it, choosing a bottle in a shop, ordering wine in a restaurant and talking about wine will already feel much easier.Along the way, you will discover grape varieties, wine regions, sparkling and fortified wines, ageing and oak, tasting techniques, wine and food pairing, common myths and the fascinating history of wine.Stefaan Van Laere is a Belgian author, journalist and publisher associated with Partizaan Publishers. He is also the author of the international bestseller Whisky for Beginners, published in Dutch, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish.Clear, practical and international, Wine for Beginners is the ideal starting point for anyone who wants to understand wine — and enjoy it more.