Gifts for the holidays: the latest vintage of wine reference books is a winner

Nation's Restaurant News, Dec 18, 1995 by Ronn Wiegand

I have written before about the importance of having wine reference and training materials available in-house for servers. Some of my favorites, which would be excellent additions to your in-house wine library or make ideal -- and none-too-subtle -- gifts for star wine-selling servers, are noted below.

An excellent "starter-to-intermediate" volume on wine is "Wine for Dummies," published by IDG Books, $16.99. In a bright yellow cover and following a similar "dummy" approach to the computer books that made this publishing company famous, "Wine for Dummies" takes a refreshing, sometimes irreverent, vet always authoritative approach to the subject. Its authors, Ed McCarthy and Mary-Ewing Mulligan, are well-known wine journalists. In addition, Mulligan is the USA's only female Master of Wine.

Indeed, the chapters on "Navigating a Restaurant Wine List" -- which walks a customer through the wine selection and ordering process -- and "Ten Wine Myths Demystified" ought to be required reading for every server who sells wine in restaurants.

A thoroughly stunning view of wine is provided by the just-published book "Oz Clarke's Wine Atlas," published by Little, Brown and Co., $60. Unlike other atlases, which show precise cartographical renderings of vineyard areas, Oz Clarke's version literally provides a panoramic, bird's-eye view of the world's great vineyard areas--from 3,000 feet to 6,000 feet up.

That concept, both original -- in wine literature, at least -- and well-executed, illustrates why and how many of the world's great vineyards are situated, for example, on well-exposed or wind-protected hillsides and helps to explain regional relationships.

Take the vineyards of Barolo and Barbaresco, two of Italy's greatest red wines. The atlas map puts into relief both their close proximity -- the districts are only 3 miles apart -- and their unique, hillside dispositions. Clarke's book comes highly recommended for another reason: He is a lively, enthusiastic writer who knows his subject well.

For an exhaustive, scholarly reference on wine, Jancis Robinson's "The Oxford Companion to Wine," published by Oxford University Press, $49.95, has no equal. This 1,088-page tone is the work of one of the world's best wine journalists, Master of Wine Robinson, and more than 70 expert contributors.

The encyclopedia is arranged alphabetically and has more than 3,000 entries on virtually every wine subject one could think of the restaurant section, though, could use expanding -- as well as on wine's role in history, culture and economics. For restaurants with an active wine program, this book should be, unequivocally, the core volume of your reference library.

Leave it to those creative, food-loving Italians. A new concept in olive oil production and marketing has arrived, taken from the page of France's Nouveau Beaujolais producers. Arriving this week in the USA are bottles of 1995 Olio Novo, "new oil," from four of Tuscany's best wine and olive oil producers.

The extra virgin oil was pressed in late November and rushed to market several months earlier than usual in order to highlight the young oil's grassy, peppery flavors -- characteristics that diminish as the oil matures. This "new" oil would enliven and add value to any dish or menu item in which extra virgin olive oil is used. Happy holidays!