Keys to the Cellar: Strategies and Secrets of Wine Collecting
Author: Peter D Meltzer
"Peter D. Meltzer, Wine Spectator's auction correspondent for morethan twenty years, is the foremost authority on wine collecting. His book offers expert guidance for beginners and connoisseurs alike."
—Marvin R. Shanken, Editor and Publisher, Wine Spectator
"Peter Meltzer is an authoritative journalist, savvy collector,and urbane restaurant and wine list critic; he makes theideal companion and counselor for wine collectors."
—Michael Batterberry, Editor in Chief and Publisher, Food Arts
"Keys to the Cellar is fascinating, informative, and easy to read; with this book, you will truly understand the ins and outsof buying wines for your personal cellar."
—Kevin Zraly, educator and author of Windows on the World Complete Wine Course
A true wine-lover who knows the value of a well-aged bottle, Peter Meltzer both celebrates and demystifies wine collecting in Keys to the Cellar. His appreciation of fine wine flavors every page as he gives you a practical approach to building a collection that fits your preferences, your lifestyle, and your budget. You'll find information on:
• Buying and selling wine at auction, including valuable insider tips
• Bidding at online wine auctions
• Using the Web to calculate a wine's true value or locate a hard-to-find bottle
• Making the best use of fine wine merchants
• Storing and enjoying your wine—both every day and over the long term
As a bonus, this guide includes a user-friendly Wine Spectator auction index, an invaluable tool for researching the "going rate" for morethan 500 top auctioned wines. Whether you are just getting started or want to enhance your collection, this is a book you'll savor again and again—like your favorite fine wines.
Library Journal
One can find many books on building the perfect wine cellar, but guidance for the budding wine collector on how to fill that cellar is scarce. Meltzer, a Wine Spectator columnist and contributing editor to Food Arts, offers expert and accessible advice on how to develop an enjoyable collection. Meltzer suggests several strategies for collecting wine, focusing on either immediate consumption, taste, investing, or a balance of all three. Plans, budgets, suggested wines, and number of bottles to hold for all four scenarios provide the foundation for starter collections. Wine storage requirements and options are included; chapters are dedicated to locating desired wine, either on the web or at auction. Novices will appreciate the instructions on determining a wine's value and how to stick to and stretch a budget. Wine and vintages are referred to with no description, so readers are assumed to have some familiarity with the topic. For truly avid collectors, Meltzer discusses wine-related accessories, such as stemware and corkscrews; he has good tips on what's available and what's desirable. Helpful appendixes include a glossary of wine-collecting terminology and a forthcoming directory of auctions. Recommended for public libraries. Kimberly Bartosz, Univ. of Wisconsin at Parkside Lib., Kenosha Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Book review: New Lighthearted Cookbook or A Meat Eaters Guide to Vegetarian Children
The Real Food Revival: Aisle by Aisle, Morsel by Morsel
Author: Sherri Brooks Vinton
Say good-bye to flavorless tomatoes, mealy apples, and "mystery meats." Say helloto the way food used to taste-and still can.
The Real Food Revival is a book of celebration and indulgence, an ode to culinary delight, and an indispensable reference guide for food lovers everywhere. It takes you through the delicious process of filling your pantries (and tummies) with Real Food. Simply put, Real Food is: delicious, produced as locally as possible, sustainable, affordable, and accessible.
In The Real Food Revival, readers will learn how to find Real Food wherever they shop, and how to navigate the jargon-organic, eco-friendly, fresh, fresh-frozen, cage-free, GMO-free, fair-trade, grass-fed, grain-finished-in order to make meaningful choices. The book also informs readers about alternative Real Food sources such as CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture systems), direct-from-the-farm, and the Internet.
Author Biography: Sherri Brooks Vinton has devoted her career to promoting the rewards of eating sustainably raised food. She is a leader of the New York Convivium of Slow Food.
Ann Clark Espuelas, a writer and editor, has worked at The Village Voice and Harper's Bazaar.
Publishers Weekly
We long for days gone by, when farmers were plentiful and prosperous, produce was free of chemicals and cows weren't mad. What can we do to return to safer, more flavorful and natural food? Vinton and Espuelas answer that question via this information-packed, well-written volume. The authors aren't dietitians, but they are excellent researchers and top-notch storytellers who love delicious food and believe it should not come at a cost to our health and to farmers' livelihood. They track the effects post-WWII industrialization has had on our food chain (sick animals, damaged land and oceans) and the unreal food that results. And they exhort us to consider that our food-shopping choices can transform not only our meals, but our landscape, society and culture, too. Profiles of independent farmers, bakers and cheese makers are inspiring (and include contact information). Grocery store aisle-by-aisle primers on food-centric terms and labels explain, for instance, the difference between "artesian well water," "mineral water" and "spring water," or the reasons why "corn-fed beef" isn't as wholesome as it sounds. This book gives readers tools for change, offering hope for a future rife with sustainable and flavorful food. Agent, Lisa Ekus. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Though billed as an "aisle-by-aisle guide to finding Real Food wherever you shop," this book can be boiled down to one sentence: buy local, organic, seasonally, and preferably not from a chain supermarket. Vinton and Espuelas, who bill themselves as "eaters" (Vinton is a leader of the New York Convivium of Slow Food, and Epueleas is a writer and editor), are not shy about their dislike for megamarts, convenience foods, and industrialized farming. While useful for its definitions, which help shoppers wade through the plethora of food-related jargon that clogs the supermarket aisles, this work is packed with debatable and often outrageous statements. The authors, for example, state that eating grain pollinated by bio-pharmed crops is a form of human cannibalism. They also contend that Real Food should be affordable, yet the artisans profiled sell products that, for the average consumer, are anything but. The overzealous tone of this book will undoubtedly alienate many potential converts to the Real Food revival. Not recommended-Pauline Baughman, Multnomah Cty. Lib., Portland, OR Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
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