The Dirty Guide to Wine: Following Flavor from Ground to Glass

No serious wine connoisseur should be without The Dirty Guide to Wine. Though Alice Feiring’s approach is not a new concept, she considers the best wines of the world not according to regions but according to the underlying rock type. This is a well-written book, the research of which may have taken years, and is based on decades of experience in the field of viticulture. An extensive introduction (with expert Pascaline Lepeltier) gives the readers the concept of her “invitation to taste the wine world through new landscapes and new perspectives” not by regions, not by grapes, but by the underlying bedrock and soil. Chapters are accordingly set up as Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic and have subchapters like basalt, tuff, and granite, and there’s a special section on Alsace wines. Under each, she lists the best wines of that soil type. In addition, every chapter ends with the “Tasting Box,” giving the readers more details about the best wines of that geology/soil type. Among the descriptions she adds extensive and informative sidebars; many are profiles of well-known winemakers while others offer lists like “Burgundy’s Hierarchy of Wine Labels.”