Product Description

6,000 glasses of evidence that will change the way you buy wine: Hide the label...and the truth comes out. Acclaimed Fearless Critic Robin Goldstein has gone around the country serving 6,000 glasses of wine from brown paper bags to experts and everyday wine drinkers around America. Here, in print for the first time, are the shocking results, including full-page reviews of the 100 wines that beat $50 to $150 bottles in the blind tastings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4870 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
"Might rattle a few wine snobs, but the average oenophile can rejoice." - Newsweek (Newsweek )

Might rattle a few wine snobs, but the average oenophile can rejoice. - Newsweek (Newsweek )

Might rattle a few wine snobs, but the average oenophile can rejoice. --Newsweek Magazine

About the Author
ROBIN GOLDSTEIN is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Fearless Critic series. He has authored four books of restaurant reviews and has written for more than 30 Fodor's travel guides around the world, from Italy to Thailand, Argentina to Hong Kong. Robin is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School, and has a certificate in cooking from the French Culinary Institute and a WSET advanced wine and spirits certificate.

Customer Reviews

If Truth Be Told
The strongest aspect of this book is its wry, irreverent destruction of the myths propagated by the self-appoInted oenologists of the world. I was personally gratified to discover on their list as under five dollars a favorite in our household, Crane Lake Sauvignon Blanc, for which I was once charged eighteen dollars in a restaurant - an extravagant markup typical in the States and made issue of in the text. Like many in this world, I am sure, I am also grateful to be able now to ask for a bottle of Freixenet with absolute certainty as to its pronunciation, as well as with knowledge of the difference brut and extra dry. All in all The Wine Trials makes buying wine, especially when it is to be served to guests, both reassuring and more fun.

Excellent Buying Guide For The Average Wine Drinker
If you have ever walked into a grocery or liquor store to buy a bottle of wine and felt completely at a loss as to what's worth trying and what's not this is the book for you.

Pros: Large selection of wines under $15.00 taste-tested by over 500 volunteers. There is a section which ranks the taste-tested wines within each wine category and another alphabetical section which assigns a one-page review for each taste-tested wine. If you are into it, there are several sections on the background of and process used for the taste-testing.

Cons: The book is too big to slip in your pocket and use unobtrusively when actually shopping for wine. An included tear-sheet or separate quick-guide listing the wines ranked within each category would be helpful.

Just what I've been looking for
The best thing about this book for the beginner is that it gives you a lot of wines to choose from that should be easy to find and enjoy. In the past I either wasn't able to track a particular wine down, or once found, hesitated to pay the asking price given the mixed results I'd had to date. As a result I didn't find many wines I liked.

So far, I've tried a half dozen wines recommended in the book and been very happy with them. They were a lot better than the random choices I made from the same grocery store shelves. All in all a good place for the novice to start.