Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82096 in Books
• Published on: 1990-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
"Wine is, above all, pleasure. Those who would make it ponderous make it dull," declares wine importer Lynch in this robustly irreverent account of his quest through France in search of wine. Lynch's winefoolery is serious; drollery never compromises his knowledge of his subject or his high standards. Even when mocking the misdeeds of viniculturalists, he remains an arbiter who merely wishes "wine could be a constitutionally protected form of expression." Hating wine hype, Lynch criticizes modern agricultural and manufacturing methods with equal fervor. He laughs at trends in wine consumption, and singles out modern greed as a corrupter. Effortlessly eloquent, Lynch is a master of the brief barb: "Loving Chablis is like falling in love with a frigid floozy." The author prefers a wine that offers "a subtle seduction; it keeps you coming back for more." So too with this unusual guide: it makes you thirst for a sequel. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

M.F.K. Fisher
"One of the pleasantest and truest books about wine I've ever read."

Review
"One of the pleasantest and truest books about wine I’ve ever read." --M. F. K. Fisher

"Nearly all wine books are written by experts whose intention is primarily to inform or to educate. They give little aesthetic pleasure. Kermit Lynch is certainly an expert, but his book, Adventures on the Wine Route, is also a great pleasure to read. In Kermit Lynch’s small, true, delightful book there is more understanding about what wine really is than in everything else I have read." --Victor Hazan

. Kermit Lynch’s colorful portraits of some idiosyncratic vintners, and his commentaries on their wines, make for some of the finest reading since Joseph Wechsberg ate and drank his way through France in his book Blue Trout and Black Truffles.”--Robert M. Parker, Jr., The Wine Advocate

Customer Reviews

Awesome!
Kermit Lynch is knowledge and very passionate about wine and the craft behind it. Reading the book, you are overwhelmed with how passionate he is, all the while being entertained by his stories. A must read.

Adventures on the Wine Route
I bought this book for my daughter as a Xmas present,
and she loves it as it is so well written. I must add
that she takes a keen interest in wines and viticulture.

Every wine lover should read this book
This is one of my top ten books about wine. This book focuses on his early days learning about wine. Later, Lynch created a legendary retail wine store in California. His second book, Inspiring Thirst: Vintage Selections from The Kermit Lynch Wine Brochure, reproduces wine offers from the store from 1974 to 2003.

The other reviews here do full justice to Lynch's book; here are some of my favorite quotes from my wine diary.

"We Americans with our New World innocence and democratic sensibilities tend to think all wines are created equal and that differences in quality are simply a matter of individual taste. The French with their aristocratic heritage, their experience and tradition approach wine from another point of view. Just as France had its kings, noblemen and commoners, French wine has its grands crûs, premiers curs, and there is even an official niche for the commoners, the vins de table."

"Wine is, above all, pleasure. Those who would make it ponderous make it dull. People talk about the mystery of wine, yet most don't want anything to do with mystery. They want it all there in one sniff, one taste. If you keep an open mind and take each wine on its own terms, there is a world of magic to discover."

"The taste of the grape told them when to harvest. The taste of the wine told them when to bottle, what sort of oak to employ, the appropriate barrel size, how to prune the different grape varieties, and on and on and on. The traditions varied from village to village depending on differences of grape variety, soil, and microclimate. The traditions that were in place at the beginning of the twentieth century were the result of centuries of trial and error. If the taste of a wine indicated that a steep, stony piece of land produced better wine, then that was the land they worked, regardless of the labor involved. . . . Do not think for a moment that they were ignorant people who did not know better. They seem to have been instinctively directed toward quality. Only in this century have we seen the hard-earned knowledge of the ancients discarded, almost overnight, in the name of progress."

"Real wine is more than an alcoholic beverage. When you taste one from a noble terroir that is well made, that is intact and alive, you think here is a gift of nature, the fruit of the vine eked out of our earth, ripened by our sun, fashioned by man."

"Unlike music, literature or visual arts, a great wine does not require a creative genius. A farmer working his piece of earth can produce something inspiring and profound."

"There is so much contained in a glass of good wine. It is a gift of nature that tastes of man's foibles, his sense of the beautiful, his idealism and virtuosity."

There's so much knowledge in this book, and so much pleasure as well. It may even make my Top Five.


Robert C. Ross 2007 2008