Everything cool I've ever learned about wine came from "The Complete Idiot's Guide To Wine" ... 800 pages of pure info ... really a good primer for understanding various wines and the complexities thereof.

I still don't know shit about it ... as far as I can tell, I should probably read the book again.

not much about wines that i'm interested in learning from a book - unless its beside me while i'm doing practical learning!!!!

how can anyone be an expert on something that is so personal to each person?

I like the method of 'try everyone once, buy a bottle if ya like it & buy a carton if ya love it'

:biglaugh:

oh and after working in a restaurant for my entire life, and serving many beef & burgandy clubs, I've seen some funny things from so called 'experts' - you'll appreciate this one serge.

the funniest one i remember was the night we served kangaroo while we were involved in its pre-launch market testing. as it was a B&B club, they weren't allowed to know what they were eating until the end - they had to guess and someone had to speak at the end of each dish.

As I cleared plates I always got to hear interesting things, and they were all crapping on to each other about the amazing texture of the 'beef' and what grain/grass combination it must have been fed to have the fuller game flavor etc.

A guy got up and crapped on about it for 10 minutes ... 'aaah yes a delightful cut of beef, perhaps a rump, grain fed' etc.

My step dad comes out at the end of the night, starts going through the dishes that were served .... 'and the main course was a loin fillet of Kangaroo served with red wine jus on a bed of garlic mash'

The scene that followed was hilarious ... some going 'oh my god thats disgusting, i can't believe we just ate that' through to wine spraying across the table from some!!!

One minute they were raving about how awesome it was, next they were all very concerned :biglaugh:

I keep trying to encourage my Mum to write a book :awinky: