Mike Weiss spent nearly two years with Ferrari-Carano, a California winemaker founded in Sonoma County just over twenty years ago by Don Carano, a casino and hotel mogul from Reno. The narrative in A Very Good Year follows Ferrari-Carano’s Fume Blanc from barren vines in November to its first sampling by a customer at the Four Seasons in New York, and, over the course of the book, Weiss presents his unique insight into the making and marketing of wine today. BACKCOVER: “Superb. . . . Weiss tells a great story.” —THE NEW YORK TIMES “Finally, a wine book that explains all the ingredients. . . . You will marvel at the richness of what Mike Weiss . . . was able to capture and convey within this delicious book.” —LOS ANGELES TIMES “Compelling . . . A Very Good Year is both entertaining and comprehensive.” —THE BOSTON GLOBE “A sweeping book about tourism, globalism, environmental sustainability, immigration, and glamour. . . . The bottle of Fume Blanc . . . is like a Pandora’s box. Open it up and out spill all the vanity, marketing savvy, self-mythologizing, acres of land, buckets of money, precise science, alchemical blending, and feudal working conditions that make up the California dream known as the wine industry.” —SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

    for Best Book on Matching Food and Wine<!--EndFragment--> Prepared by a James Beard Award-winning author team, "What to Drink with What You Eat" provides the most comprehensive guide to matching food and drink ever compiled--complete with practical advice from the best wine stewards and chefs in America. 70 full-color photos.

    But in the past two decades, revolutionaries have stormed its traditional bastions, making their mark—and their fortunes—modernizing the production and marketing of wine. Noble Rot introduces us to the figures who epitomize the changes sweeping Bordeaux—the noble family behind Château d'Yquem; a stonemason turned winemaker whose wine, made in a garage, sells for $100 a bottle; the Maryland-based critic Robert Parker, whose opinion routinely makes or breaks a wine; the New World operations that have used branding to undercut Bordeaux's supremacy—and delves into the mysteries of the legendary classification of 1855.

    gorgeous glitter with a high price tag. On a winter’s day it is beautiful, but on a spring day after bud burst it spells devastation. For Sean and Caro Feely, a couple whose love affair with wine and France has taken them through financial and physical struggle to create their organic vineyard, it could spell the end. Until they receive an unexpected call that could save their skins… This book is about life, love and taking risks, while transforming a piece of land into a flourishing vineyard and making a new life in France.

    Your guide, Charlie Bamforth, may be the world's #1 expert on every aspect of beer: After a worldwide search, he was selected as the first Anheuser-Busch Professor of Brewing Science at the University of California, Davis. Now, he presents the most compelling social history of beer ever written: where it's come from, where the brewing business stands now, and what the future holds. In this far-reaching book, he reveals The extraordinary complexity and artistry that can be found in great brewing. The factors that impact beer quality and wholesomeness. Centuries-old cultural values embedded in good beer. Bamforth also explains what the rise of new craft breweries means to beer drinkers and what the latest global trends will have on beer consumption. The book concludes with a look to the future, illustrating how environmental issues will change the brewing industry and addressing radical new approaches to brewing, such as Happoshu and malternatives.

    In the 1870s, OTR was comparable to the cultural hearts of Paris and Vienna. By the turn of the last century, the neighborhood was home to roughly three hundred saloons and had over a dozen breweries within or adjacent to its borders. It was beloved by countless citizens and travelers for the exact reasons that others successfully sought to destroy it. This is the story of how the heart of the "Paris of America" became a time capsule.

    There are now 48 extra pages, including 17 new color illustrations, 20 new maps, and-for the first time ever-double page spreads and full-page photos in the atlas section for maximum visual impact. New World coverage has been extended for both Australia and South America; some New World regions even have their own entries for the first time, including Rutherford, Oakville, and Stag's Leap from California; Mendoza (Argentina); Limestone Coast (Australia); Central Otago and Martinborough (New Zealand); and Constantia (South Africa). And Old World coverage has grown too, with the addition of Toro (Spain), the Peleponnese (Greece), and Georgia. It's a truly incomparable book, and an essential addition to every wine lover's or professional's library."

    From 'swilling and swirling' to 'Syrah and Chardonnay', The Bluffer's Guide to Wine contains everything you need to know to pass yourself off as an informed imbiber.

    This handsomely illustrated revised edition brings Seattle's history up-to-date and provides a vivid portrayal of its past: pioneering, Indian warfare, lumber, railroads, the great fire of 1889, the Alaska gold rush, the amusement business, newspapers, the general strike of 1919, and the tumultuous politics of city and state that have made history in the Northwest.

    (By the way, the short answer is no.) A unique blend of travelogue, spirits history, and recipe collection, Boozehound explores the origins of what we drink and the often surprising reasons behind our choices.  In lieu of odorless, colorless, tasteless spirits, Wilson champions Old World liquors with hard-to-define flavors—a bitter and complex Italian amari, or the ancient, aromatic herbs of Chartreuse, as well as distinctive New World offerings like lively Peruvian pisco. With an eye for adventure, Wilson seeks out visceral experiences at the source of production—visiting fields of spiky agave in Jalisco, entering the heavily and reverently-guarded Jägermeister herb room in Wolfenbüttel, and journeying to the French Alps to determine if mustachioed men in berets really handpick blossoms to make elderflower liqueur.  In addition, Boozehound offers more than fifty drink recipes, from three riffs on the Manhattan to cocktail-geek favorites like the Aviation and the Last Word. These recipes are presented alongside a host of opinionated essays that cherish the rare, uncover the obscure, dethrone the overrated, and unravel the mysteries of taste, trends, and terroir. Through his far-flung, intrepid traveling and tasting, Wilson shows us that perhaps nothing else as entwined with the history of human culture is quite as much fun as booze.From the Hardcover edition.

    Tome was born in 1782 near present-day Harrisburg and lived on the upper Susquehanna for much of his life. He tells colorful (and mostly true) tales about his hunting exploits in the Pennsylvania wilderness, as he tracked elk, wolves, bears, panthers, foxes, and other large animals through the state’s north-central mountains, earning wide renown among his contemporaries. His stories contain suspenseful chase scenes, accidents, and narrow escapes, inviting the reader to view a still-wild Pennsylvania through the eyes of one who “was never conquered by man or animal.” Pioneer Life, originally published in 1854, has since been reprinted several times. This classic hunting memoir includes the following chapters: I. Birth and Early Life II. Hunting the Elk III. Capturing a Live Elk IV. Face of the Country V. Face of the Country — Continued VI. Danger From Rattlesnakes VII. Wolf and Bear Hunting VIII. Another Elk Hunt IX. Elk-Hunting on the Susquehannah X. Elk-Hunting — Continued XI. Nature, Habits, and Manner of Hunting the Elk XII. Elk and Bear Hunting in Winter XIII. Hunting on the Clarion River XIV. Hunting and Trapping XV. The Bear, Its Nature and Habits XVI. Hunting Deer at Different Seasons XVII. Nature and Habits of the Panther, Wolf and Fox XVIII. Rattlesnakes and Their Habits XIX. Distinguished Lumbermen, Etc. XX.. Reminiscences of Cornplanter XXI. Indian Eloquence This book originally published in 1854 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the reformatting

    It's not about cutting corners, it's about wanting the very best and not settling for less. It's a theory that can pave your road to success.Author David Gilbertson built a failing company into a successful multi-billion dollar business without getting up at 4:00am or working until midnight. He knows how to work better, and get brilliant results. Now in just 28 simple rules, he spells out the secret of his success; everyday accessible strategies for creative professionals, managers, students, entrepreneurs, and anyone who wants to get ahead in life. As one rule follows another, he builds a compelling narrative on paving the way to success (and getting that all-important time to go to a wine bar with friends, or just time to think).Covering workplace issues and business strategy, Wine Bar Theory shows you things you can do more easily, and things you don't need to do at all. It's about being effective and not just busy. This affordable, pocket-sized book is a business book like no other. Its creative illustrations are by Bill Butcher, whose work is seen in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, Fortune and the Economist.

    Trouble is, she’s sure she’s already found—and lost—hers. Now the young widow has inherited half the vineyard she considers her own, and she’s got one chance to produce a vintage that could make or break her career. But when the flashy, impetuous Clovis de Valois is revealed as heir to the other half, her dreams of independence are dashed into chaos.Cerise and Clovis seem to be opposites in every way that matters. Can their passion for winemaking—and secretly each other—unite them beyond their differences? Or will their clash ruin the vineyard, and the hearts, they’re both desperate to save?

    Why, specifically?”“I like to build things.”As of the time of writing, more than ten million copies of E L James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey” have been sold worldwide. Whether you find this notion inspiring or terrifying, there’s no escaping the fact that, as literary events go, “Fifty Shades of Grey” is at least...significant. And books that are...significant...deserve to be subjected to thorough critical and textual analysis. By taking it apart into teeny tiny small pieces and put those pieces under a spiteful and mean-spirited microscope, we may all just learn something about the elusive nature of the bestseller,“Lighter Shades of Grey” is a chapter-by-chapter dissection of “Fifty Shades of Grey”, cataloguing unusual leaps of logic, surprising deductions, exciting exchanges of dialogue, recurrent motifs and stand-out moments, that will allow you to better appreciate / enjoyably ruin for others the “Fifty Shades” experience. It also provides definitive answers to questions such as “How often does Ana say ’oh my’?”, “How often do people’s mouths fall open in surprise?” and “Is Christian Grey a diagnosable psychopath?”Building on the viral hit blog-entry, “Fifty Things That Annoy Me About Fifty Shades Of Grey”, “Lighter Shades of Grey” is the perfect snarky companion to this year’s most inexplicable blockbuster. (Approximately 31,000 words; 30 pictures)

    to Japan, South Africa to Scandinavia. Today whisky sales are booming, making the timing perfect for this massive, witty, gorgeously illustrated volume. An ideal whisky "bible" for either connoisseur or neophyte, THE WORLD ATLAS OF WHISKY covers the history, process, distilleries and expressions of the world great whiskies, complete with detailed maps and 150 labels.