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Adventures on the Wine Route: A Wine Buyer's Tour of France

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Author: Kermit Lynch
Publisher: North Point Press
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$18.00~~
Buy Used: $2.95
You Save: $15.05 (84%)

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Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

18 reviews
Sales Rank: 162879

Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9

ISBN: 0374522669
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9780374522667
ASIN: 0374522669

Publication Date: September 1, 1990
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Coffee stain, bottom right corner page edges - READING COPY ONLY!

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description

Kermit Lynch’s recounting of his experiences on the wine route and in the wine cellars of France takes the reader through the Loire, Bordeaux, the Languedoc, Provence, Northern and Southern Rhone, and the Cote d’Or.

Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Awesome! May 13, 2008
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.

5 out of 5 stars

Adventures on the Wine Route January 29, 2008
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.

5 out of 5 stars

Every wine lover should read this book December 22, 2007
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 cr�s, 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

5 out of 5 stars

Like a fine wine itself... December 22, 2007
This is a lush, well-balanced and plain smart read.

I have to say the guy's got balls to describe both his wines and his winemakers in such candid, delicious detail. Photos included!

3 out of 5 stars

Interesting, But No Longer Timely September 16, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

This book was written in 1988, and therein lies a problem. In general, the book is a charming personal memory of a wine merchant's buying trip in France. It shines most when the book discusses the people who grow wine, or at least in 1988, grew wine. At that time, the wine industry was undergoing basic changes, in the way vines were grown, tended, stored, bottled and shipped. Perhaps a person with extensive knowledge of wine would find the book an interesting snapshot of wine growing/making, but people with less knowledge of wine will not know how, or if, change continued. One of the reasons I bought the book was to provide a non-textbook source of information about wine for a friend who knows little about wine. This book assumes too much of its reader to be useful as a basic instructional tool for such a person.

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