2024 the best wine to drink review

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Winner of the 2007 IACP Cookbook of the Year Award

Winner of the 2007 IACP Cookbook Award for Best Book on Wine, Beer or Spirits

Winner of the 2006 Georges Duboeuf Wine Book of the Year Award

Winner of the 2006 Gourmand World Cookbook Award - U.S. for Best Book on Matching Food and Wine

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.

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Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bulfinch; Illustrated edition (September 1, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0821257188
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0821257180
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.6 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.9 x 1.4 x 10.3 inches
Reviewer: Volatile_Acidity
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Best of breed
Review: I may run out of superlatives in the course of this review, so I'm just warning you now. What to Drink with What You Eat is absolutely the most spectacular book ever written about pairing food with wine. It will turn you instantly into a world-class sommelier, confidently able to pair virtually any cuisine with a compatible choice. What's more, the recommendations extend far beyond wine to include beer, sake, spirits coffee, tea and different types of water, so even a teetotaler can derive some value. There isn't a food- or wine-lover on the planet who wouldn't benefit from having the book always on hand as a resource.The secret sauce here is that the authors, who have great credentials themselves, have also enlisted the input of dozens of top sommeliers and other authorities to create an uber-reference, one that gains considerably from its generous tendency to be more rather than less inclusive in offering up suggestions. Think of the principle of "the wisdom of crowds," but here the crowd are all experts and have the chops to back up their opinions. The list of foods, cuisines and beverages that are explored is truly encyclopedic, so odds are pretty good whatever you want advice on will be covered. For example, speaking of secret sauce, you'll even get suggested pairings with a Big Mac.The crowning glories of the book are chapters 5 and 6, which really should be turned into a searchable database online and made available via PDA. These chapters are mirror images, one that starts with the beverage and suggests foods, and the other that starts with the food and matches the drinks. I'm telling it to you straight: if you've ever had a moment's hesitation about what to bring to a dinner party or just flat out what might go best with your frozen pizza, the answer is at hand. Wanna build the meal around a special bottle of wine? No problem. In fact, I'm not sure this book isn't subversive in the sense that it does such a great job of simplifying a complicated subject and making it accessible that it renders real-life sommeliers unnecessary.Of course, that's a ridiculous notion; I'm just stating it for effect. You still need a sommelier to put together a wine list, add a personal perspective, precisely match the cuisine of a restaurant to its wines and gauge the "readiness" of any particular client to explore new territory. But if you live in New Jersey, where the only advantage of archaic, Prohibition-based liquor laws is the plethora of BYO restaurants and thus there are very few sommeliers period, this book is like manna from heaven.I don't mean to imply that What to Eat is prescriptive to the point where you aren't allowed to express yourself and exercise free will. Quite the contrary. The book does a splendid job in the first few chapters of breaking down various pairing conventions developed over the past 20 years (plus of course the most classic matches) and providing guidelines that anyone can build on, and the authors encourage imagination and experimentation.Let's go with a real life example, my first since I bought the book, and quite an "acid" test at that. I was asked by a hostess to suggest something that might go with roasted sea bass served with a Mediterranean ragout of red peppers, tomatoes, olives, and capers. My first instinct when approaching anything Mediterranean is to go with the "territory," which means for me clinging to the coastline from Provence to Sicily. Here I would have gravitated toward a white because a tannic red wouldn't go anyway and it's summer now and a chill is definitely welcome. Besides, I'm not sophisticated enough to figure out what to do with capers to begin with, so why not let a thousand years of local experience do the hard work for me? Then, I turned to chapter 5 and looked up sea bass. There were 16 suggestions, but nothing related to a Mediterranean ragout, which would clearly provide the dominant flavors to the dish. So with a little trepidation (are they going to whiff on my first challenge?), I looked for "Mediterranean" and sure enough found the following entry: "Mediterranean Cuisine (eg anchovies, olives, peppers, etc) Champagne, rose; Chateauneuf-du-pape, white; Pinot blanc; red wine, esp. tart Old World; rose; verdicchio, esp with onion-based dishes." Not feeling wholly comfortable yet, I cross-referenced the pesky caper and found: "Beaujolais, high acid; beer; Muscadet; Pinot Grigio/ Pinot gris, esp. dry; Pinot Noir, esp from Russian River Valley." That's enough breadth for anyone to find an appealing option.The genius of the book is the exhaustive number of dishes and international cuisines covered. I'm sure there are some things you can eat that aren't paired here, but I'm not sure why you would want to! Also, while it wasn't true for my sea bass, many if not most of the listings actually go a step further and provide recommendations specific to the actual method of preparation. It's not just one size fits all. Pasta with artichokes? Check. Pasta with sardines? Check. You get the idea.I haven't been this excited about a wine book in a couple of years, maybe since reading Andrew Jefford's The New France The New France: A Complete Guide to Contemporary French Wine (Mitchell Beazley Wine Guides). If you have even a passing interest in drinking wine with your meals you'd be crazy not to buy this book. It has the potential to enrich every dinner (and the occasional lunch/brunch/breakfast?/snack) you eat for the rest of your life, and if that isn't enough hyperbole, I don't know what is.

Reviewer: bernie r
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Wine and Food Pairing Made Easier
Review: This is an excellent resource for both foodies and those new to wine and food pairing. I first saw this in the wine cellar of my culinary school and shortly bought my own copy for home. With the "wrong" pairing of food and wine, the flavor of both can be destroyed; the better the pairing, the better the dining experience. There's no reason why casual dining cannot be enhanced by nicely matching the food and wine. With this book as your guide, it is easy to select wine(s) for your planned meal; it is well organized and makes choosing the right wine for your meal interesting, informative and enjoyable. And, for those occasions where you have the wine and want to have a meal to match, the "reverse look-up" chapter makes that challenge deliciously solvable.

Reviewer: kathy jones
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very useful book if in the restaurant business
Review: As I am in the wine industry this book has been like a bible to me….pairing wine with food for wine dinners can be tough but this book gives you all the tools you need to be successful! So whether a dinner in a restaurant or pairing for guests at home, you will find this book perfect

Reviewer: mb
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: My Most Referenced Book.
Review: As an intermediate home cook and wine lover I *love* this book. I received it as a gift years ago and use regularly. Once you read the first few chapters you won't really use them much again, though I've gone back and re-read them occasionally anyway.The core of the book is literally the "What to Drink with What you Eat" and the "What to Eat with What you Drink" sections. I am constantly flipping back and forth hoping to create harmony in the kitchen. Sometimes I begin with a decided main course then skim the suggested wine pairings; then I go to the wine selection and look for companion flavors for a side dish selection. Other times I begin with a particular wine i am curious about or am just craving at the moment and find complementing foods to prepare a menu. That's what I mean by flipping back and forth; I love it, so much fun!After years of using this book I have (thankfully) retained some knowledge and actually feel as though I have learned and advanced my wine pairing skills as well as my passion to do so.As for the Kindle edition, it needs some work. Right now it is complicated and cumbersome to use as a reference book. I would love a simplified search and shortcut method to particular wines and foods. The formatting isn't quite right either, at least on my Kindle Fire (original) and through the Kindle app on my iPhone. Save your money on the digital format, at least for the time being, and put it towards the hardcover.P.S. This book makes an excellent gift, especially when paired with a Vertical Rabbit bottle opener and, of course, a bottle of wine.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Selecting a wine for a dinner is often simple. Cab-sov with red meat and white wine with fish. This book however explores the depths of the culinary world. If you ever wondered what drink to serve with camembert, game meats, sea urchin, or Bratwurst, this book is for you. The wine directory also helps with pairing an unfamiliar wine with a dish, which could help you explore new recipes.

Reviewer: tegan
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Great Book, but the cover was quite scratched.

Reviewer: Chris
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: But they match Scandinavian Cuisine with only Aquavit, Beer (Lager) and Schnapps. Aquavit/Schnapps (high alcohol content) is only drunk to specific dishes during certain holidays like Christmas and Midsummer. Beer works with a lot of dishes. Scandinavian cuisine is a big area that works very well with wine. Do not forget that we also have small but thriving vineyards!You lose one star because of this big miss.

Reviewer: Osmar Htz
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Wooooow. Vaya nivel de detalle y calidad de contenido. Me ha sido muy útil para comprender más acerca de la armonía del vino y los alimentos.

Reviewer: Placeholder
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: A fine book and a good read. The book acts as a guideline for pairing drinks with foods. I would also recommend reading the flavor bible by the same author.