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

How many of you have ever wanted to travel to France?  If you're anything like me, you may have a desire to travel throughout the country visiting wine region after wine region - tasting the local varieties as well as the native flavor.  Kermit Lynch, who I have mentioned a few times on this wing blog, wrote Adventures on the Wine Route to emphasize some of those local flavors, and I highly recommend this read!

(At amazon.com for about $12)

What I love about Kermit's story is his passion not only about French wine, but French culture and food.  He truly captures the feel of some of these places he visits: from the Loire to Bordeaux through Provence, the Rhone, and around the Cote d'Or.  A true explanation of what French, old-world style wines should be.  He is a true lover of the art, with less emphasis on the science behind winemaking, which he constantly questions - "Is [enology] making today's wines supior?"  With him, I have to admit, I don't know.  Today's wines are clean, yes.  But I understand his desire for complexity, feeling, and soul of the old-world style wines that made wine what it is today.

This is truly a book for wine lovers.  And if you know a bit of French, that won't hurt when Kermit throws in a French term here and there throughout the chapters.

Kermit reminds us: "Remember, even the winemaker is never certain how each vintage will evolve."  I find this point quite true when we consider those vintages that receive more hype than others.  However, sometimes we can find some real jewels out there even if it is a $400 bottle of wine...

I pull a quote from Kermit's book, that I highlighted as the main reason I love wine:

"Domaine Tempier is a place in Provence, a home with its winery and vineyards, its olive trees and cypresses.  It is home to a large, joyful Provencal family.  It is a wine.  And while it must be inadvertent, one of those fortuitous miracles that embellish existence (there is no recipe for it dispensed at wine school), there is a certain vital spirit that one imbibes with each gorgeous swallow of Domaine Tempier's wine."

Is this true?  I have yet to find out.  I ordered my first bottle of Domaine Tempier just a few weeks ago and eagerly waiting it's arrival...