- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (April 30 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0140270019
- ISBN-13: 978-0140270013
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.4 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 222 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #408,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
The editor and author of almost a dozen British books on wine, including The Oxford Companion to Wine (LJ 12/94), Robinson knows the wine world inside and out. Here she shares her love for and knowledge of wine via a collection of autobiographical anecdotes and sketches covering everything from the time spent early in her career writing for Wine and Spirit magazine to her adventures taping the Wine Course for the BBC. Dedicated wine enthusiasts and collectors will drink up Robinson's stories of meetings with the luminaries of the wine world and her visits to the vineyards of countries as varied as France and Australia. However, the average American reader might be overwhelmed by the emphasis on the British wine trade. Libraries with comprehensive wine book collections or public libraries catering to a gourmet clientele will want to consider.?John Charles, Scottsdale P.L., Ariz.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
In case you were interested, here's everything you could ever possibly want to know about Robinson's (Oxford Companion to Wine) career trajectory. Robinson, who has been a fixture in the wine writing establishment for 25 years, teeters precariously, wanting her readers to know that she is both a wine connoisseur--exquisitively sensitive to the historical, geographical, and sociological contexts of wine--and a populist rabble-rouser, bucking received opinion as she champions the wine-drinking pleasures open to Everyman. She quaffs Grands Echezeaux, La Tache, Romanee-Conti, 1847 Yquems, and 1787 Branne Moutons, has ``swashbuckling'' Harold Evans as her editor at London's Sunday Times, and hobnobs with Hugh Johnson and Edmund Penning-Rowsell, But she also starts up the Drinker's Digest, an opinionated and iconoclastic newsletter dedicated to the principle of the best wine for the best price. Readers will learn the holdings in her cellar, her peregrinations through the wine-trade publications, the many personalities she meets, the astonishing meals she enjoys, and will share her each and every momentous occasion (``I shall never forget my first formal wine tasting''; ``My most embarrassing trial by tasting took place. . . . ``, etc.). She gets serious now and then--discussing the pros and cons of blind tastings, detailing how Robert M. Parker Jr. has gained his mind-boggling sway over the wine world--but for the most part, this reads like a gossip column that can't turn a decent sentence (``The others are that there are anyway enough people who love Tertre, for it is probably the only Saint-Emilion other than the top-ranking Ausone and Cheval Blanc''). Despite its moments, this autobiography is clunky, desperately self-promoting, and, at best, premature. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Francois Mitjavile was born in 1948 into a family synonymous in France with road transport. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Just a Wine Lover?,
By
This review is from: Tasting Pleasure: Confessions of a Wine Lover (Paperback)
I confess to a liking for books from those who are knowledgeable when it comes to wine. Perhaps it is more correct to say books that provide me with knowledge and personal insights. Jancis Robinson's "Tasting Pleasure" is a particularly insightful look into the birth and growth of a wine connoisseur. In some respects the stars align perfectly for Ms Robinson as she rises, very quickly, from tour guide to assistant editor of the British wine trade magazine Wine & Spirit in 1975, to Master of Wine in 1984, to author and TV presenter. However it is also clear that the considerable knowledge and experience that she gained during these years contributed significantly to the evolution of her career and to her current status. She has been privileged to taste some extraordinary wines in the company of some extraordinary wine tasters; Michael Broadbent to name just one. It is easy for those of us who are unlikely to rise to such heights of pleasure to fall into the trap of dismissing such experiences as conceited ramblings. But it should be appreciated that access to such wine completes the spectrum of tasting experiences available to the connoisseur; those of us who taste the great and the near great have to be satisfied with being somehow incomplete. What is interesting is that Ms Robinson prefers to call herself a Wine Lover, that is something we can all claim to be.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must For Fans of Jancis and of Wine!,
By Simon Doherty (Northern Ireland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Tasting Pleasure: Confessions of a Wine Lover (Paperback)
I have been shocked to see Jancis Robinson's books and videos being slated by Americans. Maybe her European style and English stlye of writing aggrevates Americans. I found this book absolutely charming! (Then again, I am European!)It's not a guide to wine in itself but more a fascinating tale of Jancis' involvement with wine and it's producers. If you bear this in mind when you order it, you will not be disappointed. Her turn of phrase makes this the ideal book to read whilst sipping a nice glass of wine!
1.0 out of 5 stars
A new tonic for insomnia,
By
This review is from: Tasting Pleasure: Confessions of a Wine Lover (Paperback)
My wife found a damaged copy of Confessions for a few dollars, and bought it for me as a joke. She and I have both laughed for years at Jancis' smarmy tone in her column in Wine Spectator, though I also found her very knowledgeable about wine. Writing about herself rather than wine, Jancis has lost any sense of what the reader might possibly care about. It is the single most boring book I have read in my life, including chemistry textbooks. I seriously use it to fall asleep at night. It puts me out cold in 1/2 page, on average. That's worth a star!
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