What I have worked out

Everything from what fermentation is to how to spit without embarrassing yourself, weighted toward France and New Zealand, because that is what I am interested in so far.

Written in the order it made sense to learn it, but you can start anywhere. 25 chapters.

The tools

Contents

Where I started

What wine actually is

I

Foundations

What wine is, what the styles are, and where wine sits among everything else people drink.

  1. 1What wine actually is3 min
  2. 2The styles of wine3 min
  3. 3Wine among the drinks2 min
II

The grapes

Two dozen varieties worth knowing, and how to read a grape you have never met from its structure alone.

  1. 4The grapes4 min
  2. 5Reading a variety you have never met2 min
III

Tasting

How to taste the same way twice, how to describe what you find, and how to tell a wine you dislike from a broken one.

  1. 6How to taste5 min
  2. 7Describing what you taste4 min
  3. 8Faults3 min
IV

How wine is made

Fermentation, the decisions around it, and where bubbles, sweetness and oak actually come from.

  1. 9From grape to glass2 min
  2. 10Bubbles, fortified and sweet2 min
  3. 11Oak, tannin and time3 min
V

France

The country that decided wine should be named after places rather than grapes, and the five regions that argue the case.

  1. 12How France thinks about wine3 min
  2. 13Bordeaux6 min
  3. 14Burgundy and Beaujolais2 min
  4. 15The Rhône, the Loire and the South5 min
  5. 16Champagne3 min
VI

New Zealand

A wine industry younger than most of the vines in Bordeaux, and how it got good so quickly.

  1. 17How New Zealand thinks about wine5 min
  2. 18Marlborough and the South Island whites3 min
  3. 19Central Otago and New Zealand Pinot Noir3 min
  4. 20Hawke’s Bay and the North Island reds3 min
VII

The wider world

Nine countries in one chapter, at the length I can honestly write about them.

  1. 21Everywhere else4 min
VIII

In practice

Serving, pairing, reading a label, and buying wine without being talked into anything.

  1. 22Serving2 min
  2. 23Food and wine2 min
  3. 24Buying wine4 min
  4. 25What alcohol does3 min