Heard It Through The Grapevine by Matt Skinner
86 out of 100

Published 20 October 2008

Overview

This is Matt's second proper wine book, (ignoring his annual wine recommendation book, The Juice), and is a huge step up in quality from his first book “Thirsty Work”. Whereas Thirsty Work looked superficially at wine regions and grape varieties this new book, “Heard It Through The Grapevine”, looks at all the other parts of wine.

Matt has divided the book into five sections - shopping, drinking, eating, sleeping and well-being. While the content is certainly nothing new and available in a number of books, Matt's bright, picture-rich book is a great book for someone who wants to get the good oil on all things wine, and gives a solid foundation to most people’s questions. Matt answers many of those common questions, should I store wine and how, which wines go well with food, who should I buy wine from and what are the advantages of going to different types of retailers. With about half the book taken up with pictures, Heard It Through The Grapevine is quick and easy to read with a well thought through layout.

If you are a hardened wine anorak, there is nothing ground-breaking in this book, but it is a perfect book to give as a present to someone aged 25-45 who has an enquiring mind and is interested in wine. It would also fit comfortably under the Christmas tree. It's a well-rounded book that builds on Matt's last book.

In the end I gave it an 86 out of 100.

To order this book visit www.octopusbooks.co.uk