Rating: 
Summary: A good book in SMALL doses.
Review: If you read it straight through, you'll wonder if he will EVER finish: too much egg-headed self-promotion, too much repitition, too arcane. I'd give it 2 stars. But, had I read it a chapter a week, and thus not gotten so tired of his methodology, I'd give him, as an industry person, 5 stars. If you really care about wine and the wine industry, this book, in spite of its dumb title, is a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Glasses, Grasses, Soil, Stones, People & Places
Review: It's a journey not a destination. Cliche'd but in this if you're looking for rankings of wine or learning in the academic sense this is not for you. If you are a farmer of anything that grows in fields you'll like it. If you enjoy wine - sit and relax and drive with Lawrence (gives you a bit of a wobbly to experience so much driving after the vineyard tasting room)to the next spot on his journey. Critics with a distaste for language or wry humour do not appreciate the writing - but if that doesn't sound like you, well... you'll enjoy the journey and the history and personality of the wine makers on every page.
Rating: 
Summary: pedants pedants!
Review: It's amazing how these pedants will give a book ONE STAR while still on page 9, over a pedantic quibbling over a totally minor point which is,in any case, ambiguous. Memo to Mr.Pedant :
Osborne's point is that critics who claim biological uniqueness are suspect. Know what? He's right.In any case, has science "prooved" anything about such subjective variabilities? No it hasn't. Are we biologically different from our neighbor when it comes to taste? Who knows? Osborne's whole point is that with wine it's psychological not biological. Science pedant types, of course, don't understand non-literalistic arguments. Which is why they should never be allowed to review books.Well, one can't stop them. Just enjoy the damn book!
Rating:
Summary: Still Love this Book After a Second Reading!!!
Review: Nowadays people are paying $50 or $100 or even more per bottle of wine that is immature/only a few years old. Why are they doing this? Well, one of the reasons is because corporate shills for the California wine industry -- like Robert Parker -- with his "more epicurean than thou" philosophy, have made suckers out of a generation of would-be "wine tasters." It has often been said that fools and their money are soon separated. What better example of this than today's wine market? Rare vintage wine takes time and effort -- to reiterate a glowering platitude -- and if you've never experienced such a thing, to drink a true quality rare vintage (which, needless to say, isn't offered by the vast majority of today's liquor stores) may very well seem like something of a life-changing experience. Quasi-mass produced swill from California and elswhere, on the other hand, is still swill, regardless of the monumental reams of blather snob organs like Robert Parker's Advocate and The Wine Spectator might happen to foist upon those hapless and unassuming little globes of Cabernet or Pinot Noir. Anyway, Lawrence Osborne's book, as with almost every other story, at the end of the day provides its moral for us all: CAVEAT EMPTOR! Even for those lucky enough to have so many piles of cash that they're not particulary concerned about how they eventually might come to be divested of it, consider this: Doesn't it tug at your conscience a little to know that you're consistently being taking for a sucker by the wine industry by paying ridiculous amounts for a preposterously mediocre product? (Where is Thorstein Veblen when we most need him?) Btw, I can't wait to see the advertising campaign that's going to be waged against this book, if it ever becomes popular. Suffice it to say that sometime in the near future you're going to hear that it's pefectly rational and eminently sophisticated to be plunking down forty nine bucks for a bottle of four-year-old California plonk. Once again: Caveat Emptor!
Rating:
Summary: Informative, enjoyable, this book may save me thousands!
Review: The closest thing to a gentlemen I've ever met once told me, "Christian, women determine if you're a gentlemen by first looking at your shoes and your watch" (I had on Teva knock-off's and my wrist sported only hair, and a mild tan. He went on to say that a true gentlemen is knowledgeable in fine wines (among other things).
That was some number of years ago. Since then, I totally get the shoe thing, and good watches have become a passion of mine. Wine however, well, that's another story.
Take it as fact that I've spent six figures on wine since determining to "appreciate and understand it". Embarrasingly, progress has been slow. For that reason, I wish I came across this book several years ago.
Lawrence Osborne approaches the question of "what is fine wine" as a relative virgin to the space. Just as I did, he struggled to understand what all the fuss is about with a Bordeaux, what all those impossible to categorize universe of descriptions for taste mean (are they BS or not..."crushed seashells, plum, and asphalt!!?), and who these winemakers behind the labels really are.
I think he largely succeeds in this book. His quest takes him around the world, from purveyors as old as the United States, to upstart "garagistes" (garage wine makers). Part expose that'll have winemakers and their customers blush, part validation, this book will have you laughing, and entertained the whole way through.
For me, it helped me focus my tastes, and realize where price has truly outpaced quality. For that, I'm grateful to the author, this book may save me thousands!
Enjoy,
Christian Hunter
Santa Barbara, California
Rating:
Summary: Subtle and gentle odyssey
Review: The exceptional reviews "The Accidental Connoisseur" has gotten are easy to understand. This is not really a wine book : it's more like a protracted mulling over the nature of the tourist economy, on capilalist fetich and on the nature of place. Thorouhgly recommended for its intelligence and insights.
Rating:
Summary: Subtle and gentle odyssey
Review: The exceptional reviews "The Accidental Connoisseur" has gotten are easy to understand. This is not really a wine book : it's more like a protracted mulling over the nature of the tourist economy, on capilalist fetich and on the nature of place. Thorouhgly recommended for its intelligence and insights.
Rating:
Summary: laugh out loud funny
Review: Very funny book, witty and generous in spirit. It has gotten rave reviews especially in the New York Times Book Review. I especially liked the lovely sections on Italy. As a Puglia fan I can relate.
Rating: 
Summary: Snot Nose Brit Looking Down His Nose at Eveything
Review: While it's an interesting premise, the author takes shots at everyone and everything, again and again and again. It gets old REAL quick.
Rating:
Summary: Not just about wine
Review: Wine is the pretext the author uses to question what really constitutes "taste." The narrator enters what is purported to be the pinnacle of the modern wine world to learn why their products carry such an exalted cache. He and the other common people he encounters have trouble identifying the tastes that the experts (i.e. judges of what is and is not tasteful) have reported. He can't even recollect the Lafite he sampled. What he does recall are the places and the settings of wines he enjoyed. Read the book to learn more about the winemakers and judges who try to dictate what you are suppossed to like, but come away from it with the knowledge that "taste" resides within the individual. I'll be re-reading this one in the next few weeks after the ideas brought up in it have had time to percolate through a bit.
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