February 21, 2008
Jennifer “Chotzi” Rosen
Dauphin Press
$ 18.99 276 pages
ISBN 09763170 0 1
Most wine writers produce books that handle the topic seriously or attempt to. J. “Chotzi” Rosen has a way with words. She writes with a unique sense of humour and gets her “wine” message across beautifully.
Waiter there is a horse in my wine takes the snobbery out of the ritual of wine appreciation and brings it to the “populus” at large. Why bother with all the “fluff” about expensive, out-of-reach wines, when perfectly sound and drinkable libations will do.
Better yet, as she suggests, enjoy wine everyday in moderate quantities, and even a glass with lunch, as many Europeans do. In short, she manages to convince the reader to forget pompousness and concentrate on things that matter – grape varieties, soil types, wine faults, labels, storage, decanting and service.
Everything in this book combines wine education with humour and does so successfully.
Actually, one could call Jennifer “Chotzi” Rosen a wine lover who writes about the subject flamboyantly, rather than a wine critic, except when it comes to service and tact!
Her analogies are witty and point at some incidents of the past.
“Perfection is one reason Austrian wines are so good. Another is antifreeze” with reference to the Austrian wine scandal when a few winemakers were caught blending in antifreeze in their wines to make them smooth and full bodied and more expensive on the cheap.
This book should be on the shelf of any wine enthusiast. Run to your favourite bookstore this very minute ands procure a copy. If it is not available in the bookstore, just log on to amazon.com, but you must wait for a few weeks until the boom arrives.
Now he consults and writes to increase wine, beer and liquor awareness. He conducts seminars and would be pleased to consider your requests. To peruse the list of his published books and order please contact him at hirayrberberoglu_3@sympatico.ca
www.littlefatwino.com