Why learn about wine?
There are plenty of good reasons. Fun, concerns about seeming sophisticated, business entertaining, a genuine desire to learn… There are probably as many reasons as there are wine-lovers.
Michael Gilmore's was that in 2011 he decided to cut back on the amount of carbohydrate he consumed. It seemed to work… he cut back on bread, on potato, on rice, on pizza, on fruit… but he had one problem. Beer. This was serious.
Luckily, Herald van der Linde, also known as “The Flying Dutchman” is one of Michael's oldest friends. Herald and he worked together years before, and while Michael had spent his time building a beer gut, Herald had spent his not just working through Asia’s financial markets, but had also become a wine expert, earning a teaching diploma from the WSET, and running courses for the highly respected Berry Bros and Rudd around Asia in his spare time.
If anyone could teach Michael about wine, in an intelligent but unpretentious way, it would have to be Herald. So they began exchanging emails, gradually copying in friends, some colleagues and clients, people they met in bars around the world – and anyone else who wanted to learn along.
The following is a collection of their best and worst emails – some of Herald's clever answers to Michael's stupid questions – which made 2012 a very good year to start learning about wine.
(If it isn’t clear already, this is meant to be a fun guide to learning about wine, rather than a definitive reference book: ie, there may be mistakes. If you want to avoid the occasional factual error, this may not be the book for you. Instead, please use this book exactly as it developed and was intended – a fun conversation that could help you learn as much as it helped Michael.)
There are plenty of good reasons. Fun, concerns about seeming sophisticated, business entertaining, a genuine desire to learn… There are probably as many reasons as there are wine-lovers.
Michael Gilmore's was that in 2011 he decided to cut back on the amount of carbohydrate he consumed. It seemed to work… he cut back on bread, on potato, on rice, on pizza, on fruit… but he had one problem. Beer. This was serious.
Luckily, Herald van der Linde, also known as “The Flying Dutchman” is one of Michael's oldest friends. Herald and he worked together years before, and while Michael had spent his time building a beer gut, Herald had spent his not just working through Asia’s financial markets, but had also become a wine expert, earning a teaching diploma from the WSET, and running courses for the highly respected Berry Bros and Rudd around Asia in his spare time.
If anyone could teach Michael about wine, in an intelligent but unpretentious way, it would have to be Herald. So they began exchanging emails, gradually copying in friends, some colleagues and clients, people they met in bars around the world – and anyone else who wanted to learn along.
The following is a collection of their best and worst emails – some of Herald's clever answers to Michael's stupid questions – which made 2012 a very good year to start learning about wine.
(If it isn’t clear already, this is meant to be a fun guide to learning about wine, rather than a definitive reference book: ie, there may be mistakes. If you want to avoid the occasional factual error, this may not be the book for you. Instead, please use this book exactly as it developed and was intended – a fun conversation that could help you learn as much as it helped Michael.)
