Making Sense of Wine by Matt Kramer

Okay, Jets fans (I confess I am one.....sadly, but I do have good company, Gary Vaynerchuk for example), imagine Herman Edwards saying this:
You read a book to learn!
That is exactly what I am doing this snow covered, blustery New Year. I picked up the 1989 edition of Making Sense of Wine by Matt Kramer and I am learning a lot! The book is divided into two sections, (1) Thinking Wine and (2) Drinking Wine. Matt Kramer begins his book defining what connoisseurship is by analogy. Then, to be specific, Kramer defines the wine connoisseur as a person looking for balance, complexity, and proportion in aspects such as bouquet, initial taste, middletaste and aftertaste. Above all, the wine connoisseur is looking for something that can only be defined as finesse.
Things that I learned reading this book:

• In 1863, Napoleon III requested that Louis Pasteur investigate the causes of wine deterioration
• The origin of controlled appellations in France occurred in 1911 in Champagne
• Matt Kramer quotes U.C. Davis's Roger Bolton as saying: "Ninety percent of winemaking has nothing to do with the winemaker. All the winemaker is doing is preventing spoilage, introducing some style characteristics and bottling it."
• The importance and rise of glass manufacturing beginning between 1620-1630 to wine preservation and consequently to the wine industry. This is the story of a dispute between the English and the French and a red wine of Portugal called "port".
• The humidity in a cellar gave rise to the branded cork which has some or all of the following (and more) on the cork: the name of the château/estate, vintage and vineyard.

For the answers and for further discussion of the above points, you need to read the book. As a further inducement for reading this book, I found the last chapter of recipes and their pairings to be really compelling. I want to try making the blanc-manger very soon.