Wine Book Club Reminders

It's time for a few Wine Book Club reminders. For those of you who don't know, the Wine Book Club was started in January 2008 to give wine bloggers and readers a chance to meet all those New Year Resolutions to read more/learn more about wine. It's also fun to review something that we can all share without shipping restrictions! Our first meeting hosted by David McDuff of McDuff's Food and Wine Trail was held in February, and two dozen bloggers and readers participated.

I'm hoping that we'll have as many if not more for our second edition, which will occur on April 29, just three weeks from today. Our host, Tim Elliott of Winecast, picked a fantastic book for the second edition. I've been reading it, and it's a winner. The book under discussion in a few weeks time will be Noble Rot: a Bordeaux Wine Revolution by William Echikson. The blend of history and present-day expose of politics and fashion is truly fascinating. I'm reading Samuel Pepys' diary at the moment, and chuckled when I saw Echikson quote his entry describing Haut Brion from April 10, 1663: "[I] drank a sort of French wine called Ho Bryan that has a good and most particular taste." Don't you wish we still used phonetic spelling for wine labels? Samuel Pepys would clearly have been a wine blogger if he were alive in 2008!

My second reminder has to do with keeping your eyes peeled for our latest "Spin the Bottle" review. Sometime in the next week or so, just as your resolution begins to fade, Russ Beebe the Winehiker will post his review of Wine Across America, a wonderful visual tour of wine throughout the United States. I'm looking forward to what this intrepid wine traveler has to say about the book and its contents.

Why not join us for the 2nd edition of the WBC? Visit your local bookstore, favorite online retailer, or library and join in the discussion. If you have a "Ho Bryan" to sip while reading Echikson, please let me know and I'll be right over to help you drain the bottle.