The Silk Road of Wine: Andrea Immer is a genius!

Andrea Immer has been one of my favorite wine commentators (along with Jancis Robinson and Karen MacNeil) for a long time, and she has recently risen to the top courtesy of her stunningly good wine & food pairing book: Great Tastes Made Simple. Without a doubt, this has been the one book on wine pairing that I return to often, and always with (gastronomic) reward.

Future postings will go into a bit of detail on her suggested pairings, but try on the most basic for size:

- A French Sancerre
- An Italian Chianti
- Soft goat cheese
- Italian prosciutto
- Hummus

Try the wines individually with each of the foods, e.g., try the Sancerre with all 3 foods before moving to the Chianti, then try each of the foods with each of the wines. She delineates the different flavor profiles and what you should be experiencing with each of the combinations, but it is even more fun to try it on your own and see what you think. You will be quite impressed by what subtle flavors emerge in each of the different pairings -- who knew that Sancerre (tart, acid) would pair so well with goat cheese (tart, acid)?

If you want to get even deeper into Andrea's wine pairings, she just put out a beginner and advanced set of DVDs on the subject:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2005-08-11-andrea-robinson_x.htm?csp=34

Recommended books on wine

Andrea Immer Robinson's excellent teach-yourself course on wine
The other great wine & food pairing book on the market
One of the two best wine & food pairing books on the market
Encylopedic reference tome on all regions and wines. Very educational.
Well-written and very informative.
A great compact reference book -- extremely helpful when trying to decipher wine labels in other languages.
Easily digestible sections for each micro-region in the world. Fantastic maps
The gold standard -- read this cover to cover and you'll know more than most wine shop employees

Great wine shops

Vintage Wine Merchants
More than a destination shop -- you can easily spend the whole day talking with Alex, Joe, Mike, Harry and the gang and learning a ton about fine wine. Santana Row wouldn't be nearly as much fun without their shop!
K&L Wine Merchants
Great selection and newsletter. One of the best-designed wine websites around.
The Wine Club
Some real hard to find gems, good futures prices and a great newsletter.
Joseph George Wines
Think about it -- how many wine shops do you know that are 3rd generation family-owned, provide you the owner's name and phone number on their website (and invite you to call for assistance in selecting wines), and are only open noon-5pm Monday through Friday ...! A sign of how well the shop is doing.
Vin, Vino, Wine Bottle Shop & Tasting Bar
Tucked away on California Ave. in Palo Alto, this is truly a shop for the connoisseur -- not as comprehensive as some of the bigger shops, but they more than make up for it with deep collections of exceptional red and white Burgundies. Their newsletter is required reading each month.

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