Wine writing update

First and foremost, SAZ in the Cellar is a wine resource site.  It is my intent to blog about wine, share ideas on enjoying and appreciating wine, and provide links to other resources on wine.  I believe my upcoming book, Wine Sense(s), fits into that concept.  Therefore, I will be providing the occasional update on the status of Wine Senses(s) and post on other wine writing.  I will also provide reviews and links to other wine blogs and books that I find useful and expect you will enjoy to broaden your wine reading.  Over time, the Resources page and sub-pages on this website will provide references to other wine blogs and books, and wine-related products and services that hopefully will be of interest.

But the focus of my blog posts will continue to be on wine tasting and enjoyment.  We will review wines, match wines with food and also provide useful tips for buying wine, storing wine and most importantly, drinking wine.  These ideas are being consolidated into the book and should provide you with a great read in the coming months.  I have found that in blogging about wine and then researching and writing a book on wine that I learned a great deal – much more so than just by drinking wine.  I feel a responsibility to ensure what I communicate and share to be accurate and well articulated.  I feel a responsibility to provide insight and make your reading of my writing worth your investment in time.

I am targeting Wine Sense(s) to be available around the end of 2013 and am working hard to meet that self-imposed deadline.  Yet, I won’t do anything to rush publication if it compromises quality and your reading experience.  I am finding that it is taking much more effort and underlying technology support than writing and publishing my first book, Still Stupid at Sixty (published under the pseudonym, Blake Stevens).  Wine Sense(s) has required much more in terms of structure, research, citation and photography.  I expect the entire effort to be about twenty times the effort it took to write Still Stupid at Sixty.

I have read about twenty books on wine over the last several years and learned a great deal. The have fallen into general categories of:

  • Wine tasting and appreciation
  • Wine and philosophy
  • Wine making
  • Wine lifestyle and history
  • Specialty wine books (such as on wine language and grape varietals)

Through reading all those books, I learned a great deal and when combined with continued practice tasting wine, I continued to enhance my wine tasting enjoyment further.  Yet, I looked back and felt there could have been a better and far more efficient way to improve my skills and enjoyment.  Wine Sense(s) is about how to improve wine tasting and appreciation.  It discusses how wine tasting works through our senses and how to improve those experiences.  It also provides (hopefully) solid insights and ideas on buying, storing, serving and drinking wine.  I believe Wine Sense(s) will broadly be of interest to people who are new to or moderately experienced in wine drinking and want to improve their tasting experiences and enjoyment.   My aspiration for Wine Sense(s) is to be a more approachable book than Emile Peynaud‘s classic, The Taste of Wine: The Art and Science of Wine AppreciationPeynaud‘s book is the best book I have read on wine appreciation, but when I started it several years ago, it was difficult to digest (even though it is beautifully written and translated form the original French into English).  Wine Sense(s) is meant to be the book you read first.

I will keep you posted of expected publication date for Wine Sense(s) as we move forward.  Now back to writing on wine!

 

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2013.  Steve Shipley
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Twitter:  Steve Shipley @shipleyaust;   InkIT Publishing @inkitpub

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