Wine Isn't Rocket Science by Ophelie Neiman: A Review

                                    

    Before I begin, I want to say that I have never drank wine in my life. I read this book solely because of my questions and misunderstandings about wine, and I sought to gain information from it. This book does not encourage the consumption of alcoholic beverages, nor does it go into excessive detail about alcohol consumption. 

    Ever since I was born, I have always been surrounded by wine. Wine is also an important part of my culture, as both my parents are from Europe. I have never been able to understand why wine is so important to some cultures, why pairing matters, and why people use such strange words to describe it. To get my questions answered, I went looking in the Library and found this: Wine Isn't Rocket Science by Ophelie Neiman.

    This book is essentially an encyclopedia for wine, but it also includes fun little informational stories of characters who are not very experienced with wine and encounter common problems. The author uses these stories to introduce the reader to the different aspect of wine, which are explained in the following chapters. The book gives really interesting hints and information, such as why different kinds of glasses need to be used for different kinds of wine, and what the usage of different glasses means. Of course, she also talks about the many different wines, and where they are from. I also learned how to taste wine, and the vocabulary for describing it. The book also has lots of really fun drawings made by illustrator Yannis Varoutsikos to provide a visual aspect to the learning of wine.

    This book has tons of information, and it is hard to understand everything if you read through the book in large chunks. I recommend reading at most a chapter a day, but I found it easier to take in the information if I read it even slower. If you are already reading a book, this is a great book to read behind another book, as it encourages you to take your time reading through it. As I continued reading through the book, more and more of my questions were answered, but new questions also arose. At the end of the book I learned a lot, and all of my questions were answered. However, sometimes I forget things, and it is useful to always have the book at hand. If you are interested in learning the information this book teaches, I recommend buying a copy and keeping it on a shelf or table so you can always reference it if you need to.

     I enjoyed reading through this book, and I am more than satisfied with what it taught me. I also really liked the occasional humor, both in the words and the illustrations. 

Overall, I rate this book a 4.5/5.

Thanks for reading!

-Pieter