Deal - Wine: Savvy Girl, A Guide To Wine

Savvy Girl: A Guide to Wine

Brittany Deal

Copyright 2013 by Brittany Deal

All Rights Reserved

Content Editor: Meghan Rabbitt

Copyeditor: Rachelle Mandik

Cover and Interior Design: Tara Long/Dotted Line Design, llc

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Savvy Girl.

1600 Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90291

www.savvygirl.net

Ordering Information:

Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers.

Please visit CreateSpace.com.

ISBN 978-0-9897109-0-9

First Edition

WHAT IS SAVVY GIRL?

Brittany, a lifetime lover of learning, craved the knowledge how-to books promised to offer, but found them painful to complete. Sometimes her sheer pride would hold her hostage until she finished all 329 pages, but once she was freed, she wondered if boring was a requirement for getting a book published.

Sure, searching Google is another way to get quickie how-tos, but who wants to sift through a million search results or keyword-stuffed blogs?

After giving up on another how-to book in the Bolivian Amazon, Brittany realized that people are drowning in information, yet starved for knowledge.

With the idea of creating one go-to source for rich, yet concise, knowledge on the topics women care about, Brittany launched Savvy Girl. The Savvy Girl promise is to produce a book that you can start on a Monday and finish by Friday. Why so short? Because most of us dont want to be an expert on every topic, we just want to be savvy.

So read em, get savvy, and then get back to your fabulous life.

IS IT YUM OR YUCK?

It was a sunny spring afternoon in Napa, California, when I arrived at a small boutique winery nestled among the regions famous rolling green vineyards. As I walked up the cobblestone entrance lined by rows of lavender, the smell of red wine and oak barrels led me to the tasting room.

I introduced myself to the woman behind the bar and casually mentioned I was writing a book on wine. Fantastic, she said. Our winemaker is in the tasting room today, so I will have her join us.

Instead of excitement, this news brought anxiety. My afternoon of wine tasting on a workday had just turned into a pop quiz, and I started to wonder whether Id absorbed anything from all of the wine books Id been reading.

The winemaker poured me a taste of her Sauvignon Blanc and read me the tasting notes: A dry wine with aromas of citrus fruits, and a hint of grass. Wanting to look like a pro, I vigorously swirled the wine in my glass and then carefully smelled the wine.

After taking in the wines aromas (and wondering where that hint of grass was hiding), I took a small sip and swished the wine to all the areas of my tongue. As I desperately searched for something clever to say, the winemaker smiled and said, Well... is it yum or yuck?

All of my anxiety melted away as I gratefully answered, Yum! Her question made me realize how fancy wine jargon can make us forget the most important question to answer when it comes to wine: Do we like it or not?

While keeping this most important question in mind, the following pages will fill you in on all the wine basics you want to know, such as how to describe the wines you like, how to read a wine label, and of course, how to sound like the Savvy Girl you are when ordering wine at a restaurant.

After youve finished this book, if you ever feel like wine is getting a bit too complicated, just pour yourself another glass and remember that even winemakers know the bottom line on wine is simply this: Is it yum or yuck?

HOW WINE ALMOST BECAME EXTINCT

Its hard to imagine a world without wine; I mean, what else would we use to help us decipher the meaning of life, cope with dating mishaps, or get through an episode of The Bachelor? But heres the thing: Not too long ago, wine nearly became extinct.

It was the end of the nineteenth century in France and, out of nowhere, vineyard after vineyard began to eerily die off. The cause of the vineyard devastation was eventually linked to a tiny parasite called phylloxera, which feasted on the roots of the vines, literally sucking the life out of them.

Soon, phylloxera spread across Europe, wiping out more than 70 percent of the wine industry. Understandably, wine lovers became desperate for a solution. The French government even offered a large monetary prize to whoever could solve the mystery, but nothing seemed to work. Everyone thought wine was a goner. But at the eleventh hour, two researchers, entomologist Charles Valentine Riley and botanist Jules mile Planchon, swooped in with a clever idea.

The solution involved taking vine cuttings from French grape vines and grafting them onto the rootstock of a native North American species whose roots were so thick, phylloxera couldnt gnaw through them. This worked because the Frankensteins monsterlike plant was able to survive in the presence of phylloxera, and the grafted vines were still able to produce the same quality of fruitdespite growing on foreign roots. Although no one ever figured out how to completely wipe out phylloxera, experts credit Riley and Planchon for saving the wine industry.