Sediment

For people who wouldn't know a Romanee-Conti from a bad-boy Argentine malbec, or a magnum of Chateau d'Yquem from a can of orange Tango, help is at hand. Based on the authors' highly esteemed blog of the same name (described by Nicholas Lezard of The Guardian as 'the finest wine blog known to humanity'), Sediment takes a wry look at the social, financial, personal and marital issues surrounding middle-aged, middle-class wine drinking. Covering such vital topics as befriending a wine merchant, high-street wine from supermarkets and corner shops, tools of the trade like the pichet and tumblers, dining-table wine etiquette, wine in a box, the cubi flagon, wine drinking in the Georgian era, and even homage to le Piat d'Or, Sediment is not a book that takes wine too seriously. Instead, it wrestles it out of the bottle, pins it down and makes it tell the truth - in language we can all understand. By writing humorously, and much more broadly than specialist wine writers, CJ and PK break out of the wine-writing niche, with its exclusive vocabulary and faint air of superiority.
For those of us who so often fail to detect notes of citrus and caramel, but mainly get a hint of alcohol with a grapey finish, the book is as refreshing as a glass of decent Muscadet on a summer's day; it is also the perfect gift for the wine drinker to whom you don't want to give wine.