Decoding French Wine: A Beginner's Guide to Enjoying the Fruits of the French Terroir

by Andrew Cullen

The wine world can be intimidating to people who are just starting out. French wines can add an additional layer of complexity given the different, and less familiar, ways the wines are classified. Decoding French Wine: A Beginner's Guide to Enjoying the Fruits of the French Terroir is a short, almost pocketbook guide, written to help early stage wine drinkers navigate the world of French wine so they feel comfortable opening up a French wine list and understand exactly what they are ordering and why. This new second edition of the book covers the prominent areas of Bordeaux, Loire, Burgundy, Alsace, Rhone, Languedoc-Roussillon and Champagne in a short, concise and clear manner, covering the necessary geography, history and practices of each region for readers to gain a fundamental understanding of wine growing throughout the country and begin to explore, and build a familiarity with, wines from each of these areas.

Genres: Nonfiction

81 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2012

About the author

Andrew Cullen has authored and co-authored four non-fiction books, including the popular DECODING WINE series, as well as two works of fiction, THE CALLISTO SYMPHONY (2015) and A GENTLE SLAUGHTER OF THE PERFECT KIND (2017).

He is a digital marketer for a global 100 brand, a wine contributor for HuffPost and the founder and editor of CostcoWineBlog.com. His writing and websites have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Consumer Reports, The Daily Meal, Southern Living, CNN Money and CBS Moneywatch.

Reviews

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Give it a shot

When I think about France, my head wants to explode, but this book helped simplify things a bit. Like the author, my wine journey is only just beginning.

[Shannon Koh · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a short introduction to French wine, Cullen covered all the salient points in an easy-to-digest manner that serves as a great reference for beginners.