A Carafe of Red

More than two dozen essays gathered from Ashers three previous anthologies (and originally published in Gourmet magazine). The book does not include essays published in our 2011 book A Vineyard in My Glass. The essays cover specific wine regions in France, California, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Crete as well as topics such as the pivotal Judgment of Paris tasting, organic viticulture, and recollections of memorable aged wines. As the author notes in his introduction, "wine is more than the sum of its parts" and it "draws on everything and leads everywhere." After reading one of Gerald Ashers essays, its easy to feel like you have just enjoyed a beautiful glass of wine, so captivating is his prose and so compelling his presentation of each topic.