Plainspoken explanations to wine questions delivered in compact nuggets accompanied by pronunciation guides, charts, maps, and step-by-steps, along with best-bang-for-your-buck wine recommendations from well-known experts. 

How to: Visit tasting rooms, predict the taste of a wine from the label, choose the right glass, locate the "sweet spot" on the wine list, discover up-and-coming wineries and undervalued wines, pour without dribbling, pronounce names, fid the best equipment, wash wineglasses. 

"Wes Marshall's column is one of theist in the country and is a marvelous guide to wines from all over the world." - Robert Mondavi

"For anyone who intuits that there's something profoundly magical in the world of wine and is looking for the perfect portal through which to enter this mysterious universe - Wes Marshall's book is it." - Randall Grahm, owner, Bonny Soon and Pacific Rim wineries