This pithy, refreshing little book is for anyone who wishes to understand wine and speak intelligently about wine. It is as well, an authoritative, streamlined guide for the wine aficionado and wine professional. The author, a philosopher, lifelong student of zen, and former French wine importer takes you on a humor-laced zen-like tour of the intriguing sensory mindscape of wine. Inside you will learn how wine professionals taste wine, the sensory components of tasting, wine etiquette, poetic descriptions of the eight great fine wine grape varieties, the wines made from them, and the specialized “organoleptic evaluation” vocabulary used by professionals to describe wine characteristics and quality. If you’re a novice you’ll encounter an essential introduction to wine. Then learn and have fun with the author’s Wine Organoleptic Evaluation Form—well worth the price of the book—at your table at home, and especially when dining out with friends.If you’re a serious student of wine, or a wine professional you’ll get lost in the detailed reference/glossary, an excellent tutorial that includes technical and philosophical wine consid-erations not available in any other wine book or course.Here the author facilitates for all readers a potential zen mind recognition that is “Seeing the prior unity of the objective and subjective dimensions of our being here in the world…,”not through transcendent experience, but through a deep earthy here now moment to moment appreciation of “…the primordial gift that a conscious life with wine can be.” This little gem is an authoritative, good quick read that speaks on many levels. You will want to keep it close at hand.