Vino Italiano

The first meeting of the Wine Book Club presented the assignment of reading and reviewing the book Vino Italiano by Joseph Bastianich & David Lynch. I'll be honest with you, I didn't get all the way through this massive 500+ page book. I never got drawn in to the book. While it has an incredible amount of information packed into it, it isn't exactly an exciting read. It came off to me as more of a reference book than anything.

It does have a great layout. It starts out by giving the reader an overview of the history of Italian wines. Everything from regions, to grapes, to how to read an Italian wine label. The second part of the book goes over each region in depth. Each section includes "quick facts", suggested wines from the area, where to taste when you're there, and a recipe to pair with wine of the area from Mario Batali and Lidia Bastianich.

The large amount of information in this book is actually kind of overwhelming. I learned loads about areas that I didn't know a thing about before picking up the book, but with so much to take in I'm not sure everything will stay in my mind. I really would love to just have this book around the house as a reference though. For instance I would have liked to look up the Friuli-Venezia Guilia region prior to the recent Wine Blogging Wednesday where it was featured. Had I read that beforehand, I think I may have chosen my wines differently.