READING BETWEEN THE WINES (University of California Press) WHAT MAKES A WINE WORTH DRINKING (forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Terry Theise, winner of the James Beard magazine’s Foundation Award for Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional, is an importer of boutique wines from Germany, Austria, and Champagne. His articles have appeared in The World of Fine Wine magazine. He was Wine & Spirits Man of the Year in 2001 and Food and Wine magazine’s Importer of the Year in 2006. His first book, READING BETWEEN THE WINES, has been hailed by Karen MacNeil, author of The Wine Bible, as “The single best book I’ve ever read on why wine matters.”
Praise for READING BETWEEN THE WINES
“Reading Between the Wines…at the very least, challenges many conventional beliefs that make wine seem so arcane and hidebound. Tasting notes and scores? Useless. Perfection? An utter bore. Demystify wine? No. Mr. Theise urges that we “remystify” wine. I’m with him all the way….this is a consequential book, rich in ideas and powerful in feeling.” —Eric Asimov, The New York Times
“It’s not even wine that Theise is really tackling. It’s aesthetics. As such he skillfully reminds us of wine’s timeless place in culture.” —Jon Bonné, San Francisco Chronicle
“Theise begins with a flashback of swigging from a communal bottle of rosé in the front row of a Faces concert. He admits that being seen drinking wine was far more alluring than the taste—he hated it. Fast-forward some 30 years, and Theise is a James Beard Award–winning importer of boutique wines from Germany, Austria, and Champagne. His conceit is that the transition from hate to love is a journey that begins by tasting at your own pace, vocalizing (using your own terms) what you like or don’t like about a wine, and realizing that dislike is OK. A refreshing philosophy. Theise first demystifies how to experience wine, then remystifies it by reinstating pleasure as what it’s all about.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Theise is a man I’d like to drink with. Any wine. “ —John Mariani, Bloomberg News and Business Week
“My bookshelves are…bowed with the weight of books given biblical status for their wealth of information and books that serve as little more than romantic memoirs about wine-soaked lives. But there are very few—in fact only one other I can think of besides this, Nossiter’s Liquid Memory—that exist as visceral dissertations on what wine does…move us. Theise’s new book, Reading Between the Wines, speaks of wine having the capability of being a portal to the mystic, and his conviction to this end is utterly seductive. There were points when I found myself reading his proselytizing out on my deck well past twilight, sometimes laughing out loud, sometimes nodding in passionate agreement, and other times lost in his candor.” —Katie Pizzuto, gonzogastronomy.com
“Terry Theise, perhaps more than any other person, knows how to convey in words just how magical wine can be, and the world needs more of that. For anyone who has reached that point in their relationship with wine, where a sip of the right stuff is able to produce a quickened pulse, a glint in the eye, or a gasp of amazement, this book is all but required reading. “ —Vinography
"If Kerouac’s On the Road had a ménage a trois with Palahniuk’s Fight Club and Thoreau’s Walden, resulting in a love child, it might approximate Terry Theise’s book, READING BETWEEN THE WINES." -- goodgrape.com
"If Kerouac’s On the Road had a ménage a trois with Palahniuk’s Fight Club and Thoreau’s Walden, resulting in a love child, it might approximate Terry Theise’s book, READING BETWEEN THE WINES." -- goodgrape.com
Terry Theise
READING BETWEEN THE WINES (University of California Press)
WHAT MAKES A WINE WORTH DRINKING (forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Praise for READING BETWEEN THE WINES
“Reading Between the Wines…at the very least, challenges many conventional beliefs that make wine seem so arcane and hidebound. Tasting notes and scores? Useless. Perfection? An utter bore. Demystify wine? No. Mr. Theise urges that we “remystify” wine. I’m with him all the way….this is a consequential book, rich in ideas and powerful in feeling.” —Eric Asimov, The New York Times
“It’s not even wine that Theise is really tackling. It’s aesthetics. As such he skillfully reminds us of wine’s timeless place in culture.” —Jon Bonné, San Francisco Chronicle
“Theise begins with a flashback of swigging from a communal bottle of rosé in the front row of a Faces concert. He admits that being seen drinking wine was far more alluring than the taste—he hated it. Fast-forward some 30 years, and Theise is a James Beard Award–winning importer of boutique wines from Germany, Austria, and Champagne. His conceit is that the transition from hate to love is a journey that begins by tasting at your own pace, vocalizing (using your own terms) what you like or don’t like about a wine, and realizing that dislike is OK. A refreshing philosophy. Theise first demystifies how to experience wine, then remystifies it by reinstating pleasure as what it’s all about.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Theise is a man I’d like to drink with. Any wine. “ —John Mariani, Bloomberg News and Business Week
“My bookshelves are…bowed with the weight of books given biblical status for their wealth of information and books that serve as little more than romantic memoirs about wine-soaked lives. But there are very few—in fact only one other I can think of besides this, Nossiter’s Liquid Memory—that exist as visceral dissertations on what wine does…move us. Theise’s new book, Reading Between the Wines, speaks of wine having the capability of being a portal to the mystic, and his conviction to this end is utterly seductive. There were points when I found myself reading his proselytizing out on my deck well past twilight, sometimes laughing out loud, sometimes nodding in passionate agreement, and other times lost in his candor.” —Katie Pizzuto, gonzogastronomy.com
“Terry Theise, perhaps more than any other person, knows how to convey in words just how magical wine can be, and the world needs more of that. For anyone who has reached that point in their relationship with wine, where a sip of the right stuff is able to produce a quickened pulse, a glint in the eye, or a gasp of amazement, this book is all but required reading. “ —Vinography