It sounds like a good life to me-being paid to travel the world, drink wine and write about it in a witty and iconoclastic way. Ben Canaider has carved a nice niche for himself as the groovy, unpretentious, tell-it-like-it-is guy in a field that is all too often pompous and opaque. In The Perfect Glass of Wine poor old Ben’s trials include a trip to Italy in search of ‘Super Tuscans’; a 33-hour champagne binge to compare the world’s best bubbles; some New Zealand sauvignon blanc adventures involving small aircraft; and a Tasmanian oyster-eating jaunt that also includes-surprise-drinking a fair bit of good white wine. Canaider’s aim in this book, as in most of his writing, is to de-mystify the wine experience, to shift the focus from competition points, tasting notes and little gongs on the label to concentrating on actually drinking and enjoying wine. On the whole he succeeds, in this fun and light-hearted book. Some readers, though, may still feel that Canaider is a little patronising to those who enjoy drinking what he calls ‘woine’, especially Australians’ favourite ‘whoite woine’, which he dubs ‘chuddernay’. In the world of wine, that last little whiff of snobbism is as difficult to remove as cork taint.

Tim Coronel is the editor of AB&P

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