Down the Hatch: the world’s best wine book

WINE BOOKS – In a ceremony that took place last night in Paris at Les Folies Bergère, Gourmand named The Food Lover’s Guide to Wine as their “best in world” wine book for 2012. Authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg will be speaking and sharing some Napa Valley wines tomorrow at the Paris Cookbook Fair beginning at 3pm. You can read more about the fair in our roundup of Paris Food & Wine Events.

WINE BLOGS – In other wine writing news, I recently stumbled upon a new blog by Laura Vidal, the wine director from Frenchie restaurant and Frenchie Bar à Vins. She writes in both French and English about food + wine, and the service and politics of both. If you like the idea of learning from the pros, another wine-wordsmith to follow is Josh Adler from Spring restaurant and wine shop. Adler writes in English about his favorite (mostly French) wines from the boutique, including a recent ode to Jean Foillard.

• Laura Vidal (from Frenchie)
• Spring Wine blog (by Josh Adler)

WINE CLASSES – If you’d like to do more than just read, Vidal leads private wine walks and Adler teaches wine classes every Thursday afternoon. Across the water in New York, writer/natural wine preacher Alice Feiring has just thrown her hat into the wine class teaching ring. Her initial offerings were sold out almost immediately. Think we can lure her to Paris to do a class?