Featuring a foreword by Pascaline Lepeltier, who contributed her vast knowledge throughout the book, The Dirty Guide to Wine organizes wines not by grape, not by region, not by New or Old World, but by soil.
"In her newest book, Alice Feiring homes in on how an understanding of soil types can point to through-lines in wines from very different parts of the world. Rather than relying on tasting notes, Feiring attempts to ascertain the ways soil actually transcends a grape, pointing to tangible details like how a specific soil type can lend acidity or power, no matter the region. Limestone, for example: “It is associated with elegance. Limestone is something that you first sense up front in the mouth, on the tip of the tongue, and it betokens a long finish with a linear structure.” Feiring’s sense of humor (as seen in her description of Brettanomyces as smelling like “a small closet stuffed with live sheep”) and cheeky descriptions (“in a wet climate well-drained granite soil saves Albarino’s ass”) are met with a real enthusiasm for the energy that earth can imbue in a wine. What emerges through Feiring’s travels and tastings with her frequent co-conspirator, sommelier Pascaline Lepeltier, is that there’s a way to evaluate wine that goes simply beyond taste."
― Punch Magazine