The sich: You wouldn't mind bumping up your wine IQ.
Obstacle: Wine books are a Category 5 snooze-icane.
La solution: Natalie MacLean.
A wine writer, speaker and sommelier, Nat is your girl-next-door oenophile, brightly aware, ceaselessly curious, but never bratty or superior. Yes, she has the wine thing down, but she has no interest in shoving any of her knowledge down your tender throat.
In Red, White, and Drunk All Over, MacLean's breeze-to-read demi-memoir about vino, she doesn't regale her reader with facts and figures and other viticultural hoo-ha. Instead, she tells stories about her personal experiences with wine, using each as a way to painlessly impart a little wine wisdom. For chapter after chapter, we thought we were simply enjoying her literary companionship, but no—we were learning something.
Sample topics: MacLean's first memorable glass (Brunello). Her initial attempts at creating a cellar (humorous). Her night as an undercover sommelier (anxious). Her visits with expert vintners in France and California (exhilarating). And a dinner at Cru with novelist/wine-freakazoid Jay McInerney (drunken).
A final note: MacLean has recently become extremely helpful with pairings. Her website now sports a friendly little database with 360,000 wine-food matches. We direct you there post-haste. Or douse yourself in her book.