cover image Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking: Uncork Your Creative Juices

Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking: Uncork Your Creative Juices

Michael J. Gelb. Running Press Book Publishers, $19.95 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-7624-3868-6

Author and ""self-employed creativity consultant"" Gelb (How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci) offers a robust but cloying at-home seminar in expanding creativity through wine appreciation. Gelb walks readers through a brief but high-minded education in wine, from training on the sensations and vocabulary involved in tasting, to an ""inspired thinking"" wine party complete with poetry writing and sharing. Besides tasting, Gelb offers generally useful advice, including tips on toasting, the role of the sommelier, food pairings, and optimum serving temperatures, though digressions on classic paintings and opera run long, while other passages (pairing wine with clothes and unconventional foods like nachos) come across as glib and a bit ridiculous. Poets-in-training with a flair for melodrama will likely get the most out of this passionate guide.