The Bootcamp Manual for Aspiring Masters
Winner of a Best in the World Gourmand Award
A comprehensive education in wine. —The Times Literary Supplement
A detailed textbook… Very thorough. —Decanter Magazine
Most wine books teach you what to taste. This one teaches you how to think.
The Concise Guide to Wine and Blind Tasting is for anyone who wants to move beyond drinking and describing wine to truly understanding it. Whether you’re preparing for advanced wine exams, working in the trade, or simply refining your palate, it offers a clear, structured approach to tasting and analysing wine.
At its core is a systematic framework for blind tasting that helps you identify what matters in the glass, interpret sensory evidence, and draw reliable conclusions step by step. You learn to move from aroma and flavour to meaning: grape variety, climate, region, and winemaking choices, all inferred through disciplined observation rather than guesswork or memorisation.
Alongside this method, the book provides the essential background needed to make accurate comparisons and evaluations: grape varieties, vineyard and cellar practices, and the world’s major wine regions and styles.
The emphasis is always comparative—training you to recognise what truly distinguishes wines and why those variations exist. Why is Pauillac so different from Pomerol just across the Gironde? How do expressions of Riesling shift from the Rheingau to Alsace or Austria, or from the Wachau to Kamptal or Kremstal?
The result is a transferable approach to blind tasting that builds precision, improves consistency, and supports performance under pressure. Carefully chosen producers and vintages are included throughout to ground learning in real-world reference points.
By the end, you’ll be better able to recognise quality, identify origin and style, and make confident, evidence-based decisions in the glass—drinking with greater clarity, precision, and understanding.
About the author
Dr Neel Burton FRSA is a psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine-lover who lives in Oxford, England. He is a Fellow of Green-Templeton College in the University of Oxford, and the winner of several book prizes including a Best in the World Gourmand Award for this volume. In his heyday, he was on the winning team of two international blind tasting competitions … beating the French on their own soil.
Praise for previous editions
A rigorous, highly focused, well-honed bootcamp manual (Bible might be a better word) for the likes of WSET diploma students, MW students, Master Sommelier students, and anyone else who thinks that blind tasting competitions are a riot. —Tamlyn Currin for JancisRobinson.com
The most definitive guide to wine tasting since Michael Broadbent, and a lot more scientific to boot. —Mark Savage MW
A great jumping-off point for wine professionals or eager hobbyists as they develop their personal tasting grids. —Wine & Spirits Magazine
A book that will be of benefit to anyone taking a Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) course in the coming years. —Paul O’Doherty for JancisRobinson.com
Splendid, concise, up-to-date, comprehensive and accurate. —Clive Coates MW, author of The Wines of Burgundy
Delightful yet sophisticated. —Konstantinos Lazarakis MW, author of The Wines of Greece
From the author
Who knows more loves more, and loving more tastes/enjoys more. —Saint Catherine of Siena
It is sometimes said, not by me, that the world of wine has grown too large for a single man or woman to cover. When blind tasting began in the 1960s, it was mostly a matter of distinguishing Pauillac from Graves or Gevrey from Chambolle, with the occasional Rhône thrown in for thrills.
It helps, of course, that I’ve visited many of the world’s wine regions, that I regularly attend tastings, and that I drink wine with every dinner—seeking to be as eclectic as possible at my table. Certainly, none of my other books has cost so much of myself to write, to say nothing of the visits to the dentist.
As you’d expect, this new edition includes new statistics, regulations, appellations, producers, vintages… As the book is now over five hundred pages long, I’ve had to balance expansions with deletions—meaning that the writing is more concise than ever (concise, in case you’re jeering, is not the same as short).
Producers and vintages have often been granted their own separate sections. Not all ‘great’ vintages are my kind of vintage. So when recommending vintages, I have often highlighted one or two recent vintages that are maybe more classic or elegant or mineral, and that I personally favour.
Happy tasting, and may this book assist you on this very worthwhile journey. At first, wine seemed like a nothing; but looking back, it turned out to be everything.
Neel
If you’re a WSET student, sommelier or MW student preparing for exams, you’d be foolish not to have this book open next to you through every study session and every tasting. —Tamlyn Currin for JancisRobinson.com
Contents
Part I: Foundations and Blind Tasting
1. The Philosophy of Wine
2. The History of Wine
3. Principles of Viticulture
4. Principles of Winemaking
5. The Art and Science of Blind Tasting
Part II: France and Sparkling Wines
6. Alsace
7. Burgundy
8. The Rhône
9. Bordeaux
10. The Loire
11. Other Notable French Regions and Appellations
12. Champagne and Sparkling Wine
Part III: Europe and Fortified Wines
13. Germany
14. Austria, Switzerland
15. Hungary
16. Greece
17. Georgia, Lebanon
18. Italy: North-East
19. Italy: North-West
20. Italy: Central
21. Italy: South, Sicily, Sardinia
22. Spain, Tenerife, Lanzarote
23. Portugal
24. Port, Madeira, Vin Doux Naturels
25. Sherry, Montilla-Moriles
Part IV: Wines of the World
26. New Zealand
27. Australia
28. South Africa
29. Chile
30. Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil
31. USA, Canada
32. China, Japan
Please note: The special colour maps edition and the ebook edition are exclusive to the author’s bookshop.
If you regularly buy wine, learning about it is one of the best investments you can make. A single better purchase could easily offset the price of the book.
Some of the ideas in this book are explored in the following articles:
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