Flawless by Jamie Goode - Hardcover - University of California Press

About the Book

A New York Times Best Wine Book of 2018

Flawless is the first book of its kind dedicated to exploring the main causes of faults in wine. From cork taint, to volatile acidity, to off-putting aromas and flavors, all wine connoisseurs have encountered unappealing qualities in a disappointing bottle. But are all faults truly bad? Are some even desirable? Jamie Goode brings his authoritative voice to the table once again to demystify the science behind what causes a good bottle to go bad. By exposing the root causes of faults in wine, Flawless challenges us to rethink our assumptions about how wine should taste and how we can understand beauty in a glass.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction
2. The Chronology of Wine Faults
3. Brettanomyces
4. Oxidation
5. Volatile Acidity
6. Reduction and Volatile Sulfur Compounds
7. Musty Taints: Cork Taint and Its Relatives
8. Smoke Taint
9. Geosmin
10. Eucalyptus Taint
11. Light Damage
12. Heat Damage
13. Greenness in Wine and Ladybug Taint
14. Mousiness
15. Faults of Malolactic Fermentation
16. Laboratory Testing for Wine Faults
17. Conclusions

Notes
Index

Reviews

The Best Wine Books of 2018
"Mr. Goode is succinct and clear about how . . . various flaws are expressed in wines. This can be helpful to any wine lover who knows when a wine is not right, but doesn’t know exactly what is wrong."
— New York Times

"At the exit of Flawless you will smell wine differently than before. And if the purpose of science and scientific popularization is to increase the well-being and the competence of all of us, the only thing I can say to you - in the hope of a sudden translation in Italian - is to read carefully this wonderful, unmissable, essential book."
— Vinix

“It’s more common than you might think to pick up a bottle of wine that features some sort of flaw; Goode’s book will help readers identify such flaws and explains their root causes in clear, concise language.”
— Winnipeg Free Press

"This accessible work should fill numerous knowledge gaps for many readers . . . .This is far from being a dry technical tome. . . . The chapter titles are unambiguous and make quick dips into the book easy enough. Each chapter starts with a list of questions and answers: What is It? What is its flavor impact? What causes it? Is it always bad? How can it be prevented? These are then fleshed out in the subsequent prose. The coherency of organization along with a lighter writing style means a cover-to-cover read is not out of the question...Flawless is compact enough to easily transport as a mobile resource or a (admittedly geeky) travel read.”
— Wine Searcher

"Very close to being required reading on a touchy set of subjects, and while not exactly an easy read, it’s digestible for both the consumer and those on the inside of the wine biz.”
— 1 Wine Dude

“Jamie Goode has expertly peeled the onion of wine biology and chemistry layer by layer in this carefully woven story of wine faults. There is as much to learn from this book about wine quality as wine faults, and the empirical observations and musings about the unknowns by the many winemakers quoted are fascinating. A great contribution to wine knowledge.”—Dr. Brian Croser AO, winemaker and owner of Tapanappa Wines

"When it comes to wine quality, the focus has always been on what makes a wine great. As a result, many wine professionals have little more than a basic understanding of what can make a wine less than great. In Flawless Dr. Jamie Goode flips this paradigm on its head with his trademark rigor, transforming "scary" scientific equations into highly accessible concepts to elucidate one of the most overlooked and misunderstood areas of wine quality. Flawless should be on the bookshelf of all ambitious and passionately curious wine professionals."—Sam Harrop MW, winemaker and coauthor of Authentic Wine: Toward Natural and Sustainable Winemaking

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews