Are you curious to learn more about wine but afraid to ask? You are not alone. A few decades ago, many Americans who didn’t know their Burgundy from their Bordeaux felt intimidated by scary, middle-aged, male sommeliers who approached tables at fine dining restaurants with a silver tastevin (a small, very shallow silver cup or saucer traditionally used by sommeliers to taste wine) hanging menacingly from their neck.

Today, the situation has reversed itself, with knowledgeable, fresh-faced sommeliers and wine directors, many of them women, assisting guests in a friendly, approachable way with their wine selection. Even so, many Americans remain intimidated by the hundreds of varieties, regions, and producers to be found on restaurant lists. Busy with their own professional and personal lives, many people realize the importance of understanding wine for social reasons, but feel they do not have the time, patience, or intelligence to learn.

Enter Lettie Teague, executive wine editor of Food & Wine magazine, who has written an absolutely first rate book on the topic titled Educating Peter: How I Taught a Famous Movie Critic the Difference between Cabernet and Merlot or How Anybody Can Become an (Almost) Instant Wine Expert.

What is great about this book is how easily and effortlessly Teague gives you key, first rate information about the various wine varietals, regions, and methods of vinification in lively, conversational sound bites. Teague accomplishes this through her conversations with her friend Peter Travers, the film critic for Rolling Stone magazine, who, with Teague’s help, slowly develops a curiosity and palate for fine wine. The movie critic asks the wine writer simple questions most of us yearn to ask an expert – if we dared! As one reads the book, readers get questions answered without the risk of posing a potentially “stupid question.”

Beyond Teague’s lively writing style, what is really fun about this book is reading Traver’s observations as he explores different wines and regions. As a film critic, Travers sees wine through the eyes of one trained in visual storytelling. In his colorful commentary, his “aha” moments are so brilliantly and visually described that even without tasting the wine he holds in his glass, we get a vivid sense of the wine, the style, the region, and what food it might pair well with.