The Hachette Guide to French Wines. A complete and up-to-date critical guide to more than 5,000 different wines…. General Editor: André Vedel. Alfred A Knopf New York 1986. First American Edition. Translated from French.

On sparkling wines André Vedel, an eminent oenologist, charmingly quips:

“I call sparking wines ‘detergent’ wines, because they really prepare the mouth for what is to follow, cleaning and refreshing the palette.”

He sounds non-snobby. Almost coaxing me in to perusing the book for frothy finds.

Status: Randomly choose two regions from the book and study up. Store for later recall at a cocktail party, mixing up the facts, because of – you know – the bubbles.

Kill-ratio: 32:2/ 16:1

Alt-title: Untitled Object No. 355 For Developing a Clean Palette.