Fred Foodie- Eating and Drinking in and around Frederick, Maryland

I just finished reading Neil Rosenthal’s book Reflections of a Wine Merchant (from FCPL).   Mr. Rosenthal is a thirty year plus veteran of the wine importing business, dealing mainly in European wines and especially fine Burgundies. The book was so-so.  I almost put it down which is very unusual for me. Unless you are a hard-core wine geek (guilty!) you probably won’t get a lot out of this book.  I did enjoy Mr. Rosenthal’s views on wine styles and the modern trend of wine reviewers become raw statisticians instead of writers.  However, the majority of the book was filled with tales of soured business relationships and what appeared to me to be a settling of old scores on the part of Mr. Rosenthal.   Weirdly enough there seemed to be a lot of tragedies in this book:  early death by brain tumor, paralysis in a motorcycle accident, drowning in an upturned car in a water filled ditch to name a few.   About halfway through the book I came to the conclusion that based on the way he portrays himself in the book I wouldn’t really like Mr. Rosenthal a whole lot if  I met him and would have no desire to hang out with him.  Of course what do I know right?  I’m just some anonymous guy with access to the Internet.  But I still think that a much better example of the genre is this book, which I reviewed last summer.