Picked this up from the Söderkulla library's exchange shelf. Looks like a cosy mystery. I'm not much of a wine-drinker, although I have toured on vineyards and cider and Champagne houses in Germany and France with Kristina Cruises. So I have learned something about fermenting and dancing bottles...

Some books you are going to like and some not and nowadays I can usually tell it after a few sentences. This one, I'm glad to say, feels goooood. The lady is clever with words. Bye for now, have to go back to reading... Just came here to put this aside for a possible Christmas surprise (very hush hush).

Back again to say that wine making and thoroughbred breeding have something in common - stupid rules that make the whole thing more complicated than it could be. Watering the wine plants is forbidden (at least in France) the year's harvest has to depend on the natural amount of water. Stupid, why make it harder for the growers? Watering the fermenting wine or adding sugar is a no-no, too. Stupid, isn't the taste what matters in the end, not how it is made? Artificial insemination is forbidden in thoroughbred breeding - instead of sending a bag of semen to the other side of the world, they send mares back and forth, just how stupid can they be? This keeps the prices of stud fees astronomical.

The book said that Hitler had over half a million bottles of the best French wines in his hideaway in Berchtesgaden. This I do not quite believe as a) The Eagle's Nest is actually a rather small hut (been there twice), meant for showing off b) nobody, except the housekeeper, stayed a night there. Sounds odd, but that's what they told us. The view is magnificent, why didn't they spend more time up there? Lower in the villages the Third Reich had several bigger accomodations which were all teared down, but the book specifically said these half a million bottles were for Hitler alone.

Finished! I guess I have to start looking for Ms. Crosby's other books. Well-woven plot and interesting bits and pieces of local & wine-making history.

Secret Santa has been watching Chania very closely this year and you have been a very good bookcrosser! So here you have a little mystery to keep you out of mischief during Christmas time.

Thank you so much! This looks defenitively my kind of book, and maybe reading it requires a glass of red wine, too - a good thing that I also got a bottle for Christmas present :)

I was going to wait until I get the first two parts in series, but over 4 years is enough, so I finally read this - and it didn't matter that it wasn't the first one. I quite liked this, not as silly as some of the genre, but rather interesting and a bit exciting too!

To Sannuli by mail, enjoy!

Ooooooooh, I've been longing for this wine series :D Thank you sososoosooso much!!