During a few days off recently, I headed to the beach and took with me Neal Rosenthal's new book, Reflections of a Wine Merchant.

Roughly 250 pages in length, it brims with a fluid, eloquent style of prose that is rarely seen with wine writing these days. Very familiar with Rosenthal's producers and the singular, distinct wines they produce, it was fascinating to hear about his relationships with these passionate people who are so proudly making the wines they put their whole lives into. He focuses mainly on the late 70's and early 80's, when he was starting out as a wine merchant, and intensely yet modestly scouring France & Italy to find his beloved producers. I think that I read the book in 3 days.