If there’s one essential guide to offer anyone and everyone in your life that is even remotely interested in wine (and by that I mean they drink it and buy bottles of it to have at home), it’s “The New Wine Rules: A Genuinely Helpful Guide to to Everything you Need to Know” by James Beard award-winning author and journalist Jon Bonné. Not only does the Punch editor’s wit and probity shine consistently throughout the 89 easy-to-follow rules, but the guide is refreshingly free of the esoteric wine-splaining that so often defines oenological discussions and tends to intimidate the average drinker in the process.
I met Jon this summer at a special Mission Chinese pop-up event at La Buvette after months of chatting on Twitter. I had read quite a bit of his work and was eager to meet him. What I discovered was a man with a profound respect and love for Paris, a deep reservoir of knowledge for wine (obviously), and a sense of humor that matched my own. Fortunately, he has become a pied-à-terre owner in the neighborhood with his wife so I’m hopeful to get to know him even better in the coming year.
That said, he spends…
