If you aren't already familiar with Matt Skinner from BBC2's Saturday Kitchen or his book, Thirsty Work, then you will be pretty soon. Skinner is to wine what Jamie Oliver is to cooking, which is to say an unaffected 30-year-old bloke who is determined to demystify his speciality and share it with the rest of us. New Jamie Olivers are in abundant supply, but on this occasion the comparison is bang on, not least because Skinner, who is Australian, is sommelier at Oliver's restaurant, Fifteen. Both have the same take-me-as-you-find-me style; both reject the elitism that has been associated with food and wine connoisseurship; and both are gluttons for work. Skinner's new book, The Juice 2006: 100 wines you should be drinking (Mitchell Beazley, £7.99), is just out and has "ideal stocking filler" written all over it.
The Juice came about because Skinner was forever being stopped in the street by employees from the Oliver empire asking him what wine to buy for that night. "I thought there must be an easier way," says Skinner. "So I started doing an internal company e-mail with a theme, every Friday, for people to print off. Then it took off and I thought: 'Why not create a wine guide that basically my friends would use - the kind of people who would never buy a wine guide?'"
Skinner wanted not only to make wine accessible in terms of language, but to slash the number of types featured, and divide them up, not according to region, but based on the reasons people buy wine - to make an impression, and to drink with "the food most of us actually eat, not the stuff we dream about. It was all about how wine fits into your life and not the other way around". This is a neat little book with four main sections: Skint, Brownie Points, TV Dinners and Bling (as in the money-no-object varieties). It is an idiot's guide that you can slip into your handbag, and it has that same cheery "come on, if I can do it so can you" attitude that has endeared Oliver to the nation, and makes you feel cool for trying.
"I'm not evangelical," says Skinner, "but I'd like to see more people take themselves outside their comfort zone." His general tip is: don't be driven by stereotypes. "Riesling is not what it was when you were drinking it in the 1970s; Spain has been going through an insane quality renaissance. Hungary is creating some amazing wines." The wine that he can't get enough of at the moment is a South Australian Shiraz/Viognier blend called Zonte's Footstep. But what you've got to love is that he can't help adding: "Most people's most memorable wine has a lot to do with where they were at the time, who they were with, what they were eating." He gets the way most of us drink. What more could you ask for?
