Excellent! Think I've read most of the series to date.

I was really delighted to get my hands on this omnibus as it takes me to the beginning of the winemaker series. We have three quick short reads. Treachery in Bordeaux involves wine being sabotaged and Benjamin and Virgile go on the trail. Grand Cru Heist has murders and the theft of rare wine. Nightmare in Burgundy has homes with graffiti inside in villages in Burgundy. The graffiti consists of biblical verses, all of which needs to be investigated! I loved all the stories for their quirkiness, intrigue, information on the regions and the local culture. Many thanks to Le French Books for a copy of the book via netgalley.

The Winemaker Detective Mysteries are new to me. The three books were quick reads and I was happy to get involved in the adventures of Benjamin Cooker, a wine expert and his new assistant, Virgile. There was a LOT of French wine information in the book, but it didn't slow down my enjoyment of the story.

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For the book: Winemaker Detective Mysteries: An Omnibus by Jean-Pierre Alaux, Noël Balen

One of my favorite series, the Winemaker Detective Mysteries is set in France and takes readers to the wine country. You learn about wine and a little bit of French history. And best of all, the protagonists. master winemaker Benjamin Cooker and his sidekick Virgile Lanssien are lovable and relatable.

Description

Haven't yet discovered the "addictive" Winemaker Detective series? Here's your chance with the first three mysteries. Master winemaker Benjamin Cooker and his sidekick Virgile Lanssien solve mysteries in French wine country with a dose of Epicurean enjoyment of fine food and beverage. Each story is a homage to wine and winemakers as well as a mystery. In Treachery in Bordeaux, barrels at the prestigious grand cru Moniales Haut-Brion wine estate in Bordeaux have been contaminated. Is it negligence or sabotage? In Grand Cru Heist, Benjamin Cooker’s world gets turned upside down one night in Paris. He retreats to the region around Tours to recover. He and his assistant Virgile turn PI to solve two murders and very particular heist. In Nightmare in Burgundy, a dream wine tasting trip to Burgundy that turns into a troubling nightmare when Cooker and his assistant stumble upon a mystery revolving around messages from another era. This made-for-TV series is "difficult to forget and oddly addictive" (ForeWord Reviews).

This is actually three books, the first three in the Winemaker Detective Series. Although I have read most of the later books, I particularly enjoyed these three. Each book is a complete mystery story, including detailed descriptions and information about the French countryside, winemaking, and local legends. I really haven't found any books to be more enjoyable. The characters include many strange and wonderful people, and the information on French wines and winemaking is superb. If you haven't read any of the other books in this series, this is a good place to start. Even if you have already met Benjamin Cooker and Virgule, you will appreciate the story of their beginnings. These books will make you want to visit the French wine regions.

What a delightful trio of novellas...the first stories of a series I will definitely be reading. Even as a non-drinker, I thoroughly enjoyed this "vacation", quirky characters, good food and a trip through France, what's not to love? Highly recommended.

3 good mysteries! I like the new assistant! The mysteries were entertaining with good endings. I am not a big wine drinker but all the talk of various wines did make me thirsty to try some new ones. I like that the mysteries appear in the course of the winemaker handling his normal duties. I enjoyed the books.

French Wine, Gourmet Meals, and Mysteries

Benjamin Cooker, famous vintner and author of the Cooker Guide, which describes the wines of various regions in France, is also an amateur detective. Mysteries just seem to fall in his path as he pursues his work of wine tasting and consulting with the estates about problems with wine. His young assistant, Vergile, participates in solving the mysteries and tasting wine, His wife, although in the background, adds a domestic touch to the series.

The Winemaker Detective consists of three novellas. In the first, Benjamin is faced with a yeast infection that threatens to ruin a friends vintage. In the second, the theft of a most of an available vintage leads to murder and a more typical mystery. In the third, Benjamin has been inducted into a famous wine society, the Tulips. While there he finds the townsfolk upset by passages written on buildings and again murder crops up.

The best part of these books is the description of wine and gourmet meals. The wine growing regions of France form the background for the series and are lovingly described. It makes you want to visit and taste the delicacies of each area. The mysteries are interesting, particularly when, like the first novella, the focus is on wine-making.

The mysteries themselves, particularly the first one, rely heavily on coincidence for a solution. This makes it difficult to identify the culprit until the very end. Although not typical mysteries, the books have enough interesting detail about French wine and the regions where the grapes are grown that I didn't miss the search for clues.

If you enjoy wine and food and aren't too anxious for a traditional detective story, you'll enjoy these books.

I received this book from Net Galley for this review.

These are a very entertaining read; a wine expert and his assistant solve wine based crimes.

This omnibus is made up of three mysteries in the Winemaker detective series. If you love France, enjoy wine and a good mystery (these are not thrillers but good old fashioned who done its), you will love this series. The main characters evolve throughout the series and you get to know them and their families. The winemaker himself travels all over France so one gets a wonderful geography lesson not only of France but of the different varieties of grape grown in each separate region. None of these mysteries are too long. You can cozy up to a nice fire with a good glass of wine and have yourself a lovely evening.

This installment of the Winemaker Detective series does not disappoint. I enjoyed the 3 shorter than usual mysteries that were all fun to read as stand alone stories. It was however nice that they all pulled together with just enough to overlap to give, you as the reader, a familiar sense and a bit of "inside information". This is a great book to keep with you for short bits of time you can snatch for a bit of a reading escape.