|
|
|
| Current Article | Previous Articles | Search Articles | Search Offers | Search Tasting Notes | Forum |
|
|
|
|
| Current Article | Previous Articles | Search Articles | Search Offers | Search Tasting Notes | Forum |
The Oxford Companion to Wine, edited by Jancis Robinson MW, Third Edition, £40, or £25 on Amazon, Oxford University Press
As one of the few people who read the Second Edition from abboccato to zymase, I feel I’m in a strong position to advise you to rush out and buy this Third Edition for yourself, and anyone who is even slightly interested in wine. The new edition is more easily readable as titles and links are in colour. Spirits have been omitted and around 400 new entries include diatomaceous earth, flash détente and glassy winged sharpshooters for us wine geeks. However, the book is astonishingly moreish for any wine lover. It is, without doubt, the best wine book available. Every house should have one.
The View from Our Place by Phil Laffer, winemaker at Jacob’s Creek £5.99 Simon & Schuster
This is a strange, hybrid sort of publication. Half PR exercise and half fairly useful wine guide for the complete beginner. It’s practically the same size as a CD and so would make a good stocking present, but only for the under 25s, I think. If you skip the advertising and start on page 26, there are some moderately interesting beginner’s hints, until page 59 when it once again becomes a plug for the brand. Compared with Oz Clarke’s offering below, it doesn’t even begin to compete on value, but is perhaps more approachable for young people.
Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Book 2007, £9.99 Time Warner Books
While this sleek, black pocket book only costs twice as much as the Jacob’s Creek effort, it has information on 7,500 wines and 4000 producers. It’s a little heavy to have in your handbag/pocket all the time but, as it says on the cover, it has “Everything you need to know”. The majority of the book is taken up with specific wines and producers, which is fascinating to us wine enthusiasts, especially when planning a vineyard-based holiday, but the glossary of wine terms is helpful for beginners, without being condescending and the food matching chapter is mouth-watering. Again, a great size for stockings.
The Wine Report 2007, Tom Stevenson, £9.99 Dorling Kindersley
The Wine Report allows us to delve deeper into the wine world and get the scoop on the latest news and gossip. Each chapter is written by an expert in that area, who has close working knowledge of the region and an opinion about both the way it is run and also the best producers and vintages. At the back is a group of 100 exciting wine finds, but don’t expect to drop down to the offy to pick one up. These wines are interesting because they are oddities and will require some tracking down, perhaps a little foreign travel. The wine anorak will treasure this inside look at a fascinating subject. Not for beginners.
N/V