Just getting into wine ? Into wine but want to read up on this wonderful subject.
Here are 5 general wine books that will get you started
Let Me Tell You About Wine by Oz Clarke
You don’t need to know all about wine regions or how wine is made to choose wine with confidence. If you like the sound of intense, blackcurranty reds or aromatic whites, this book will tell you how to find these flavors in the wines you buy, regardless of whether the wine is labeled by grape variety or by country. Drinking wine is all about enjoyment. Oz explains how to get maximum enjoyment out of every bottle you buy, from dealing with broken corks, to learning basic tasting techniques, spotting faulty wine, and matching food and wine, whether at home or in a restaurant. In Oz’s down-to-earth guide to all the world’s major wine regions you’ll find everything you need to know to navigate your way round a wine shop or wine website. Oz explores grape varieties, flavors and styles, giving equal consideration to classic wine regions – such as Bordeaux and Chianti – and the newer wine-producing countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Chile and Argentina. Do vintages matter? Are the wines good value for money? Oz tells you everything you really need to know. Gradually building your knowledge with expert tips, information boxes and wines to try, this is a complete guide for the beginner wine enthusiast.
The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil
THE WINE BIBLE is like a lively course from an expert teacher, grounded deeply in the fundamentals and enriched with passionate opinions, asides, tips, anecdotes, definitions, glossaries, illustrations, maps, photos, charts, and wine labels – everything, in fact, but the actual bottle of wine itself. Beginning with the basics of mastering wine – how to taste with focus and build a wine-tasting memory, understanding the subtle interplay of variety, vineyard, and vintner, and demystifying the issue of vintages – it covers the essentials. The emotion and intigue of Burgundy. Rhone’s untamed reds. The flinty pleasures of sauvignon blanc and suprising delicacy of Spain’s Riojas. Bordeaux, the largest fine-wine vineyard on the globe and epitome of terroir. Fourteen Sonoma wines to know. The importance of finish. Tuscany, kingdom of variable microclimates. The precise and food-friendly wines of Germany. The narrow 30-mile stretch of ambition, experimentation, and surpassing quality called Napa. Why the “punt,” or indentation, in a wine bottle. Australia, where cutting-edge technology meets easy, outgoing, unpretentious character. Plus Austria, New Zealand, South Africa, Portugal, and more.
Hugh Johnson’s Wine Companion: The Encyclopedia of Wines, Vineyards and Winemakers by Hugh Johnson / Stephen Brooke
“Hugh Johnson’s Wine Companion” presents a unique approach to wine and wine producers, combining detailed background information with practical advice on how to enjoy wine to the full. Already praised for its wealth of information, the book has been extensively revised and updated by Stephen Brook, with over 70 per cent of the content changed, to take account of the latest developments in the fast-changing world of wine, be they human, cultural, or geographic. Colour maps and photographs and detailed glossaries of the wines of each region are just two of the additions for this exciting new edition.
The World Atlas of Wine by Jancis Robinson / Hugh Johnson
Written by the world’s most authoritative wine duo, the unparalleled clarity and detail of the maps remain core to the Atlas. Each of the 200 maps has been thoroughly researched and updated. Reflecting the happenings over the last six years in the world of wine, the pages devoted to the New World show a lot of changes. New additions include: California (Rutherford, Oakville, Stag’s Leap),Australia (Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Limestone Coast), New Zealand (Central Otago, Martinborough), South Africa (Constantia). The South American section receives a complete revamp. In Europe the dynamism of the new Old World is in evidence, with Sicily, the Douro, Greece and Germany all receiving extra pages. In Spain, Toro makes an appearance and Austria’s hotspots, Wachau & Kremstel, fall under the spotlight. With new illustrations and photographs throughout, this is the must-have book and reference work for all wine enthusiasts.
The Oxford Companion to Wine by Jancis Robinson et al
Jancis Robinson publishes a new edition of her acclaimed Oxford Companion to Wine, coming as close as anybody is likely to in achieving the unachievable goal of a detailed, comprehensive, single-volume work of reference covering the whole world of wines. Just how daunting the task of keeping up with the now practically supersonic pace of development in many areas of the wine industry must be is indicated by the need, only five years after the first edition, to issue another with updated versions of about half the 3,000 entries. It is an awesome achievement. Wine is now a modern, global industry: Jancis Robinson and her team of contributors require–and deliver–expertise in a really astonishing range of disciplines.
Available from all good bookstores. Summary of books thanks to www.amazon.co.uk
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