Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
The essential insider's guide to every major wine-growing region in the world, this book offers dozens of helpful Top 10 lists covering a broad range of topics, including Best-Value Producers, Greatest-Quality Wines, and Most Exciting or Unusual Finds. AUTHOR BIO: Tom Stevenson has been writing about wine for nearly thirty years and is the author of more than 20 books. He's been nominated Wine Writer of the Year on three occasions and received the coveted Wine Literary Award, America's lifetime achievement award for wine writing.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
A great annual review of wine for intermediate and expert wine lovers
Customer Rating:
Tom Stevenson and his crew of wine experts have put together another in this very useful series of wine books. It provides an excellent overview of important events in the various wine producing areas, written by experts very knowledgeable in each area. Stevenson provides a insightful service by adding his notes of the "best" 100 wines nominated by the various experts who contribute to the writeups; there are always good leads here to new winemakers, even if the particular vintage or wine is not available in your market.
This book is very useful, as long as you have a good working knowledge of wine and understand that not all wine regions are equal -- otherwise it would be better to start with a book with more "balance". Stevenson treats all areas pretty much equally, even though there are vast differences in production and complexity between New Zealand and Bordeaux, for example.
Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book 2008: 31st Edition (Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book) or Oz Clarke's Pocket Wine Guide 2008 (Oz Clarke's Pocket Wine Guides) annual surveys would be a better choice for someone who wants to judge the relative size and complexity of different regions. I'm personally partial to Johnson's "Pocket Book", and find that reading it together with Stevenson's "Report" works very well to keep me informed.
Stevenson's own caution is well taken: "Unlike most other wine books, 'Wine Report' assumes a certain level of knowledge. Therefore, there are rarely any explanations of technical terms or even references to historical incidents. Readers are expected to know what these terms mean and what the references refer to, or at least have the intelligence and curiosity to look them up."
In short, think of these reports as similar to the "Week in Review" section of the Sunday "New York Times".
One other inescapable "weakness" -- the Report is denominated 2008, but the basic texts were sent to Stevenson in early 2007 and final editing was done by June 2007. Most of the information is at least a year old by the time the book is in your hands. If you need your wine info hot off the presses, read "Decanter" or subscribe to a wine feed -- there are several good ones -- or subscribe to one or more of the wine discussion groups -- Jancis Robinson's "Purple Pages" are pricey but excellent, for example, and there are some very good free site like Robert Parker's or Robin Garr's.
Nonetheless, this is one of my favorite wine publications. It is great fun to read about what is happening in every single wine region of the world on a regular basis. Other resources are more catch as catch can -- "Decanter" may not visit New Zealand every year for example, or may focus on one small area. The overview seems to miss nothing of significance in the area and during the time period covered. It is very easy to use Internet resources to follow up on more current information with the leads provided here.
Robert C. Ross 2007 2008
rcarney
Customer Rating:
Great book for those of you that want to get insight into the world of wine.
Very useful and up-to-date information
Customer Rating:
For those who follow the international wine scene closely, this book is a must-have! Not very engaging for the typical wine enthusiast, but rivetting for the wine professional or anyone else interested in such things as The Greatest Wines of Texas (pick any State). Or which varieties are doing well in Belgium. Or India.
Best format for travelling wine guide
Customer Rating:
Wine Report 2008 (Wine Report) My copy of this book arrived this morning and I am most impressed. It has a great, easy to follow lay out that is packed with useful information. It does assume that you know about wine and want to get a source of reliable information about vintage, producers and pricings from around the globe. I live in Australia but friends and myself have visited wine regions in France, USA, Chile, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa over the last twelve months and generally speaking found the comments from contributing editors to be spot on. I have a bias against Cabernet style wines and towards Pinot Noir yet it even has enough information to satisfy me in most countries. I was a little disappointed to see so little on the great Pinots from Oregon and heaps on the Cab style wines of Washington. Of course if Tom banned all comments about Cabernet and Bordeaux I would be happier but that would probably upset the wine majority who consume Cabernet style wines. In summary, quick and easy to navigate around with great information about most wine producing areas of the globe that is up to date.
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