Wine

Author: Andre Domine

Talk about a TOME! Weighing in at almost 1000 massive pages, this isn't just a coffee table book, it's a dining room table book. Its large format and wealth of pages ensures that just about every topic you could be interested in will be well covered here. Not only are there articles and descriptions, but there are also full color photos, well done maps, diagrams, and graphs as well.

The first set of pages talk about wine in general - how it's made, its history, its colors and scents. Then the book dives head-first into the main wine regions. It begins with and dedicates hundreds of pages to France. Every area gets the royal treatment, from the Loire Valley to Champagne to the Rhone. Want to know what the Crus are, or what Chablis is all about? The pictures of the vineyards and maps of the climate help bring the explanations to life.

Soon we move on to other European regions - Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal. Eastern Europe, South Africa, and even Asia get their due. However, despite this English edition being released in 2001, there were hardly any pages at all on North America, South America, and Australia and New Zealand! These wine regions are very prolific, create many high quality wines, and yet are glossed over. Maybe they simply ran out of binding and couldn't fit in any more pages without going to a second volume. Hopefully this is something they can remedy in the near future.

Even so, this is incredibly fun reading for all levels of wine drinkers. The maps and graphics make it easy for newcomers to understand, while the in depth information ensures that even the most experienced of wine drinkers will find something new and fascinating within its pages.

Wine Book Reviews