Netscape Forum Poll: Best wine reference book

[Robin Garr]

While a lot of us are thinking about putting wine books on Santa's shopping list, this seems like a good time to settle on a favorite large wine reference book - encyclopedia or atlas. (edited for clarity) Select among several popular reference books, or tell about your personal favorites, in this week's poll!

Here's basic information, with links to Amazon.com, for the four candidates specifically listed on the poll. If you have another favorite, please check "Other" on the poll and tell us about your choice.

<b>The World Atlas of Wine</b>, Sixth Edition, by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson.
List Price: $50. Amazon.com price: $31.50. You Save: $18.50 (37%)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... rswineloA/

<b>The Oxford Companion to Wine</b>, 3rd Edition, by Jancis Robinson.
List Price: $65. Amazon.com price: $40.95. You Save: $24.05 (37%)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... rswineloA/

<b>New Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia</b>, Fourth Edition, by Tom Stevenson.
List Price: $50. Amazon.com price: $31.50. You Save: $18.50 (37%)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... rswineloA/

<b>The Wine Bible</b>, by Karen MacNeil.
List Price: $19.95 (paperback). Amazon.com price: $13.57. You Save: $6.38 (32%)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... rswineloA/
(Purchases made through these direct links will pay a small commission to WineLoversPage.com.)

<b>Click here to vote!</b>

Interestingly enough we needed a good wine book for someone who wants to develop wine knowledge. The books listed seem to be more for the person who is already half way to geekdom. For a relative beginner we went with the old favorite "Windows on the World" by Zraly
Walt

Interestingly enough we needed a good wine book for someone who wants to develop wine knowledge. The books listed seem to be more for the person who is already half way to geekdom. For a relative beginner

For a relative beginner I think this book would be ideal..... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... rswineloA/

[Robin Garr]

Interestingly enough we needed a good wine book for someone who wants to develop wine knowledge. The books listed seem to be more for the person who is already half way to geekdom. For a relative beginner we went with the old favorite "Windows on the World" by Zraly
Walt

Maybe I should have made this more clear: In this poll, as the title suggests, we're looking for the best one-volume wine <b>reference</b> book. i.e., encyclopedia or atlas.

As Robin said, these are all reference books. Excellent for quick reference or answering specific questions even among very experienced wine people, and valuable supplements to any introductory book for beginners. (In much the same way that humanities students may keep a copy of the Oxford Classical Dictionary or science students the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics along with whatever training texts.)

I don't know MacNeil, but the others with their (relatively) descriptive down-to-earth titles are new editions of standard respected works familiar to most English-speaking wine experts. I don't perceive any as best (more than I perceive any one of peaches, strawberries, or oranges as best); rather, different in approach and type of content, they're complementary. As you can see on Amazon, I've long recommended Stevenson's ("New Sotheby") encyclopedia as a compendium of brief entries on many thousands of individual wines and producers worldwide (the index resembles a metropolitan telephone directory) with larger articles on regions and local wine styles. I actually own several copies of that title, scattered around home, office, and (for emergency use) car. They also are the sort of quick authoritative wine references that, were they more widely consulted, would have spared a few general writers and journalists the embarrassment of factual faux-pas over the years. An example is repeating the long-corrected mistake of attributing the 1985 Austrian wine-adulteration scandal to "toxic anti-freeze. " (The chemical involved was not car anti-freeze; as you can see easily in another authoritative reference, the Merck Index, it was half as toxic as alcohol; and this information was already established in 1985.)

I like Sotheby's and Oxford Companion, the World Atlas is impressive but I've only thumbed through at bookstore or friends.

I think the MacNeil book is a lot less authoritative, and has some weaknesses*, but would not be a bad book for a fledgling winegeek. It is somewhere between the Dummies books and the more "serious" tomes.

*I particularly dislike the "Wines to know" sections at the end of each chapter, where she anoints 5-10 wines from an entire region, and gives "tasting notes"

[Robin Garr]

I like Sotheby's and Oxford Companion, the World Atlas is impressive but I've only thumbed through at bookstore or friends.

I think the MacNeil book is a lot less authoritative, and has some weaknesses*, but would not be a bad book for a fledgling winegeek. It is somewhere between the Dummies books and the more "serious" tomes.

*I particularly dislike the "Wines to know" sections at the end of each chapter, where she anoints 5-10 wines from an entire region, and gives "tasting notes"

For the record, I dislike the MacNeil book very much. But I thought it was only fair to include it.

I like Tom Stevensons writing, but most of all for Champagne or Alsace (where the hell is THAT new edition anyway?) For Germany, I like Eichelmann. For a cover-most reference book though, it's tough to beat the World Atlas of Wine. A very pretty publication.

[David M. Bueker]

I just received my copy of the updated World Atlas of Wine. It's quite the book. Really great maps & synopses of regions. And it is amazingly up to date considering the publishing cycle. I usually expect these references to be 3-4 years behind, but this one has some information based on the most recent vintage (e.g. 2006 in Germany).