Book on Spanish Wine?

I would like to make a gift of a book on Spanish wines. The intended recipient is new-ish to wine appreciation and has run off and discovered that he loves wine from Spain. He is quite scholarly and I think he might like the opportunity to dig into more knowledge about his new love.

I'm hoping for something fairly dense that won't be immediately absorbed and tossed aside (more "Wine Almanac of the World" than "Wine for Dummies" in style).

Do any of you know of anything suitable? I've noted "The Wines of Spain" by Julian Jeffs at amazon.com. Anyone know anything about this one?

I've noted "The Wines of Spain" by Julian Jeffs at amazon.com. Anyone know anything about this one?

Some of the producer profiles are a little dated, but this is a great book. I've read my copy so many times that I was forced to reconstruct the binding with duct tape.

Best,
Joe

Laura
An alternative is the Penin annual wine guide to Spanish wine. It's pretty thick and gives tasting notes and scores for a very wide range of wines. However one of the main reasons for the recomendation is the very comprehensive overview of winetasting/winemaking/wine history/wine cellaring/etc. covering the first 170 pages. On it's own, this section would be worth buying for a newly enthusiastic enjoyer of wines.

It's written in English and I reckon it should be on to the 2007 edition by now (I have the 2006 version in front of me as I type).

There's also a "New Spain" book along the lines of the similarly named French book. More of a guide to selected wineries and comment on trends AFAIK.

I hope this helps

regards

Ian

I find "The New Spain" by John Radford (revised 2004) ISBN 1 84000 928 4, very helpful and fairly up to date.
Best, Jim

Recommend "The Wines and Landscapes of Spain" by Jeremy Watson and illustrations by Murray Zanoni. It is an easy book to read, and a lovely book to look at. The information is solid up to date despite the '00 publication date.

I find "The New Spain" by John Radford (revised 2004) ISBN 1 84000 928 4, very helpful and fairly up to date.
Best, Jim

Agree with Jim, must buy book IMO.

I personally dont like Julian Jeffs book at all. He is enthusiastic about all wines and most producers in it are the boring, large stuff. Its not very interesting to read and misses totally that Spain today is a dynamic and interesting wine country. Further the maps are not very good but contains a lot of standard information.

John Radford is good. Sadly I know of no book in English than these.

Best
Fredrik Svensson, Luxembourg.

I personally dont like Julian Jeffs book at all. He is enthusiastic about all wines and most producers in it are the boring, large stuff. Its not very interesting to read and misses totally that Spain today is a dynamic and interesting wine country. Further the maps are not very good but contains a lot of standard information.

John Radford is good. Sadly I know of no book in English than these.

Best
Fredrik Svensson, Luxembourg.

The New Spain is a niche book; I think Jeff's book has the most producer reviews of any periodical focusing on Spain that I've seen. Some of the producers are larger and some are smaller. It does not get into the whole modern-traditional debate, but rather offers a good starting point for someone to get interested in Spanish wines.

Best,
Joe

The information is solid up to date despite the '00 publication date.

Any book on Spain published in 2000 is hopelessly out of date. Dozens and dozens of the leading names in Spanish wine in 2006 didn't even exist in 2000... There has been more change in the Spanish wine scene over the past decade than in the whole rest of Western Europe.

The information is solid up to date despite the '00 publication date.

Any book on Spain published in 2000 is hopelessly out of date. Dozens and dozens of the leading names in Spanish wine in 2006 didn't even exist in 2000... There has been more change in the Spanish wine scene over the past decade than in the whole rest of Western Europe.

Which begs the question, what book (if any) would you recommend?
Best, Jim

The information is solid up to date despite the '00 publication date.

Any book on Spain published in 2000 is hopelessly out of date. Dozens and dozens of the leading names in Spanish wine in 2006 didn't even exist in 2000... There has been more change in the Spanish wine scene over the past decade than in the whole rest of Western Europe.

Any book on Spanish wine that doesn't still have wet ink is outdated.

Naturally, I was hoping for a chorus of "This is the one to-die-for book that your friend can't live without." Followed by several "ditto"s.

Thanks much for the ideas. Perhaps now I'll put off until birthday and buy him the whole lot so I won't have to choose!