Customer Reviews

The Essential Wine Book: An Indispensable Guide to the Wines of the World

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
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This is about the best wine book I've browsed through and possess. While other books out there speak to a true expert or the wine lover who feels above the crowd, Oz Clarke speaks to everyone. Expert and novice alike. The info is pretty complete for such a small book. He gives the essentials but leaves room for you to research further if you so choose. He takes the mystery out of it and can get anyone to walk into a wine store and actually understand what the heck's going on.

Less encyclopedic than some of Hugh Johnson's or Frank Schoonmaker's books, this is still a good basic guide to wines of the world. It includes sections on choosing wine (the characteristics of different varieties and styles of wine), buying and storing wine, serving wine, vineyard and winery techniques, a glossary and a vintage guide. The essence of the book is the regional description of wines. The color photos of vine- yards are often smaller than I would like, but they do add something to the attraction of the book as do the wine label photos. Having lived for a number of years in Germany, I was disappointed to find some of my favorite wines missing from the book (i.e., Ockfener Bockstein from the Saar region)or Urziger Schwarzlay (hope I'm spelling that correctly) and Urziger Wurzgarten from the Mosel. However, some would be difficult to find in most American cities. He does a better job detailing French wines and does put in a good word for the Scheurebe grape (a crossing of varieties that produces some lovely German wines). He also brings the reader up to date on replantings in Napa Valley, California and other locales where vintners are still deciding on the best variety of grape for a specific site. I would enthusiastically recommend this book to someone learning about wines, but it would be supplemented by one or more of Hugh Johnson's books and books specifically on US wines and German wines.

Oz Clark provides an indispensable book on the wines of the world. As a relative novice to the world of wine and as an American living in France, I have found Oz Clark's books to be the perfect companion as I travel across France, Germany and Italy buying wines and visiting "Les Caves"

It's hard to think of a book re-printed as recently as 1997 (3rd edition in this case, which is the one I have at home) as being BADLY out of date, but when it comes to wine, that's par for the course.

Oz Clarke is one of the better, and less corrupt, wine writers out there, and I've enjoyed what few of his books I've read thus far.

Anyway, this book is one of his earlier offerings. Other books he's published since have rendered this obsolete (not that I was very surprised), and I have no doubt that it will soon drop out of print entirely.

It's a good book, but Clarke focused a tad too much on specific vineyards and vintages. His more recent books (those appearing on Amazon anyway) appear to have shifted emphasis to grapes and regions (a wise decision, IMNSHO). He still covers vineyards and vintages, though, and as time goes by those newer books will become dated in turn as a result ... as all books on wine invariably do.

BOTTOM LINE: Although it's a good book, it's been superceeded by more recent offerings by the same author, and is about to go out of print. Save your money.

This was my class text 12 years ago and is still the best beginners book on wine. It covers all the basics with no fluff. Read it twice, once before a vineyard tour and/or wine class and once after. Cheers!

This book achieves a lot in its small but well printed and organized volume. Almost in each wine region, Oz hits the right spot in relating the geography, climate, soil, vintages and grapes to the vividly discribed wine taste. It enables beginners start to enjoy the pleasure of selecting, tasting and drinking wine without paying much tuitions.

Book ok, not exactly what I was looking for but it was informative as to the many different regions good wines come from.

A bit more oriented to serious wine appreciation than the "dummies" books, this overview by a well-known British wine writer allows the novice to slip easily into wine appreciation, yet it's pitched at a high enough level that more experienced wine lovers will also find plenty to chew on here