Customer Reviews

Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book 2002

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been a devotee of Hugh Johnson's Pocket Encyclopedias since the 1980's, when I was first introduced to the concept of fine wine. This pocket guide, updated every year to include information on new vineyards and vintages, is a godsend. With so many wines produced today, I need a method to distinguish among the offerings, and this is it. From the cheapest to the most expensive wine, Johnson includes a vast list in a slim, portable volume.

Without snobbery, Johnson discusses grape varieties, food pairings, and the individual character of different wine regions, from France to California to Australia - even to South Africa. While the food recommendations are more guidance than rules, they still provide a solid base for the novice. Connoisseurs will head straight to the easy to read wine listings to discover the best vintages and the characters of individual labels, as well as Johnson's overall starred ratings.

The book is small enough to fit inside a purse or jacket pocket, perfect for taking to a restaurant or wine store. If you are serious about wine, you really do need to buy an updated edition every year. People who have only a casual interest might get away with one every other year.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who appreciates fine wine or who wants to learn more about it. You won't be disappointed.

Few people have tasted enough wines and can remember them so that they can pick out the best buys when confronted with many unexpected choices. As a result, many people will purchase disappointing and overpriced wines . . . thinking they have made a good choice. Take this little guide with you, and you will soon be rewarded with much better drinking at your meals.

Obviously, the wine connoisseur who can afford to drink the best and lay in extensive stocks to age will seldom be caught out, having done great research in the past. The person who is trying to drink well on a budget will be the primary beneficiary.

Restaurants in particular often stock what they got a deal on, and may offer vintages that are not yet ready to drink or are undistinguished.

The section on foods and wines will give you some new ideas on how to more closely complement a specific meal.

If you do find yourself with a magnificent wine list in front of you (and can afford it), there's a brief list of the ultimate wines to drink in an ideal world.

The book also has directions for ideal temperatures to serve the wines, so when the sommelier asks you about preparation you can have more definite ideas.

Most of the book is divided into geographic region, winery, wine type, quality, vintage information (including which ones are ready to drink), and limited notes about specific characteristics. It's a very broad and superficial source, but takes you past what you would know without it. The advice is based on Hugh Johnson's tastings and those of over 40 friends whom he acknowledges.

Mr. Johnson also comments on the 2000 vintage, which he says was good in Bordeaux. So, you may wish to consider laying some wine away from there.

By the way, I think this book would make a marvelous gift to someone who is often treating you to rather bad wine at expensive prices. Then, you both will get a gift.

A votre sante!

Hugh Johnson has become an expert in selecting wines from around the world to recommend for audiences of all types: the expert, the gourmand, the affianado, as well as to the novice wine drinker who wishes to discover what new worlds of taste and sensation await them. Hugh Johnson's book covers a wide range of information in an erudite and clear manner. His analyses run from using basic symbols such as, one wine bottle for "plain, everyday quality", two wine bottles for "above average", three wine bottles for "well known, highly reputed", four wine bottles for "grand, presigious, expensive" ... to a dark blue star representing "usually particularly good value in its class". His book delivers excellent descriptions of wines from the main wine-growing countries of the world: France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, California as well as South America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. He does an admirable job of describing key wines produced in the Eastern and Central and Southeastern European countries of Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Romania and Greece. One can learn about grape varieties and the types of wine produced from them. Most importantly one can learn what type of wine to pair up with what main dish or food. Indeed this book is the most up-to-date reference on over 6,000 different wines produced around the world. Hugh JOhnson has over 25 years of experience tasting and describing wines. The fact that over 7 million copies of his "Pocket Wine Book" series havebeen sold provides ample proof of his popularity and accuracy in providing "need to know" information for the expert and budding connoissieur in this fascinating realm. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

There is an amazing lot of information in this book. It is very exhaustive and reliable, with a specific focus on Bordeaux wines. The information has proven to be very objective, as opposed to similar info from Parker that you have to decode before use. It also covers a broad range of qualities which is very helpful for the lower reputation areas.
I have been a regular user for ten years and continue buying it about once every three years.

Like finding the perfect anniversery gift or putting on your snow tires, buying this guide should be one of those things you do each and every year.

Why? Because it will pay for itself the very first trip you make with it to the liquor store. Think I'm exagerating? Then keep reading.

Hugh Johnson is the Roger Ebert of wines. In other words, he knows his subject thouroughly but without ever being snobby or pretentious. He knows you don't find the perfect wine -- whether for cheap pasta, or coq au vin, or to lay down for a decade -- by price. Trying to decide between the 80 buck Cabernet Sauvignon or the simply labelled "red table wine" at ten dollars -- and you've never tasted either? Hugh can tell you the better value. Not to mention which one is just plain better.

With that one purchase, you'll have more than paid for the book.

Hugh has a wonderful sense of humor, and takes great joy in his work -- and it shows.

Last weekend my wife asked that I clear some of the debris out of the bookshelves in the library, and as I made my way through my wine books I found an edition of Hugh Johnson's 1990 Pocket Encyclopedia of Wine. Now this isn't exactly equivalent to stumbling on a first edition of Paradise Lost, but it's what passes for palpable excitement in my house. Just as I was sitting down to write a review of the 2006 Pocket Wine Book, this veritable antique magically appeared.

So I naturally set out to see what had changed in the past 16 years. The book is almost exactly the same dimensions-I guess pockets haven't changed much. It will still slip into an interior coat pocket, though it would probably feel somewhat unwieldy there given its 8" length.

How to contrast the two editions? I thought it might be fun to pick a Bordeaux chateau and see what HJ has to say 16 years apart. Let's do one that has no small amount of controversy around it these days, say Chateau Pavie.

1990. Splendidly sited first-growth of 100 acres on the slope of the Cotes. Typically rich and tasty St. E, particularly since 1982.

2006. Splendidly sited first-growth; 37 hectares of mid-slope on the Cotes. Great track record...this is new wave St. Emilion: thick, intense, sweet, mid-Atlantic and the subject of heated debate.

Plus ca change? Hardly. Other than the fact I have no idea what he means by mid-Atlantic (good with crab cakes?), this is what you can expect from the 2006 Pocket Book of Wine. It reminds me of the genie's description of his state in Disney's Alladin-"incredible cosmic power, itty-bitty living space." Translation for this guide: incredible density of information in a tiny package. Also not so sure about the conversion to the metric system, but maybe I wasn't paying attention when the Brits switched over to the dark side.

Let's just pick one more comparison of '90 and '06 at random before we move on. I opened the '06 Guide about 2/3 of the way through and landed on Croatia. There I found a page-and-a-half of definitions and producer descriptions for a region from which it may well be another 16 years before I actually get to try a wine-or want to. HJ has been there and done that. By way of contrast, the 1990 Guide has but two pages dedicated to all of Yugoslavia, including Croatia. There's no separate heading for Slovenia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro or Macedonia like you'll find in `06. Now that's progress.

1990. Dingac. Heavy sweetish red from local Plavic (grape), specialty of the mid-Dalmatian coast.

2006. Dingac. Vineyard designation on Peljesac's steep southern slope. Made from partially dried Plavic Mali, producing a full-bodied jammy red but emerging as a robust and dry red that supports oak and bottle aging. Highly esteemed and expensive. Look for Bura, Kiridzija, Matusko, Milicic, Skaramuca..

So what have we learned? A bunch. Much has changed (understatement of the year) in Croatia, and HJ has chronicled it with both great precision and concision. You get the geography, the grape variety, the nature of the wine and notable producers in a couple of terse phrases. That's hard to do.

What's the secret to this book? It's just crammed with facts, like force-feeding a goose to get foie gras. Here's a partial inventory of what's contained in this diminutive Dionysian dynamo (I must be getting tired):

Vintage reports on 2004 and 2003. Summaries of grape varieties both great and obscure. Wine and food suggestions including a section on cheeses. Suggested wines to drink in 2006. Sections on what must be every wine-growing region in the world, including high-level maps, regional designations, vintage charts, producer profiles, appellation and vineyard descriptions, and terminology definitions. For every standalone producer (eg Antinori): star rating from 1-4; concise color commentary calling out any particularly fine/consistent wines. For a single site, eg Bordeaux chateau: commune, star rating, recent good vintages, vintages for current drinking, brief comments, second wines. A quick reference vintage chart across regions; a small glossary of technical terms; serving temperature recommendations; and an explanation of Hugh Johnson's idiosyncratic scoring system (best score=the whole vineyard, i.e. it's so good I'd just buy the whole damn thing) and more.

If I continue with this review it will soon be longer than the book itself. No doubt: it delivers on what it advertises. Sure it misses some ultra-fine details, but it would be a fantastic reference for someone who doesn't mind carrying it around, an ideal use case, for example, being one of those times you're stuck in an unfamiliar store and just want to find something that won't be awful. Or if you're not that knowledgeable about wine and are willing to suffer the ignominy of pulling out a relatively small and inconspicuous book while you peruse a restaurant wine list. Or if you have no freakin' idea what Ukrainian wine to drink while you're making pysanky, this is the book for you.

Like finding the perfect anniversery gift or putting on your snow tires, buying this guide should be one of those things you do each and every year.

Why? Because it will pay for itself the very first trip you make with it to the liquor store. Think I'm exagerating? Then keep reading.

Hugh Johnson is the Roger Ebert of wines. In other words, he knows his subject thouroughly but without ever being snobby or pretentious. He knows you don't find the perfect wine -- whether for cheap pasta, or coq au vin, or to lay down for a decade -- by price. Trying to decide between the 80 buck Cabernet Sauvignon or the simply labelled "red table wine" at 30 dollars -- and you've never tasted either? Hugh can tell you the better value. Not to mention which one is just plain better.

And with that one purchase, you'll have more than paid for the book.

So what are you waiting for? Buy it already.

I have been buying this book for many years and I am always impressed with how much information is in such a small book.

As a book, Hugh Johnson's annual Pocket Wine Book is a model of clarity. Wine buffs will find a long list of short but distinct entries, organized geographically and alphabetically within a country. There are also many tips on which wine goes with which food, the different ways to serve different wines, and descriptions of under appreciated and under publicized wines such as port and sherry.

Wine lovers know of the rivalry between wine critics Robert Parker and Hugh Johnson, and Johnson fans the flames with two pages poking fun at Parker's 100 point scale. To be frank it is hard not to agree that Johnson's system is better. A simple four star system to rate quality coupled with a highlight to show his own preferences. This strikes me as the correct level of precision for the topic.

However, this trivial dispute about how to rate wine overshadows the real disagreement between the two men, which is about how to make wine. Johnson believes in terroir (geography) and technology while Parker believes in traditional manufacture and grape varieties. Unfortunately, Johnson hardly ever acknowledges that particular dispute with Parker and completely lacks generosity to opposite viewpoints on these two issues. That I tend to see things Johnson's way does not make it less of a pity to me. The last failing costs the book one star. Or perhaps I should give it 96.5 points.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

At its price and size, unequalled, year after year. I only wish the sections on states such as New York, Virginia, and North Carolina were more extensive, but one can only pack can so much information into a book of this size.