The Wine Regions of Australia [Hardcover]

John Beeston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2000

This is a guide to Australia's new Geographical Indications System, which has defined all of Australia's prominent wine areas, dividing the country into wine zones, regions and sub-regions, all of which are mapped. It stresses the regionality of Australia'a wines - expected to become more and more important in upmarket domestic and export sales - and deals with basic concepts of climate and topography and the suitability of grape varieties for various regions. There are also ratings and notes for all the wineries and vineyards within each zone, region and sub-region.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An interesting and ground-breaking work. -- Beveragebusiness.com

Author John Beeston eschews the picture-book format for a meatier approach, providing a thorough guide to the continent's burgeoning wine territories. -- Bon Appetit, Oct. 2000

Finally-a comprehensive reference book on Australian wines...If you need information on a winery, you can find it here. -- Wine Skinny

This is as good a guidebook to Australian wine geography as you're likely to find. -- Wine Spectator, Dec. 31, 2000

About the Author

John Beeston is one of Australia's most experienced wine writers and a true wine expert. He is the author of Varietal Wines of Australia and Concise History of Australian Wine.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty., Limited (Australia) (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1864486414
• ISBN-13: 978-1864486414
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,771,876 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great reference, but no help on selecting wines, September 4, 2000

By 

Lisa Shea "medieval swordfighting enthusiast" - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Wine Regions of Australia (Hardcover)

At 525 pages, this hardcover tome is an ultimate reference book on the wineries of Australia, complete with maps of regions and intimate details of each winery. Broken out by region, the book helps explore what makes a down-under wine truly unique.

The introduction covers general winemaking knowledge - sunshine hours, necessary nutrients for vines, what various grapes need to grow, and so on. Once this general grounding is complete, the book goes on to begins to address the specifics of each wine region in Australia.

Each region has a map showing the locations of sub regions. The region's history is reviewed, with notes about key individuals involved and landmark events. Humorous information, such as the fact that the Barossa Valley was originally named "Barrossa" and lost an R due to later misspellings, can serve for endless after-dinner discussion.

In addition, the key grape varieties used in Australia are also reviewed. A page on Riesling compares how it grows in Geisenheim, Clare Valley, Edna Valley, and Mount Barker. The charts show how rainfall, humidity, sunshine hours, and even altitude vary, and explains how these differences affect the grapes. This is interesting reading for any wine drinker who likes to compare wines from different areas.

The real meat of this book, however, is in its winery details. Each winery in Australia is listed by the region it is located in. The address, phone and FAX # are listed so you can easily contact them. In addition there are details on the area of the vineyards, the winemaker, year of foundation, soil types, grape types grown, and leading wines. If that's not enough for you, there are also notes on hours of operation, recent awards won, and relationships with other wineries.

Wine lovers who are looking for ratings of vintage years, or of ratings of individual wines, will be disappointed. The book does not use stars or wine bottles or any other system to indicate which wineries are worthy of attention and which are not. In a way, this helps to extend the life of the book. Instead of having material which is out of date quickly, its generalistic approach to the wineries in Australia helps it supplement the slim tomes on "Wines of the '90s" which would have this sort of information.

On the downside, the core of the book is rather dry. While the information on the regions and grapes themselves are quite interesting, the pages and pages of cookie-cutter information on the wineries can get tedious to go through. While the founding date of a winery wouldn't change, the other details do, such as the winemaker, owner, key wines produced, and so on. In addition, wineries are coming into being all the time, while other wineries shut down.

I appreciate the book as a reference tome, and keep it on my shelf, but in the age of the Internet I can often find the address of a winery just as easily on the web. I would have greatly enjoyed it if the book also included reviews of the wines, and notes on the quality of vintages. Yes, this would mean the book would have to be reissued every 5 years or so, but I figure I'll have to buy a new version that frequently anyway, to keep up with the most recent information on the wineries listed.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great reference book on Australian wine regions and wineries, May 6, 2000

By 

Robyn Tinsley - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wine Regions of Australia (Hardcover)

Finally - a comprehensive reference book on Australian wines! If I am not alone in my ever-growing appreciation for the excellent wines coming out of Australia recently, then I am certainly not alone in my desire for an easy to use encyclopedia of Australian wine information. John Beeston's latest is my answer. This book has already taken its place on my credenza, within easy reach when I need to find quick answers to questions about Australian geography as it applies to wine regions, maps to wineries, contact information for wineries, and much more.

The "wine geography" of Australia is a vast array of very different climatic factors and grape growing profiles. Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland and Northern Territory are the major areas, but within each are dozens of zones and regions, along with numerous wineries.

This book won't give you reviews of specific wines - it's not that kind of book. That's actually a nice thing, in a way, as it spares you the pain of outdated bottle information. However, if you need some basic factual information on a winery, chances are good you can find it here. For each winery entry, Beeston includes address, telephone, owner, winemaker, year founded, geographical information, varieties planted, leading wines, and more. In other words, a great reference book.

For each wine region, Beeston offers maps (more than 50 maps sprinkled throughout the book!) that include winery locations and are a super find for travelers. I am personally thrilled with the McLaren Vale Region map. Hardy's, d'Arenberg, and Rosemount, here I come!

3.0 out of 5 stars This is a Cellar Review - Not a Regional Review, August 26, 2005

By 

Gary Borad (San Jose, Ca) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wine Regions of Australia: The Complete Guide with over 60 Maps (Paperback)

Wine Regions of Australia provides a well written cursory review of the wine regions of Australia but does little to paint a picture of each region itself. The maps are of poor quality (no terrain and no perspective on linkages to neighboring wine regions). Also, little discussion on what differences or similiarities a particular region has from other regions in Australia or other parts of the world. You're left with a patchwork quilt of weak, high level and individualized views of each region in your mind. In the end you're left looking for more...much more than the book offers on wine regions.

What the writer does do is devote signficant time and text to providing cellar by cellar reviews for each region. For those that are seeking this type of guidance this book might be useful. However keep in mind wine cellars change their production - some quite often. Top wines, as anyone who drinks wine will tell you, change every year. So, providing me with cellar names, ratings, "tonnes" crushed every year, and top wines for each does little to assist me in understanding what I purchased the book for - to learn about the Wine Regions of Australia.

In all a poor effort on wine regions. An adequate effort in providing a wine cellar report.