Wine books that list wines are always going to be a tough read – you have to be interested in wines and not mind sleuthing around chapter after chapter for interesting tipples.
When you are starting out in the wine world they are an amazing resource. For instance, when I first moved to the UK I had a part-time job at Sainsbury’s, stocking the wine shelves no less. At all times I kept Hugh Johnson’s little pocket book in my pocket, this of course led to countless old ‘are you happy to see me?’ lines but in all seriousness I was forever referring to it in a bid to not stock the shelves. In short, it was a useful way to relate myself with wines that make up that great wall of wine available in our supermarkets.
Robert Parker’s Great Value Wines isn’t much different to the other listing wine books, except that no wine is more than £20. Robert Parker, btw, is the best known wine critic in the States and considered one of the most influential people in the wine world. And it’s unfair to say that Robert Parker himself chose all these wines because of the 22 chapters he only does two, the rest are compiled by his tasting team.
One of the team who I pay particular attention to is David Schildknecht. Firstly, because he covers my favourite region the Languedoc, secondly because his notes are some of the most concise and detailed I have come across and lastly because of passages like below:
Furthermore, Roussillon is arguably the most exciting – perhaps last –
wine-growing frontier of France, now overrun by new-comers from
all over France and abroad, lured by the smell of vinous black gold.
Some may argue that he is a bit too wordy… whatever, I find his writing to be some of the most interesting in the wine world.
As lists books go this is a very complete collection of wines. However, the overwhelming problem with the book is that a very great number of the great value wines are not available in the UK, so we are immediately losing the saving in shipping costs!
I can’t help but think the book was written for the American market and in post-editing all dollar signs were replaced with pound sterling.
One of the highlights of the books is the in depth analysis before each region by the Parker taster who specialises in that region. However, there are dramatic inconsistencies with each one. The wordy Schildknecht gives the reader lots to pour over as does Antonio Galloni and Neal Martin (although where Neal Martin actually list sub-regions Schildknecht integrates the sub-regions into the text). Dr. Jay Miller on the other hand and even worse Robert Parker himself are very limited in what they say in their chapters. Parker reviews Bordeaux and California each only receiving an intro of one page, yet the two regions are some of the bigger chapters in the book…
Despite this, there is a great section in each country’s introduction called drinking curves, a quick synopsis of the ageability, in a very general sense, of the region’s wines… however for some reason not every country has one.
There was a great opportunity in this book to take over where the now no longer printed Wine Report left off. Although I would never imagine this book to be as in depth as the Wine Report it could have had a very good stab at giving the reader a detailed look at what’s happening in each region.
Lastly, anytime I see a listing wine book I instinctively search for the winery I spent most of my time working at, that is Domaine La Sauvageonne, in the Terasses du Larzac, deep within the Coteaux du Languedoc. And I can happily say that it is not only listed but two wines are included – you can find Les Ruffes and Pica Broca both at everywine.com
Great Value Wines is good idea and areas of the book are interesting but with the lack of UK suppliers and the inconsistencies chapter to chapter, overall this wine list book sadly seems incomplete.
The folks at DK kindly sent me the book to review.
