Product Description

Written by the world's most authoritative wine duo, the unparalleled clarity and detail of the maps remain core to the Atlas. Each of the 200 maps has been thoroughly researched and updated. Reflecting the happenings over the last six years in the world of wine, the pages devoted to the New World show a lot of changes. New additions include: California (Rutherford, Oakville, Stag's Leap),Australia (Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Limestone Coast), New Zealand (Central Otago, Martinborough), South Africa (Constantia). The South American section receives a complete revamp. In Europe the dynamism of the new Old World is in evidence, with Sicily, the Douro, Greece and Germany all receiving extra pages. In Spain, Toro makes an appearance and Austria's hotspots, Wachau & Kremstel, fall under the spotlight. With new illustrations and photographs throughout, this is the must-have book and reference work for all wine enthusiasts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2100 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Review
Praise for the 5th edition "Wine Book of the Millennium" Decanter "This is the best collaboration of two Brits since Lennon and McCartney" -Ben Giliberti, Washington Post "Consistently glittering" Times Literary Supplement

About the Author
Hugh Johnson is acclaimed as the worlds favourite wine writer. Since his first book, Wine, appeared in 1966, he has been making the subject of wine approachable to all with his witty and humorous style. His other books include the bestseller Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book. He is also President of The Sunday Times Wine Club. Jancis Robinson MW is internationally renowned for her witty, authoritative wine writing and her books Vines, Grapes and Wines, and Oxford Companion to Wine are among the most important in wine literature. She is acclaimed as awesomely intelligent (The Guardian) and a writer of breathtaking clarity (The Spectator). She lectures, makes regular television appearances, is the Financial Times wine correspondent and writes for several magazines.

Customer Reviews

Excellent book for the right audience
The ever increasing size of this book reflects the increasing interest in wine, so it now lands with an impressive thump on your desktop. Though its content doesn't always reflect who that new market is.

The authors start with a, rather meandering, description of the history and production of wine and some basic notes on tasting, appreciation and handling of wine. Some of this is very useful, most of it is very basic for someone who already knows the subject and all of it could do with some editing to make the best of their material. Some of it punctures some of the myths about wine such as how long wines should be laid down and do you really need to let wine breath. Elsewhere they perpetuate some of those myths, for example they still seem to give the whole concept of 'terroir' an almost mystical reverence.

That introduction, however, is not really the point of this volume. This appears to be aimed at the new wine connoisseur or someone who wants to be a connoisseur. The real body of this is a fairly comprehensive atlas of vineyards and producers. The detail with which they cover their subject is variable but excusably so as it reflects the varying national interest in wine. So France is covered in incredible detail while England, however much it's wine industry may be growing, is given one brief page. Annoying when you had hoped for something comprehensive but understandable. As long as you stick to well established wine producing regions and buy from those regions this will have something to tell you.

Which, excellent as it is, is also a problem this book has. Ninety per cent of the wine buying public, whether they are buying something cheap and nasty from tescos or something better from a merchant will be buying a blend; a chardonnay or shiraz whose provenance can be narrowed down no more closely than southern Australia, South Africa or so on. Good as those wines are this book doesn't help in selecting them.

If you've moved from just buying a muscadet or whatever to buying 'something from the Loire Valley' then this is ideal for you. If you want to do so then this is ideal. If you like wine and maps then this is interesting if not useful. If you, like me, are happy buying muscadet and merlot but have no real desire to take your wine buying much further then this is probably not for you. So, interesting but impractical for most of us but excellent for the right audience.

The World According to Wine
At 400 pages, British wine experts Huge Johnson and Jancis Robinson have created their most exhaustive atlas yet, and a tremendous resource. The book is gorgeous - with a generous amount of color illustrations, photos, and maps, including 2 page spreads. All told there are 48 extra pages over the previous edition.

The 6th edition contains 200 maps, all revised and updates, including 20 new maps. The introduction contains essays on wine in the ancient world, vine types, grape varieties, weather, terroir, the wine growers calendar, how wine is made, etc. etc. Robinson has said this new edition took two years of concentrated effort. It was worth it!

Then the authors dive deep into wine regions organized by country. Each region or country covered has a colored map, an essay about the characteristics of the reason, vital statistics, and a few wine labels. France has the most with 55 regions featured, indeed, a quarter of the volume (100 pages) is on France. Italy features 18 regions. Spain 9. Portugal 6. Germany 12. United States 17. Australia 12. New Zealand 4. Other countries covered include: England and Wales, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Western Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania, Former Soviet Republics, Greece, Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, South Africa, China, Japan, and the rest of Asia. I find the information scant on Chile and Argentina, which is odd given their increased market exposure and rising excellence of wines.

The authors have expanded New World coverage, in keeping with expanded exposure and quality of the wine produced in these regions, for Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, South America, and South Africa. These are additions, with nothing taken away from the previous fabulous coverage of Old & New World wine regions.

Since the first edition in 1971, the World Atlas of Wine has sold more than 4 million copies and I'm happy to add this new 6th edition to my library, especially at such a reasonable price. It's always a pleasure to look up some background information on tonight's glass of wine.

Enjoying wine even more now
I got this for my birthday as a wine drinker and lover, and have got a lot out of it. The maps are great, and the detail on each district valuable. Had every producer been reviewed would the book have been extremely large, so a backrground on the typical conditions and wines of the major districts helps to understand better the wines that you drink. I must admit that my next buy would be a more exhaustive catalogue of every wine producer but such a book would have been harder to read.

The history of wine and the decription of each countries and of wine production and techniques is great. I recommend this a a detailed and good overview.