What's a good book to get?

[Botafogo]

I've got to object to THE WINE BIBLE in a big way (even though we know Karen and sell a lot of her family's wine, FIFE) as being horribly skewed in its coverage. Some examples:

First of all, even though Italy produces much more volume and incredibly more variety of wine than France (and dominates the import market in the US), the section on France is at least twice as large as that on Italy and gives much more coverage to areas other than Bordueax and Burgundy than is subsequently afforded the various zonas of Italy.

After giving Toscana and Piemonte ten to fifteen pages each and a fairly good pass at the Veneto she relegated the rest of Italy to two pages combined even though Puglia and Sicily each produce more wine than California and Australia combined. She then has six pages on TEXAS!

My interests aside, your average consumer is going to find a large selection of Salice Salentino, Primitivo di Manduria, Nero d'Avolo, VDTs from Regaleali, Corvo, A Mano and Planeta in a decent wine shop LONG before he is going to need to know who makes the best merlot in the Texas Panhandle...

Another: at least ten pages on Porto but only two pages on the great table wines of Portugal which are produced in much larger quantities and are increasingly important in the market.

She pretty much takes the party line of the large Champagne producers hook, line and sinker, blowing off the revolution in grower Champagnes from Grand Cru vineyards as well.

I am at home now but have been compiling a list of problems with this book that I will check when I go in to work.

I would recommend the latest edition of Burton Anderson's WINE ATLAS OF THE WORLD in place of this book. If she had called it THE GREAT BIG BOOK OF WINES I LIKE instead of the all inclusive sounding BIBLE, I would have less of a beef....

Roberto


[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 02-25-2002).]