Nicolas Belfrage MW: The Finest Wines of Tuscany and Central Italy £20
Michael Edwards:The Finest wines of Champagne £20
Yesterday I picked up review copies of these two new books that are in the first of a new series of wine books from a joint-venture by The World of Fine Wine, Aurum Press and the University of California Press. This is good news as wine publishing in the UK, which used to publish some of the most exciting English language wine books in English, has recently become extremely conservative and moribund. Unlike the USA, where lively and interesting titles have continued to be published, the UK publishers have retreated to a small number of tried and tested titles.
In particular Mitchell Beazley (Octopus Publishing Group) dropped the Classic Wine Library series that they had bought from Faber & Faber, which included classics like John Livingstone-Learmonth's Wines of the Rhône.
In a letter accompanying the review copies, Neil Beckett, the editor of The World of Fine Wine, outlines the thinking behind this new series (Fine Wine Editions):
'Are books dead? There are certainly some in the wine wrold who seem to think so. But we are not among them. The advantages of the Internet are clear for all to see, but books can still offer something distinctive and worthwhile. From the right author they offer information that is not available online, as well as convenient presentation, sustained treatment, and a unique voice. That is why we are embarking on a new series of fine wine guides (published by Aurum in the UK and by the University of California Press in the US) – itself something of a story when so many other publishers are withdrawing from the market.
These books don't attempt to be comprehensive, but rather to be much more selective, sacrificing breadth for depth and adopting the definition of 'fine' that High Johnson proposed five years ago for our magazine: 'the wines most worth talking about'.
The authority and the quality of the text is paramount, and all of the books in the series will be written by recognized specialists. But presentation is important, too (inadequacies in this regard having been partly responsible, surely, for the sluggish state of the market. We hope you will agree that the format is attractive and easy to use, and that the specially commissioned photography by Jon Wyand adds greatly to the books' appeal. If wine is partly abut people and places, it helps to see them; and hard as it is for all writers to accept, there are times when a picture is worth a thousand words.'
Certainly in the first two titles it is the quality of Jon's photos, especially the portraits of producers, that immediately impresses, particularly important as the first two books are essentially a series of profiles of the leading producers. I assume that this will be true of the rest of the series.
Michael Edwards@the International Sparkling Wine Seminar March 2009I haven't had time to dip into Tuscany yet but in his Champagne profiles Michael Edwards again shows that he is a deft and stylish writer.
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Staying with books, Harry Karis' The Châteauneuf-du-Pape Wine Book has now been published. Details can be found here.
