About:
The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia by Tom Stevenson is a wonderful coffee table book with writings about the most recent trends in the world of wine, written by experts from several countries. Mr. Stevenson is an award wining wine writer.
- 800 pages
- ISBN-10 : 142622141X
- Publisher :National Geographic
- Language: English
My rating for The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia — 5
Buy The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia Amazon.com*
More Books by Tom Stevenson*
Thoughts:
My wife and I love to go to wineries, try out new wines, create memories and visit wonderful places. I, however, am a simpleton and can’t tell the nuances of wines. I like what I like, that’s for sure, but I won’t be able to tell which wine is which, or what year, without a label (comparing comparable wines).
To be honest, I think I’m in the majority (including many wine enthusiasts), but am at least willing to admit it.
Over the years, I noticed that like many hobbies and occupations, the wine culture has its own language which you need to learn in order to talk to others. I am not that sophisticated, nor am I a connoisseur, but I’m slowly learning. I also noticed that much of the industry is a rich person’s hobby, and also total BS.
But it’s a ton of fun.
In The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia by Tom Stevenson is a very impressive book, with lots of great information and high quality photographs. Like every encyclopedia, the book is built for ease of use to find the passages you might be interested in. There is a lot of information which might be interesting only to those who really are into the wine culture, history, etc. – but isn’t that the idea of such a book.
The book is divided into wine regions around the world, which allows the reader to understand a bit more about the industry. I really found the section about how the wine world works, and its history, fascinating and enlightening. I am, however, much more interested in history by nature than the fine and intricate differences in wines, many of which I cannot taste and will most likely never be able to distinguish.
I do appreciate that wines taste differently while you’re in different places. We have bought bottles from wineries because we enjoyed sipping the wine in a beautiful setting, only to open it a week or two later to be disappointed. That is, of course, only a small part of the experience but I think that the encyclopedia does recognize that. This type of experience is, of course, does not solely belongs to the wine world.
I traveled in South America and have a fondness for Argentinian and Chilean wines, for example. The smell and the taste brings me back to the pampas, Buenos Aires, or Torres del Paine. Mr. Stevenson, an world renowned expert, has an obvious fondness for the wines of France which he devotes a large part of the encyclopedia to.
This is a very impressive book, I cannot imagine the time and effort it took to put together, and just for that my hat’s off to the author. This is a book that can be looked at as an investment, or an excellent gift, since it has so much to offer.
Buy The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia Amazon.com*
More Books by Tom Stevenson*
Zohar — Man of la Book
Disclaimer: I got this book for free from TLC Book Tours
*Amazon links point to an affiliate account
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