Aihuxn.144
net.cooks
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!chico!harpo!floyd!houxi!ihnss!ihuxn!otto
Fri Feb 19 23:47:21 1982
Wine books
This is (I think) the first submission to net.wine (aka net.cooks, until
a name can be agreed upon). I think all oenophiles should be aware of a
book of *great* use when buying or ordering wine. In Europe it is
called *Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book*, and it contains a summary of
available wines, including a ranking of vineyards by overall quality and
a year-by-year analysis of wines from each vineyard. This book is
simply crammed with information, but is small enough to really fit into
a pocket. Since I began relying on this book, the wines I have been
drinking have been of uniformly high quality, and my enjoyment of them
has similarly risen.
This book is issued every year; the analysis of years to buy for holding
or buy for drinking, vineyard by vineyard, is changed each year as the
wines change.
In the United States this book is published by Simon and Schuster,
under the name *Hugh Johnson's Pocket Encyclopedia of Wine*.
Please note that often book stores in the US do not know that this book
has yearly editions. I have often found one- or two-year-old copies of
this book in bookstores when I have been looking for the current,
up-to-date edition. The last time this happened the manager of the
bookstore I was in (Dalton's) looked up the book in his trade documentation
and said he could not find any reference to a 1981 edition of the book.
I called up S&S in New York and asked them about it; they told me that
there was indeed a 1981 edition and gave me the book identifying number.
With this info I ordered the book directly from S&S (cost: about $5).
When I gave this number to Dalton's they ordered the book and stocked
their shelves with it.
I bring this to everyone's attention simply because I think it important
to get what you pay for, i.e., up-to-date information about wine.
Books about California wines are not as good, partly because of the
constant changes in wine production taking place there. In Europe
vineyards grow the same kinds of grapes year after year and employ the
same production techniques year after year. They have figured out by
long experience what works best for them, and each vineyard has
established a track record that can be (more or less) relied upon. In
California, however, a great deal of experimentation is still taking
place as each vineyard plays around with grapes and techniques.
Sometimes a wine that was first judged ordinary matures into something
special, but by then the vineyard has switched both grapes and
production so that the same wine no longer exists in following years.
Some vineyards are so new that there simply has been no track record of
any substance to speak of. Example California citations from Hugh
Johnson's book:
SMOTHERS VINEYARD: Santa Clara/Santa Cruz. Table.
Tiny winery owned by T.V. comic made remarkable first
wines, esp. late-harvest gewuerztraminer. First
reds due 1980.
HEITZ VINEYARD: Napa. Table (and dessert) Four stars.
In many eyes the first name in California. An inspired
individual wine-maker who has set standards for the
whole industry. His Cabernets (esp. "Martha's Vineyard")
are dark, deep and emphatic, his best Chardonnays peers
of Montrachet.
MATANZAS CREEK VINEYARD: Sonoma. Table?
First wines ('79) are Gewuerztraminer and very good
Pinot Blanc. Chardonnay and Cabernet to come.
Apparently Hugh Johnson was asked to put together a Pocket Encyclopedia
of California Wine, but declined because he isn't able to keep up with
all that is happening there. He did ask his friend Bob Thompson to
assemble such a book, and S&S has published it. It does not have the same
year-by-year analysis that Hugh's book has (partly, I suspect, for the
reasons outlined above), but it does discuss all the important
California vineyards in some detail and gives the best years of the best
wines (but not broken down into years for saving and years for
drinking). I do not know if the Thompson book will have yearly
editions.
Another pocket wine book I have discovered does go into deeper analysis
of California wines. This is *The Connoisseur's Handbook of California
Wines* by C. Olken, E. Singer, and N. Roby, published by Alfred Knopf.
Again, I am not sure whether there will be yearly editions.
One use I have made of these books has been with the ordering of wine in
restaurants. In a restaurant with a wine list that goes on for pages it
is often too time consuming to look up likely wines in the books, one by
one, determine the best years for drinking, ask the waiter or waitress to
check to see if they have one of those years (they usually don't), then
look up other likely looking wines, etc., until a reasonably good and
drinkable wine is selected. *However*, I have often found that such
restaurants will allow me to take a complimentary copy of their wine
list home which I can analyze in the privacy of my den. I mark this
list up with the vineyard ranking information and year-by-year analysis
found in the books. Then I take this list with me the next time I go to
that restaurant. Armed with this I can quickly ask for the years in
stock of three or four appropriate wines and immediately choose
the best of their offering. This has worked very well.
George Otto
Bell Labs, Indian Hill
ihnss!ihuxi!otto
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