The essential insider's guide to every major wine-growing region in the world, this book offers dozens of helpful Top 10 lists covering a broad range of topics, including Best-Value Producers, Greatest-Quality Wines, and Most Exciting or Unusual Finds. AUTHOR BIO: Tom Stevenson has been writing about wine for nearly thirty years and is the author of more than 20 books. He's been nominated Wine Writer of the Year on three occasions and received the coveted Wine Literary Award, America's lifetime achievement award for wine writing.

Customer Review: A great annual review of wine for intermediate and expert wine lovers.

Tom Stevenson and his crew of wine experts has put together another in this very useful series of wine books. It provides an excellent overview of important events in the various wine producing areas, written by experts very knowledgeable in each area. Stevenson provides a insightful service by adding his notes of the "best" 100 wines nominated by the various experts who contribute to the writeups; there are always good leads here to new winemakers, even if the particular vintage or wine is not available in your market.

This book is very useful, as long as you have a good working knowledge of wine and understand that not all wine regions are equal -- otherwise it would be better to start with a book with more "balance". Stevenson treats all areas pretty much equally, even though there are vast differences in production and complexity between New Zealand and Bordeaux, for example. Hugh Johnson's or Oz Clarke's annual surveys would be a better choice for someone who wants to judge the relative size and complexity of different regions.

Stevenson's own caution is well taken: "Unlike most other wine books, "Wine Report" assumes a certain level of knowledge. Therefore, there are rarely any explanations of technical terms or even references to historical incidents. Readers are expected to know what these terms mean and what the references refer to, or at least have the intelligence and curiosity to look them up."

In short, think of these reports as similar to the "Week in Review" section of the Sunday "New York Times".

One other inescapable "weakness" -- the Report is denominated 2008, but the basic texts were sent to Stevenson in early 2007 and final editing was done by June 2007. Most of the information is at least a year old by the time the book is in your hand. If you need your wine info hot off the presses, read "Decanter" or subscribe to a wine feed -- there are several good ones -- or subscribe to one or more of the wine discussion groups -- Jancis Robinson's Purple Pages are pricey but excellent, for example, and there are some very good free site like Robert Parker's or Robin Garr's.

Nonetheless, this is one of my favorite wine publications. It is great fun to read about what is happening in every single wine region of the world on a regular basis. Other resources are more catch as catch can -- Decanter may not visit New Zealand every year for example, or may focus on one small area. The overview seems to miss nothing of significance in the area and during the time period covered. It is very easy to use Internet resources to follow up on more current information with the leads provided here.

Customer Review: rcarney

Great book for those of you that want to get insight into the world of wine.

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