The Oxford Companion to Wine by Jancis Robinson Third Edition
97 out of 100

Published Thursday, May 7, 2009

Overview

The Oxford Companion to Wine is one of the great wine reference books and a must for any serious wine student or hardened enthusiast. I used the second edition heavily during my WSET Diploma and was upset when I lost it. Now with a shiny new third edition how does this tomb stack up?

The third edition layout has not changed and is similar to an encyclopaedia, with 787 pages and over 3,000 entries from grapes and growers to vine genetics. Terms are in alphabetical order followed by the description, with the descriptions ranging from simple sentences to multiple page explanations. Jancis's writing style is authorititive and firm, and while this book will never get any reader excited about wine, it is an essential reference book for anyone who is serious about wine.

The key thing with any reference book is how easy it is to find the information you want and how accurate is it. In both these cases this book is excellent. The simple A-Z style allows fast searching and with the index at the back ordered by topic, it is easy to scan to find out if what you are looking for is included. Accuracy is the other key element of any reference book, and in general, accuracy is excellent although some sections, even now, are becoming dated. The third addition was published in 2006 and is already becoming slightly out of date in 2009, especially with references to fast-changing new world regions.

That said my favourite section (related to some work I am currently doing) is the list of controlled regions such as AC and DoC for France and Italy. It also lists the premitted ghrape varieties in a small and useful appendix.

In a nutshell if you are a student of wine or in the wine trade, then this book is essential and if you are a hardened enthusiast it would be a useful book of facts. Given this I have rated this book 97 out of 100.