The Wine Report 2009 by Tom Stevenson
90 out of 100

Published Thursday, June 18, 2009

Overview

I've said in the past I would never review an annual wine recommendations list, and thankfully I still don't have to. Tom Stevenson's Wine Report 2009 is an excellent annual update to the wine regions of the world. It’s jammed full of vintage reports and guidance on the top wineries. The report is divided into countries and regions with each key section written by a regional expert. While I don't pretend to know all the people Tom uses, those I do know, are eminently suited for their region.

Each country or region has one or more articles on important issues or special interest topics which are, in general, excellent and very varied. The report is worth the price for these articles alone. But they also include a number of Top 10 lists often for the best establised or up and coming producers. Some regions get multiple top 10 ratings and though the selection criteria varies from region to region, they provide a good guide to wineries to keep an eye on. While any top 10 list is very subjective they are useful for wine drinkers who want to experiment with different regions and producers.

For a wine annual obviously the vintage report is very important. The Wine Report gives a paragraph or two on the climate conditions of the most recent vintage, and a shorter description of previous vintages and wine styles. Vintage information is short but detailed enough to get a feeling for the vintage and what to look for.

The most recent vintages are the most disappointing part of the book. White wines from the Southern Hemisphere start arriving into the UK in September 2008 but no reference to these wines is made. They simply get a weather report and an indication of yields. This is understandable given the rush to get a book published in time for Christmas 2008 season. But it is the Northern Hemisphere wines that are most disappointing. The earlist vintage for the 2009 book is 2007! With many whites and some reds for 2007 available by mid 2008 I would have expected an overview of some of the wines but again we simply get weather patterns and yields. This makes the book much less useful to me, as I am currently tasting 2008 whites and The Wine Report does not even cover wines from the 2007. It implies that the book is put together towards the beginning of 2008 rather than in the second half of the year.

Weighting on pages in the book can be a bit strange, for example Jura and Savoie receives 10 pages while New Zealand gets only 9 pages and California gets 7 pages. This weighting is out of balance. Tom is obviously a French fan as in total France gets 87 pages, Germany 10, Italy 21, Spain 16, Australia 11, Switzerland 7. This is pretty consistent with UK wine writers who still today believe that if you know France you know the world of wine. In my mind this is quite ludicrous and shows how out of date they are with consumption patterns in the UK and the world. However given the book is full of detailed analysis and is positioned for the hardened wine geek and members of the trade the weighting is probably appropriate.

I had been reading and dipping into the book for over a month before writing this review, and I thought I had lost the book while proofing this review. Luckily I found it. But in the 10 minutes or so I hunted through the house, I realised that if it was lost I would happily go out and buy another copy, a sign of an excellent book. At a recommended retail of £9.99 it offers excellent value.
I rate this book 90 / 100