Grapes and Wines by Oz Clarke and Margaret Rand
94 out of 100

Published Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Overview

Grapes and Wines, a comprehensive guide to varieties and flavour. Lets not hold punches, this an essential and excellent reference book, that should form the backbone of any serious wine lovers library.

That pretty much sums it up. It is an excellent book igniting what could be a rather boring list of grapes varieties, into a fantastic reference book. Oz gives a decent hand at listing most of the common grapes, in all I counted 446 different references. Some are brief, 1-2 lines for very obscure varieties, to a third of a page for the likes of Viura. But the book is much more than that.

Oz gives a very good detail on what he defines as the 17 Classic Grapes. Here he gives around 8 pages to each, including where they are grown and styles from around the world, maturity, synonyms, history, key producers and finally soils and climate preferences.

In addition to the Classic Grapes, Oz lists another 15 major varieties where he dedicates 2 pages to each, with solid descriptions, synonyms producers and recommendations.

Written with style and passion, although I did feel I could tell the differences between Oz's more verbose style and Margrets Rand's more concise prose. That said, this is not an airy fairy book it is jammed full of interesting insights, and while a reference book it could easily be a coffee table book. It is best for dipping in and out.

I have been putting together a database list of all known grape varieties, and with a list of 753 varieties and synonyms in my DB at present, you may think that 446 is not thorough, but many of the 753 are very very obscure. So don't expect a definitive list in Grapes and Wines, but do expect a list that will cover almost all wines you are likely to encounter.

In the end I gave this book 94 out of 100 and recommend it as part of your key reference books.