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This stunning book is one that any wine lover will covet and belongs in every wine library. A quick riffle through the pages had me swooning over panoramic maps of the world’s great vineyards. Be prepared to lose yourself for hours on end as you explore favourite wine regions.
Knowing which country, region, vineyard, and even which hillside a wine comes from enhances the pleasure of drinking. Oz Clarke's New Wine Atlas features breathtaking panoramic landscape maps of the classic wine regions and the dynamic new areas. Visit Épernay, home of Champagne, and the vast plantings of Australia and emerging regions like Argentina. It’s a revelation to see the terraced vineyards of Portugal, view the lakes and fjords that moderate the climatic influences. It’s easy to appreciate what new and old world winemakers have come to agree upon, that wine is made in the vineyard, not in the winery with chemicals and machinery.
As with all Clarke’s wine books, this one is brilliantly detailed and packed with pithy commentary, plenty of photographs, wine labels and best of all the bird’s eye aerial views that makes me feel as though I am in my cousin’s crop duster surveying vineyards instead of prairie wheat fields.
And B.C. gets two pages to Ontario’s one detailing all three of the province’s wine areas to boot. Ya gotta love this guy: “It was when I discovered an Okanagan Syrah, that I knew British Columbia was ready to join in the ever lengthening line of serious New World producers.”
Reviewed by Judith Lane, wine writer |