Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia - Hardcover

Arranged geographically, with nearly 100 maps, profiles on top producers, and valuable Author's Choice charts for each region, the Wine Encyclopedia covers the wines of Europe (from Great Britain and Switzerland to Southeast Europe, Greece, and the Levant), as well as wines from North and South Africa, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. In addition, there's a guide to wine and food (pairing fois gras with a Champagne or Sauterne, for example, and claret or Cabernet Sauvignon with beef), a guide to wine flavors (making sense of descriptors such as fig, gooseberry, violet, and hay), a list of good vintages, and a glossary of tasting and technical terms, distinguishing "cheesy" and "chewy" from "creamy" and "corked." Enhanced by beautiful pictures of vineyards, wine labels, and Stevenson himself demonstrating the art of wine tasting, from examining and nosing the wine to spitting it out, this a visually beautiful as well as an informative volume. As sumptuous as an elegant Tuscan Barolo, as rewarding as a Sarget de Gruaud-Larose from Bordeaux, as pleasing as a Ferreira port, the Sotheby Wine Encyclopedia is a remarkable tome of oenological erudition. --Stephanie Gold