"wine guide" news and stories

When wine writer and certified sommelier Carolyn Evans Hammond saw a gaping hole in wine coverage, she quickly brainstormed a book idea. Most magazines play up expensive bottles that are difficult to find at your local wine shop, she says, and that intimidates many people. What about mass-produced wines which cost less than $15?

"Good, Better, Best Wines: A No-Nonsense Guide to Popular Wines" (Alpha Books) is her second wine book, a follow-up to "1000 Best Wine Secrets" (Sourcebooks). The book reviews some of the world's biggest wine producers in an attempt to defy the myth that big is not better when it comes to wine. "The market really drops off at $15. The vast majority -- about 90 percent -- of what we drink is under $15," she says.

Consisting only of reviews, each page is devoted to a different wine, organized by varietal, with a dollar-symbol attached ($: $5, $$: $8, $$$: $11 or $$$$: $15). In researching the book she sipped 500 wines and ultimately included her top 250 picks. Another criterion was that the wines had to be available from coast to coast in the United States.

We asked Evans Hammond to reveal her favorite pick in each category, with special attention paid to summer-appropriate vino. Find her favorites after the jump.

First came hotel restaurants and gourmet recipes. Now comes a wine guide for your iPod.

But rather than a text index the Mark Phillips Wine Guide comes in an interactive audio format that contains over one and a half hours of advice aimed at both new and advanced wine lovers. While it includes such practical advice as how to buy and taste wine it also has some offbeat topics like microwaving and freezing wines, how to get wine stains out and why buying wines by the ratings is stupid.

All this is no doubt in keeping with what the guide's producer CyraKnow calls Phillips' progressive approach to talking about wine, which it sums up as "No snobs allowed. The guide is available for a relatively unsnobbish $34.95.

Source

Australia's best selling wine book - the annual Australian Wine Companion - has won the prestigious 2005 Saltram Australian Wine Communicator Award. The award means the author James Halliday picks up AUS$11,000 (£4,500).

The guide lists and profiles over 2,000 different wineries and supplies tasting notes on 4,500 wines. Halliday has written or co-authored more than 60 wine books since 1979, and won many awards, including Decanter Book of the Year, the André Simon Book Award and the James Beard Award.

The book is listed on Amazon.com for $12.97 and on Amazon.co.uk for £10.31 The latest version will soon be published.