Oz Clarke's Wine Buying Guide: The World of Wine from A-Z

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Oz Clarke

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Pages: 128 (Hardcover)

ISBN: 0316727849

Pub: Time Warner Books

Pub date: 2004-08-27

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 580111

Editorial Review:

You might think that, prices apart, not much is going to change between one year's edition of Oz Clarke's Wine Buying Guide and the next. After all, we're all buying pretty much the same wines, aren't we? The wines Oz has done so much to popularise in his many books and television programmes: fresh, supple, lively young vintages from new or revivified growing areas such as South America, Australia and Eastern Europe. Not a bit of it. Wine is such a dynamic business, and drinkers' loyalties so mobile (or is that fickle?), that a year can bring enormous changes. Oz Clarke, his ear ever to the ground, reports that we seem to be getting bored with Chardonnay. Perhaps it's had its day. Could it be the Liebfraumilch de nos jours? Next year may tell.

The format and structure of this essential volume remain unchanged. An opening section of Best Buys, Supermarket Selections and Wine Buyers Choices is followed a comprehensive and informative Retailers Directory and then the serious stuff of prices by region. As always, one looks for the prices that take one's breath away, and sure enough, the '78 Romanée-Conti is there at £3,760 a bottle. Somebody must be able to afford it. For everybody else, this guide is packed with immense quantities of information about good wine, at, by and large, reasonable prices, and where to buy it. It represents an amazing feat of organisation. How does Oz Clarke do it, year after year?--Robin Davidson

Reader Reviews:

Careful: this is NOT the detailed price list (0/0 people found this helpful)

If you have an early edition, for example the 2001, you might think this is that book updated to 2007. NOT! This is a smaller, 'general guidlines' book. It does NOT have the very detailed prices as listed in the earlier 2001 edition. Some of the other reviews are clearly referring to that earlier version of the book, which confusingly had exactly the same title.

Useful - but only in Britain (3/4 people found this helpful)

Though living in Belgium, I bought this wine buyer's guide out of curiosity, and I wasn't disappointed. The book is nicely structured, in a producer and a retailer section, with a number of articles and factboxes sprinkled in between. While the first half mainly deals with different growing regions, and groups the selected wines in different price brackets, the second part describes interesting wine shops in the UK and their particular strengths.

Nice wine recommendations in all price categories can be found all over this book, whose modest size allows it to be carried along to the shops (a practical aspect that is often ignored by other writers of comprehensive wine guides such as Robert Parker, to name but one). However, there is a downside to the book's limited size, and the result is what seems to me quite an arbitrary and one-sided selection of wines: a load of Australian and Austrian, and very few German wines are featured, for example.

I may be slightly biaised because I'm German, and I know that Austrian wines can be as outstanding as the Germans, but Oz Clarke hardly bothers to talk about the crisp and low-alcohol Mosel and Rhein rieslings (which don't have an equivalent in Austria or Australia). It all very well to talk extensively about Hunter Valley rieslings from Australia, but they are hardly representative of this particular grape variety. In a wine buyer's guide for the British market (where German wines have traditionally had a big share of the market, especially in lower price categories) that seems strange.

The book is of limited use for those living outside the UK as all prices are given in pound Sterling, and only British retailers are included. There are other guides more suited if you plan to visit wine growers in Europe or the New World.

Nonetheless, it is a good and useful guide for all wine drinkers - from beginners to freaks - who buy their bottles in the UK, including the occasional visitor.

Really useful! (32/33 people found this helpful)

I bought this book on a whim while buying a few other things on Amazon. I love the odd glass of wine, but can't say I know much about it beyond what I like and don't like when I taste it. But this book is fantastic - it includes descriptions of all the best wines around, including their prices and advice on where to buy them. The author is really enthusiastic about his subject and isn't at all snobbish. I don't like to spend a lot of money on wine and was pleased to see that Oz's number 1 wine costs less than £10. The bargain basement and £5 sections are the parts I've made most use of - they've helped me find some real bargains over the past few weeks. I don't think I'll be turning into a wine buff anytime soon, but it's a nice feeling when the bottle you bring to a dinner party actually gets drunk with gusto, rather than left on the sideboard!!

Great for the uninitiated, less so for buffs (3/3 people found this helpful)

Clarke's book is organised alphabetically, regardless of whether the entry is the name of a wine, a producer, a region or a grape variety - which makes it easy for newcomers to wine to use. The entries, too, lean more towards the New World (for example, no Chateaux Beauregard, Fonroque or Hosanna, no Tardieu-Laurent - though you may find them referenced in other entries).

As for the content in entries themselves - as in any other guide, the personal preferences of the author show through. To Clarke's credit, he is not afraid of "critiquing" the occasional wine.

This year's guide is sold (in the UK)with a free buying guide for the UK, with a shortlist of wines to buy this year, and a valuable directory of wine retail outlets and merchants.

Overall a good reference, although for French wines I prefer Hugh Johnson's guide.

The top consumer guide - but beware the restictive outlook! (0/0 people found this helpful)

Clarke does it again - reliably helping the keen amateur through the maze, with hunour and enthusiasm. There's nothing like it on the market - the hands-on, no nonsense approach is a genuine boon to help the buyer find value.

Only one quibble - limited space means, of course, that Oz can't cover every major producer in a given sector, and sometimes he omits star growers whilst including some of the more mundane. However, this detracts little from the benefits of the book - go buy it.

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