Books
Penin Guide to Spanish Wine (2006)
This is an invaluable guide for anyone with an interest in Spanish wine. For many years this guide was available only in Spanish, but it has been published in english since 2005. You could equate this guide to the popular Australian guides by James Haliday or Jeremy Oliver.
It is two books really, the first section is almost 200 pages on the varities, wine styles, soil types, climate, tips for the beginner and even a section on how to tell if you are wine wanker.
The remaining 800 odd pages are devoted to tasting notes from just about every region of Spain plus the growing Vinos de Tierra. Penin uses the 100 point scale, with scores bellow 80 making it into the book (there are scores as low as 56!). There are translation artifacts and oddities in some reviews, but they don't really take much away from the overall experience. Another bonus is the contact details and web sites for most of the producers.
Overall, a very well put together wine guide and a handy reference for about $40. As far as I know, it is not available in Australia at present, Amazon seems to be the best source for it (just make sure you order the english version!).
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Amazon lists a 30 July 2006 release date for this, but that could be wrong. Sounds worth a look.
Thats odd, I got mine in Feb. I just had a look on Amazon UK and they have had it since November 05. It’s about the same price at both sites.
Righto. 21.18 pounds later it is on the way from the UK. Is this an annual release coming out at the beginning of each calender year?
Yep, an annual release. Gets released around November I think…
That fits with some of the January 2007 availability dates I was seeing, which must be for the next edition. I like the idea of covering books on the site. Might be good to also cover places that stock (e-tail or face-to-face sellers) reasonable selections of Spanish wine in Australia.
There are a couple of other handy books around, I \’ll do another book post next week.
I\’m still making up my mind on listing retailers. Having said that, I highly recommend Boccaccio (http://www.boccaccio.com.au) and Winestar (www.winestar.com.au), both have some good stuff in their range and excellent prices.
As an update, the next Penin Guide release date (at least the English version for UK sale) is 31 January 2007. Pre-orders are on offer via the UK Amazon at 20 pounds.
Yep, I’ve got my order in. Not due to the US amazon site until March I’m told.
I’ve had a Spanish version since Nov….