This guide to Australian and New Zealand wines profiles over 1200 wineries. It provides tasting notes for the 1200 wines featured, a vintage specific rating, information on the wine's production, advice on the best time to drink it and suggestions for complementary food choices.
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Amazon Review
The customary remarks with which to preface discussions of Antipodean wines include those exclaiming at how few years it has taken for this youthful industry to find itself competing at the very highest level with the greatest wines in the world. Consider them said. James Halliday, in the 2000 edition of his reliable and authoritative Wine Companion, Australia and New Zealand also takes the maturity and perfection of the best Oz / NZ wines for granted. His grading system for wineries runs to five stars ("Outstanding winery regularly producing exemplary wines"), while for individual vintages he goes even further: five wine glasses signify 94-97 out of 100--"As close to perfection as the real world will allow". (98-100 is an unachievable ideal.)
Restricting himself to the top 20% of Australian and New Zealand wines, James Halliday can afford to be generous. Sensibly listing wineries alphabetically by name only, rather than, say, by region, which can be confusing, he profiles each establishment briefly and succinctly, listing and rating the vintages, as well as giving useful information such as contacts and opening hours. (These lists are useful to those on the spot at least: it's interesting how many of even the major wineries depend to a large extent on cellar door and direct mail sales.) Food partnerships are suggested, not as fixed rules but as additional, "subliminal" indications of wine styles. He can be quirky, too. Even where he disapproves of the wines, something can be rescued. A case in point would be the unfortunate Jackson's Hill winery, where the wines are judged "not exhilarating" but "Jackson's Hill does produce the most marvellous home-made chocolates I have tasted in a long time". --Robin Davidson
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
The five star rating would assume that you have bought this in a bid to expand your buying of Australian wine. This book along with Jeremy Oliver's Wine Annual should become your bible. There is a brief guide to the way the author's ratings are awarded and the format of the entries. They themselves are concise but always informative, rating the winery overall but also its best wines individually, thus acknowledging that a winery can sometimes raise its game with certain varieties. The usual stars of the Australian firmament are well catered for but so are less well known but equally worthy entrants. I appreciated the advice as to anticipated maturity and details of previous successes although frustrated by the fact that these older vintages are often nearly impossible to come by. As an added guarantee of non-bias in his reviews, the author declares his interests in wineries and declines to offer rating points for these wines. All in all an invaluable buying guide and reference work which I have found myself dipping into at increasingly regular intervals over the past few months.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars
3 reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still THE reference-book on Australia and NZ
9 Mar 2000
By Kim Nielsen
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
So, what's the difference to the '99 edition ? Well, not much... The pro's : - 127 new vineries included and still written in the same Parker'ish style
The con's : - still no vintage charts (neither regional nor individually, which is a shame) - Also a listing (classification) of the best producers would be nice
It would also be nice to have some sort of description of the various regions, (eg for advise of where to get the best varietals/grapestyles)
Some pictures (labels) would be nice also, by the way..
But, nevertheless...this is still a good book, so if you need those updates (like I do !) , then you gotta have this issue.
Final word: I give this book 5 stars, basically because there's no competition - there's still room for some improvements...
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
You have to be an expert
11 Feb 2002
By Brendan B. Hayes
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Being an avid 'winey', and an Australian, I was excited to receive the bible on Antipodeon wines. Well I was a little disappointed; If you are thoroughly versed with the regions in Aus and NZ, then this is perfect for you; But being 8 years removed from my country, I discovered that the lack of info on specific regions was a negative for this publication. I find Hugh Johnson's guide a far more useful tool(although he does not reference the wineries as thoroughly).
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
great book but needs an index by region
6 Nov 2000
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
an essential travel and buying guide for oz wines. arranged alphabetically by producer but wish there was also an index by region. for that purpose check out the pocket-sized wines of australia by the same author
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Go to Amazon.com to see all 3 reviews
4.3 out of 5 stars
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