Since the 1990s, the Greek wine industry has grown its exports significantly while the wines increasingly win internationally recognized awards. This reference to the 11 official wine-producing regions of Greece covers the vineyards, wines and wineries and grape varieties, with in-depth producer profiles for each. The unique historical aspects of Greece's wine industry - from its wine laws to vital wine-production statistics focusing on continued wine developments - are covered in full. A practical guide to reading Greek wine labels and buying Greek wine is included, and 15 maps detail the key winemaking areas.
The Wines of Greece (Mitchell Beazley Classic Wine Library)
and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Digilante
Format:Hardcover
This is not just a cold listing of all regions, estates and wines like most wine guides. A significant section of the book is dedicated to explaining the history of Greek wine, the plethora of indigenous vine varieties, production methods, etc. It's really fantastic education, written in a very novel-like readable manner.
The guide part is certainly complete too - listing all the regions and most producers with lots of information for each.
However, there are two major things missing.
1. Price information, or just value for money information. Even if it was just in two or three categories, like less than 5 Euro / Pounds, between 5 and 15, and more than 15. This is always a good indicator to see if your local importer is ripping you off, and is also a way to narrow one's scope a bit so that it lies within one's budget.
2. Ratings. There are no ratings given at all. The author says he wants us to discover the wines for ourselves, etc. Now I agree with that to a large degree. To score wines on a scale from 50 to 100 just leads people to buy a 91 point wine and ignore an 89 point wine, and most of us, even if experienced wine drinkers, could not tell the difference between them anyway. However, I do not have the time, money, and local choices in selection to try 1000 wines and make up my own mind. I rely on the author to give me some guidance. Yes, in his reviews of each estate he does make comments such as "simple", or "excellent", or "surprising" etc, but I would have loved some overall indication of quality - even if just on a scale of one to three stars like the French Guide Hachette does.
Overall, very good, but would have liked to see more pricing and quality information.
The guide part is certainly complete too - listing all the regions and most producers with lots of information for each.
However, there are two major things missing.
1. Price information, or just value for money information. Even if it was just in two or three categories, like less than 5 Euro / Pounds, between 5 and 15, and more than 15. This is always a good indicator to see if your local importer is ripping you off, and is also a way to narrow one's scope a bit so that it lies within one's budget.
2. Ratings. There are no ratings given at all. The author says he wants us to discover the wines for ourselves, etc. Now I agree with that to a large degree. To score wines on a scale from 50 to 100 just leads people to buy a 91 point wine and ignore an 89 point wine, and most of us, even if experienced wine drinkers, could not tell the difference between them anyway. However, I do not have the time, money, and local choices in selection to try 1000 wines and make up my own mind. I rely on the author to give me some guidance. Yes, in his reviews of each estate he does make comments such as "simple", or "excellent", or "surprising" etc, but I would have loved some overall indication of quality - even if just on a scale of one to three stars like the French Guide Hachette does.
Overall, very good, but would have liked to see more pricing and quality information.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Greek wine has made great strides in the last twenty years, even more so in the last decade: to some, it may well be the best-kept secret of the wine world. Young, ambitious winemakers, educated at top schools abroad have been at the forefront of the new developments. This new blood explores the infinite possibilities Greece's variety of native grapes and terroir present for making good, and often great wine.
Lazarakis' book is a useful snapshot of the state of greek wine which comes at a convenient point in the industry's development. The book is well-written, providing an overview of the grapes planted in Greece -native and foreign- the regions, and the laws. Extensive producer profiles form a further part of the book. If you, like me, have been stunned by greek wine and seek a guide through the labyrinth (pun intended) of grapes and locations, this is most certainly a good buy. The only omission is the lack of elaboration on how to pronounce the grapes.
Lazarakis is Greece's first Master of Wine, which gives him impeccable credentials to write this book.
Just don't forget to buy the wines!
Lazarakis' book is a useful snapshot of the state of greek wine which comes at a convenient point in the industry's development. The book is well-written, providing an overview of the grapes planted in Greece -native and foreign- the regions, and the laws. Extensive producer profiles form a further part of the book. If you, like me, have been stunned by greek wine and seek a guide through the labyrinth (pun intended) of grapes and locations, this is most certainly a good buy. The only omission is the lack of elaboration on how to pronounce the grapes.
Lazarakis is Greece's first Master of Wine, which gives him impeccable credentials to write this book.
Just don't forget to buy the wines!
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Greek wines, if only because there are so few books on the subject.
The book has its shortcomings, though.
The maps are too small; they are black and white diagrams; and they only show the administrative boundaries of each region.
I wouldn't necessarily expect them to show vineyard locations (although it would have been nice!), but at least they should show the geography of each region with its mountains, rivers and valleys since those greatly affect the character of wines. It looks as if the publishers were to cheap to licence some half-decent maps.
The indexing is inadequate. Wine labels are not indexed, so you cannot look up a specific wine, unless you know the producer. For example, if you remember you tasted a wine called "Amethystos" or "Magiko Vouno" you cannot look it up unless you also know who makes it. And then you still have to read through the text to find the couple of lines referring to that particular wine. It wouldn't have taken much effort to index those wines and it would have made the available information so much more useful.
Only few local grape varieties (about a dozen whites and ten or so reds) are described, although the book does mention that there are about 200-300 indigenous varieties. I don't expect a full description for each, but at least a list with their names and some very basic information with references on where to find more.
The text contains a lot of valuable information, and for that alone it is worth getting. But it doesn't get any points for writing style.
Overall, I feel that if this guide was written for one of the better known wine producing countries, it would have difficulty justifying its price against the competition.
But given the lack of similar guides for Greece, one has to commend the effort and hope that in future editions it will be improved.
The book has its shortcomings, though.
The maps are too small; they are black and white diagrams; and they only show the administrative boundaries of each region.
I wouldn't necessarily expect them to show vineyard locations (although it would have been nice!), but at least they should show the geography of each region with its mountains, rivers and valleys since those greatly affect the character of wines. It looks as if the publishers were to cheap to licence some half-decent maps.
The indexing is inadequate. Wine labels are not indexed, so you cannot look up a specific wine, unless you know the producer. For example, if you remember you tasted a wine called "Amethystos" or "Magiko Vouno" you cannot look it up unless you also know who makes it. And then you still have to read through the text to find the couple of lines referring to that particular wine. It wouldn't have taken much effort to index those wines and it would have made the available information so much more useful.
Only few local grape varieties (about a dozen whites and ten or so reds) are described, although the book does mention that there are about 200-300 indigenous varieties. I don't expect a full description for each, but at least a list with their names and some very basic information with references on where to find more.
The text contains a lot of valuable information, and for that alone it is worth getting. But it doesn't get any points for writing style.
Overall, I feel that if this guide was written for one of the better known wine producing countries, it would have difficulty justifying its price against the competition.
But given the lack of similar guides for Greece, one has to commend the effort and hope that in future editions it will be improved.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Food & Drink > Drinks & Beverages
- Books > Food & Drink > National & International Cookery > Mediterranean
- Books > Food & Drink > Reference & Gastronomy
- Books > Food & Drink > Wine & Winemaking
- Books > Science & Nature > Engineering & Technology > Chemical > Industrial Chemistry > Food & Beverage
- Books > Science & Nature > Food & Farming > Horticulture
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
