Wines of Italy (Mitchell Beazley Pocket Guides)

I love Italian wines, so I grabbed this when I found it. It does have great information - a breakdown of wines by region, then for each region it gives the main types of wine and the vintages that are good for each type. A general star rating indicates how well this wine does in general. Next to each region is a list of the key producers of that wine, with a brief note about the producer.

I think, though, that this will be relatively difficult for a person new to wine to use. If you're looking at a Ruffino Chianti, you look up Ruffino. Its brief notes about Ruffino don't indicate if this is a good or bad winery. You then move to the Chianti section and find out what a Chianti is, but now you are given general notes about which years are good. The years are just listed - you can't tell which are better than others.

If the book had even a general rating for each winery, and more details about the vintages, I think this would be excellent. Maybe a future edition will include this information.

Author: Burton Anderson

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