Wines of Italy

My first complaint about the Wines of Italy mini-book is that while it is all about listing vintages which are good to drink "now", there is no date on the front cover of the book! What if they say a 1998 Ruffino Chianti is a good wine to drink? That could be very true in the year 2000 - and it could be completely false in the year 2018. Having a list of good vintages really has to go with a "current date".

The book is organized in sort of an odd way. They list a region, with a map and quick description. Then they list the types of wines made in that region, so for example chardonnay, cabernet, pinot grigio. They say to buy Chardonnay but not Cabernet. After that they list wineries in the region and say which wine types each winery makes. This means if the wine list says

Ruffino 1998 Chianti

You have to figure out where the Chianti region is, figure out what type of wine "chianti" is in that region, see if it was good in 1998 or not, and then look up the Ruffino winery to see what its notes are. In fact, in this example, you'd have to first go to the Tuscany section, see that Chianti was an area in it, find out about 1998 Chianti's, and even though Ruffino is a large producer, it isn't even listed.

The book isn't tabbed to make it easy to find sections, so you'd have to go to the index to even know where to begin to find Chianti entries.

Needs a fair amount of work to become useful as a quick reference.

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