DK Essential Companions, Consultant Author - Susan Keevil Wines of the World

Susan Keevil Wines of the World is excellently and lavishly produced, well-researched, insightful, an enjoyable reference. There are several books about wine out there; not quite so many books as there are wines to choose from, admittedly, but nonetheless more than you ' d ever need. So what makes a good one from a bad one? Almost as hard to describe for wine itself and much of it down to personal taste of course. So this review is purely my own perspective, based on, of course, my own personal taste. So what did I want the wine book to say?

My fundamental requirement of a wine book is its accessibility, its appeal. By which I mean does it reach out to me " a guy in the street " rather than make me feel a little overwhelmed or belittled or patronized or befuddled. This book appeals, it makes you want to read it. What makes this book achieve this is firstly its colourful approach to giving you as much insight as you may care to wish for in terms of growers, regions, labels grape varieties. But irrespective of the detail you get, it ' s more about how it rather glossily, lavishly and excitingly it introduces the whole culture of wine to you: photography, geography, labels, ' sample cases ' " they all bring the topic to life. DK has some credentials here, of course " DorlingKindersley (no wonder they shorten it to DK) is a huge publishing house with, among other things, a fabulous set of travel guides; they use their vast resources to their advantage and this guide is no exception.

I am analytical by nature so was very happy to see the whole thing broken down by country/region, and also by grape. Many people compartmentalise information, and it is easier to manage a list in your mind of good Merlots, or what ' s good from the Napa Valley. I ' m even more demanding, and therefore am particularly impressed by being able to cross reference all the half-decent Sauvignon Blancs across the Loire, Chile and New Zealand.

In fact, if you ask me, that ' s the wine book we all want 'most of us know our favourite wine (or at least the one we like to buy most often) - but we don ' t know if it ' s the grape, the producer, the region, the soil, the type of barrel, or what. We all spend a fair amount of time looking for that good-priced alternative to the one bottle we know we like, and we try to base that voyage of discovery on next to no knowledge of why we like what we like.

That ' s where this book comes in handy; it gives you a delightful assistant in your journey. Of course, no book gives you THE ANSWER " because it ' s all about taste " but this book certainly opens your eyes to some of the realistic possibilities. I ' m busy scouring up and down the Loire Valley in the search for that bone dry Sauv. Blanc that matches my favourite Pouilly Fume in all but price tag. I may never find it, of course, but this guide is making my task of searching much more rewarding.

Its not all top marks though; I have after all only given it a 7... In places I think the obvious heavy editing required to keep the content sensible hasn ' t quite got the balance right, and this is my primary criticism. I think the wine down the ages, maybe some of the eastern European time and effort, and certainly the Mouton-Rothschild label description could have been sacrificed for a bit more detail on the New World. I don ' t think Chile or New Zealand get an even remotely fair crack of the whip, certainly not compared with exhaustive descriptions of both France and Italy, both of which are admittedly excellent. I ' d wager Marlborough took a dim view of this book.

All in all, however, you probably won ' t find a more comprehensive companion or reference guide, and I ' m delighted with what I found inside the rather appealing covers. At twenty quid though, you would hope to be impressed with the content, so value for money is never going to be its big selling point (another reason it can't get a higher mark). But you won ' t need to buy too many other wine guides for a while, so it might turn out to be a good investment: just think of all those ropey bottles you may never now need to buy. We've all drunk enough stuff we wish we hadn't...