Tom Stevenson’s Champagne & Sparkling Wine Guide 2016
The 2016 Guide contains full tasting notes of every Gold and Silver medal winning wine from the Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships 2015, in addition to all Best in Class and National trophy winners, plus the very latest Sparkling Winemaker of the Year, Chairman’s Trophy and, of course, the Supreme World Champion.
The following WARNING replaces the Foreword for in second edition (seventh edition overall) of the relaunched Champagne & Sparkling Wine Guide:
If you purchased this guide just to discover the best value and best quality fizz on the planet, please proceed straight to page 126. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200 and, whatever you do, do not read the opening chapters or cast even the most cursory glance at the Micropedia! The information contained in the opening chapters and the Micropedia is there as the ultimate back-up, to answer any question you might have, so you do not have to venture there unless you need to know something specific (or you are curious). I would be surprised if there is a single layman’s question that cannot be answered somewhere within those pages, as they were written to answer 99% of even the most obscure questions that the geekiest of fizz geeks might possibly conjure up.
I have tried to squeeze most of my technical knowledge of sparkling wine production and its related issues into the front chapters and the Micropedia (formerly the Glossary, but after this year’s additions, which amount to a 26% increase, it has become a miniature encyclopedia). The aim was to make it he most compact, comprehensive and ongoingly up-to-date resource available on the subject, and the result has been a book so full of nerdy stuff that, I fear, most readers wont bother to look at most of it! But that is the point, you do not have to. The specialised information is not compulsory reading. It is just there in case you need it, and all the heaviest, techiest, nerdiest information has been compartmentalised in boxes, charts, captions and, of course, the Micropedia. This enables most normal, non-nerdy folk to flip through the Champagne & Sparkling Wine Guide like any other buyer’s guide. If you just want to dip in and out of the front chapters to get a basic grasp of how sparkling wine is produced, you can do this at an elementary level, while the outright fizz fanatics to zero-in on the most specific, detailed data. Equally, if there is single aspect or process that you might want to delve into in depth, you can do that even if you utilise the rest of the guide more superficially. The more complex the topic, the more I try to break it down into chunks that most intelligent readers without any specialised knowledge whatsoever should be able to understand, so don’t be afraid to go on a learning tour of the Champagne & Sparkling Wine Guide, but ultimately it is up to the reader at which level to make use of all or part of it.
Colour or B&W Edition?
So many of the illustrations are optimised for colour that the finish of the two formats (Full Colour Softback and B&W Softback) looks like two entirely different qualities. The Full Colour Softback has vastly superior appearance, but it is relatively expensive (£25.99/USD35.99/ €29.99), which is why I offer a B&W edition, even though the monochrome reproduction tends to lack definition. It is, however, a more affordable option (£9.99/USD12.99/€10.99) for those who find the Full Colour price too much and who are willing or need to settle for less crisp reproduction. The reason why the colour edition is so expensive is because of the restricted timescale between the end of the competition (June) and date of intended publication (October). The technology involved in compiling the competition results, writing, originating, printing and publishing a book over such a short period of time inevitably results in a relatively expensive book, particularly for colour. If not for this I would not even bother to publish a B&W Softback, but the contents are the same: the difference is purely cosmetic and the choice is simply one of price.
Click on whichever of the following editions best suits your needs and you will be taken to the geographically appropriate webpage without committing yourself to any purchase unless you make that choice for yourself.
Amazon™ UK
Colour Softback
B&W Softback
Kindle™ Edition
Amazon™ US
Colour Softback
B&W Softback
Kindle™ Edition
Amazon™ Australia
Amazon™ Brazil
Amazon™ Canada
Amazon™ France
Colour Softback
B&W Softback
Kindle™ Edition
Amazon™ Germany
Colour Softback
B&W Softback
Kindle™ Edition
Amazon™ India
Amazon™ Italy
Colour Softback
B&W Softback
Kindle™ Edition
