"Which are your favourite wine books?"

Decanter magazine wants to know. Check out their poll of the "The All-Time 25 Great Wine Books" and vote for your fave wine book. Mine is "Adventures on the Wine Route" (1988) by Kermit Lynch.

Decanter lists the following 25 Top Sellers on amazon.co.uk in 2007:

The World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson
Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book by Hugh Johnson
MICHAEL BROADBENT''S POCKET VINTAGE WINE COMPANION: Over Fifty Years of Tasting Over Three Centuries of Wine by Michael Broadbent
Oz Clarke 250 Best Wines: Wine Buying Guide 2008 by Oz Clarke
Wine Report 2008 by Tom Stevenson
The Oxford Companion to Wine by Jancis Robinson
The Best Wines in the Supermarkets: My Top Wines Selected for Character and Style by Ned Halley
Wine For Dummies® (For Dummies) by Ed McCarthy and Mary EwingMulligan
Oz Clarke's Pocket Wine Book 2008 by Oz Clarke
The Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia: The Classic Reference to the Wines of the World by Tom Stevenson
Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure by Oz Clarke and James May
I Don't Know Much About Wine, But I Know What I Like by Simon Woods
The Wine and Food Lover's Guide to Portugal by Charles Metcalfe and Kathryn McWhirter
Oz Clarke Wine Atlas: Wines and Wine Regions of the World by Oz Clarke
French Wine (Eyewitness Companion) by Robert Joseph
The Juice 2008: 100 Wines You Should Be Drinking by Matt Skinner
Wine and War: The French, the Nazis and France's Greatest Treasure by Donald Kladstrup and Petie Kladstrup
The Wine Diet by Roger Corder
Larousse Encyclopedia of Wine (Larousse) by Christopher Foulkes and Michael Broadbent
Wine Behind the Label 2008: The Ultimate Guide to the Worlds Leading Wine Providers and Their Wine by David Moore and Philip Williamson
Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide by Robert Parker
Wine Travel Guide to the World (Footprint Travel Guide) by Robert Joseph
Food, Wine and Friends by Fiona Beckett
Bordeaux (Mitchell Beazley Wine Library) by Stephen Brook
The Emperor of Wine: The Story of the Remarkable Rise and Reign of Robert Parker by Elin McCoy

Holiday Gifts: Wine Report 2008

Bar none, the best pocketbook wine guide today is Tom Stevenson's Wine Report. I find it remarkable that such a handy book can cram information on vintages, producers, and individual wines of 38 separate wine regions of the world. And each region is reported by an expert in the field, including the likes of David Peppercorn MW on Bordeaux, Clive Coates MW on Burgundy, Nicolas Belfrage and Franco Ziliani on Italy, John Radford on Spain, Dan Berger on California, and, of course, Tom Stevenson on Champagne and Alsace.

Published each year, the 2008 edition just came out in time for your holiday reading and gift giving. I purchased a copy at Borders for $15.00.

Airline Food and Whine

An interesting New York Times blog I was reading this morning triggered a thought in my head about trends in air travel. The Jet Lagged blog written by Elliott Hester (a flight attendant who apparently writes on his spare time or a writer who flight attends on his spare time) is on the disappearing complimentary in-flight food service. Rather than lament this change, Hester suggests that airline commuters should rejoice that they have finally won the nagging battle against bad airline food.

I totally agree. And it’s not only bad airline food that should be abandoned—I say in-flight wines should be thrown out the window. The choice of wines, if there is any, in airlines is usually atrocious that I never even bother to check what they have. Ah, I wish a BYOB could be possible.