Michael Broadbent's Vintage Wine

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250 Best Wines
Wine Buying Guide 2008

10 Digit ISBN:
13 Digit ISBN:9781862057838
Price: £15.00
Format: Hardback
Pages: 320
Size: 25.8 x 20
Illustrations: Colour illustrations throughout

Winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Award 2003 for Best Wine Book and the award for Best Book on Wine History.

Winner of the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Book on Wines and
Spirits 2003.

Nominated
for a 2003 Jacob's Creek World Food
Media Award

'Broadbent can suggest, in a line or two, whether a wine is pleasurable, balanced and worth cellaring ... almost an unwitting work of social history.' Stephen Brook, Decanter

'Michael Broadbent is not just one of the world's great authorities on wine. He is a walking, talking celebration of its life-enhancing properties. In the world of the grape, Mr Broadbent is a colossus.'
Robert Hardman, The Daily Mail

'A terrific book for new or more serious wine enthusiasts ... because of Mr Broadbent's great wit and use of descriptive language.' The Wall Street Journal

'His outstanding achievement is to have kept precise notes on every wine he has tasted (since 1952); 85,000 at the last count.' Sandy Mitchell, Country Life

'Michael is one of my favourite tasting partners. I get all the benefit of his massive wine experience – and all the pleasure of his boyish enthusiasm for life.' Oz Clarke

'The fine art of writing intelligent tasting notes has no greater master than the incomparable Michael Broadbent. This is his magnum opus.' Robert Parker

'A more diligent archivist than we wine
lovers deserve.' Jancis Robinson

'Michael Broadbent is in the first rank of wine authorities, and has led the way in defining and commenting on wine for the past fifty years. His early recognition of the possibilities for California wine, and his analysis and support over the years, have been crucial in our development. There is no one whose judgement I trust more than Michael’s.' Robert Mondavi

'Michael has served the cause of fine wine worldwide. His enthusiasm is contagious and has inspired countless amateurs in their exploration and enjoyment of the grape.' Paul Draper

Michael Broadbent is currently celebrating half a century in the wine trade. Originally trained as an architect, he became a Master of Wine in 1960 and head of Christie’s wine department in 1966. He has been Chairman of the Institute of Masters of Wine and International President of the International Food and Wine Society, and he is one of only a handful of wine people ever to have been made a Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite by the French government.

He is a regular contributor to English and American wine journals (he has written a monthly column for Decanter magazine for twenty-five years) and his seminal book Wine Tasting, first published in 1968, has been translated into six languages and remains a classic. He is the author of The Great Vintage Wine Book and The Great Vintage Wine Book II, published in 1980 and 1991, the only definitive reference books on fine, rare and old wines, and long considered the ‘bible’ for collectors and wine trade alike.

Vintage Wine is Michael Broadbent’s first major book for more than a decade. Building on his earlier works but concentrating on the world’s great classic wine areas, it is at once the ultimate fine wine reference book and a remarkable record of a lifelong passion. Packed with detailed analysis, full of anecdote and opinion, it offers the reader:

First-hand records of an extraordinarily impressive number of wines

Unprecedented coverage of the truly great wines of the world

Tasting notes that range from ancient glories to future stars – 1653 to 2001

Analysis of trends, tastes, styles and developments across the spectrum of fine wine

A unique storehouse of wine information and a wine-loving browser’s paradise

Vintage Wine, timed to coincide with Michael Broadbent’s seventy-fifth birthday and his celebration of fifty years in the wine trade, distils this knowledge of wines that are now in universal, high-level demand, wines that are being collected, consumed, traded and appreciated by vast and increasing numbers of cognoscenti in all corners of the globe. More single-mindedly focused on the classics than his earlier works, Vintage Wine is also more opinionated and more personal.

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