The Finest Wines of Rioja and Northwest Spain | Book Review

The Finest Wines of Rioja and Northwest Spain is written by three Spanish authors Jesus Barquin, Luis Guitierrez and Victor de la Serna. This is possibly the most thorough and up-to-date book on the wines of the Rioja and the neighbouring wine regions. For anyone who wants to know more about Rioja it is absolutely recommended.

The subtitle is “A regional guide to the best producers and their wines” which is a very accurate description of the contents. Photography (too little of it) by Jon Wyand.

It also covers to some extent the other wine regions of north-west Spain, Navarra, Bierzo, Rias Baixas, Galicia, the Basque Country, and the Cantabrian coast. But the focus is clearly on Rioja. It covers the wines, the vineyards and the wine producers of all these regions.

The majority of the book is dedicated to wine producer profiles. Many of the wineries covered in the book are well known to the wine lover, being big, famous and internationally distributed wine producers. But there are also numerous smaller and not so well-known producers covered in the book. I do not have enough knowledge of the wine producers of the Rioja to be able to comment on the selection of the producers, but most of the wineries that I am familiar with and that I consider to be very good are in the book (although not quite all of them).

One interesting part of the book is also the story of how Rioja came to be where it is today: it shot to international fame a few decades ago and then suddenly almost disappeared. Only recently has Rioja started to emerge again as a quality wine region on the international wine market. The authors explain how and why this has happened.

Today Rioja is a very, very interesting wine region with many top-quality producers making modern wines that can compete with many of the best in the world. It is time that all wine lovers rediscover Rioja and this book is an excellent guide in that quest. In a new edition of the book I hope to see even more wine producer recommendations, a broadened selection. There must be coming many more younger producer on the scene now.

Hear more comments and see how the book looks in the video:

Title: The Finest Wines of Rioja & Northwest Spain

Authors: Jesus Barquin, Luis Guitierrez and Victor de la Serna

Photography: Jon Wyand

Paperback: 320 pages

Publisher: Aurum Press Ltd (1 Sep 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1845136934

ISBN-13: 978-1845136932

Product Dimensions: 16.5 x 2.7 x 22 cm

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