The New Frank Schoonmaker Encyclopedia of Wine

Rating:
Summary: The basic wine encyclopedia
Review: I cut my own wine-loving teeth on an earlier edition of this excellent encyclopedia, literally reading it from cover to cover over a weekend when I was first excitedly discovering the wine hobby. Alexis (not Alex) Bespaloff's revision (and his editors) unfortunately took a lot of the guts out of the old book -- along with adding in much new information about New World wines -- but it's still a useful reference, arguably the one single-volume encyclopedia a wine lover ought to have if you can have only one

Rating:
Summary: Best straight reference guide for beginners or experts
Review: We use this book constantly in our tasting room. I have years of experience in the wine industry and I'm always running to Schoonmaker to answer all kinds of obscure questions that our customers come up with. The format hits the major points of each topic without opinion or prejudice - how refreshing to get the facts without the hype on a subject that is over-hyped to begin with!