Wine Report 2009

Tom Stevenson's Wine Report 2009 has arrived and though we are just getting into it, we found this forum well represented. In addition to Daniel Rogov's report on Israel that he has posted details on his forum, Wink Lorch has the report on Jura and Savoi. Jim Trezise is mentioned by both Dan Berger (California) and Sandra Silven (Atlantic Northeast) regarding his work with the International Riesling Foundation. Sandra also mentions the New York Wine and Culinary Center that Thomas is involved with. We're sure there is much more involving our folks, but as I said we're just getting started. As usual it is a very heavy tome.

i have to go pick mine up in a few minutes. rumor is that this may be the last. i certainly hope not.

Couldn't find anything in Tom's text that hinted at discontinuing future editions. In fact he makes a reference or two about the "next" edition.

can't spill my source - sorry.

Carl,

I'm no longer involved with the Wine and Culinary Center.

Firstly, apologies for my absence from the forum - many of you will hate my excuse, which is that I've been devoting much time to Social Media (for business more than pleasure, though it hasn't been all that bad!) and there just aren't enough hours in the day. I can only say that if anyone wants me to answer a question and/or comment on any post here to do with Jura or Savoie, for example, please contact me through my website or send a message another way and I will do my best to jump back in with something useful.

I wanted to pick up on this post, because it has been 'official' knowledge for a little while, but not really highly publicized knowledge, that there will be no Wine Report 2010, so I hope you've all grabbed yourselves a copy of the 2009 as it will have to keep you going for a while. There is hope of there being a 2011 edition - Tom Stevenson is working hard at negotiating a contract with a new publisher - time will tell whether he succeeds in these difficult economic times.

In the meantime, I posted something on my personal blog about Wine Report discussing Credibility versus Saleability - a personal story but also a type of lament in a way. I would welcome comments, in particular actually on the blog, as there are a few there already. Thanks in advance for looking and hope you don't object to me taking up space in this forum to publicize this.

Wink, Hi......

Always good to hear from you! Like you, I too am hoping that Tom will succeed in finding a publisher for a 2011 edition. True, you and I were among the contributors to Wine Report so our bias, but in fairness to Tom and to ourselves, among the reasons we contributed and were (and remain) so enthusiastic was because we believe that the annual book was a unique addition to the wine world. And indeed, our reliance on Tom to "give us free rein" was never abused in any way... one of the great charms of the book that even though we sometimes disagreed one with the other or even with Tom what we wrote was, by heaven, what was printed.

Believe me, the moment Tom lets us know he has the go-ahead for another edition, I'll be quite enthusiasticallly sitting down to write up my Israel section!

Best
Rogov

I suspect that one of the problems of the Wine Report in its current format is that a large fraction of the content is not relevant for the average (or even not so average) putative customer. For example most of the regions mentioned in comments above are practically nonexistent on the shelves in my region, and therefore I never had any interest in buying a copy (I occasionally read sections of interest to me from a copy borrowed from my favorite wine store owner). Hence moving to a publishing model that allows purchase of individual sections as pdf downloads at reduced cost might considerably expand the overall market for future editions of the Wine Report.

I agree with Mike. I enjoyed reading the book, and have a complete collection, but much of the reading was for interest and fun and less for actual use.

One real problem is that the information in the 2009 edition was written before the summer of 2008 (if I've worked out the editorial process correctly). Much of the info was dated to a certain extent, and I treat the Report as a summary of the info in wine magazines and on the wine sites.

Mike's suggestion has merit in this respect as well; an online Report would be more timely as well.

That said, in whatever format, I hope the Report can find a way to survive. It's great fun to read a book that covers everything and gives leads to more details of interest.

I should mention that I've reviewed one or two editions of the Wine Report on Amazon, giving it 5 stars each time.

I agree with Mike to a point. I do enjoy reading about regions that don't appear on the shelves around here, such as the region Wink reports on; and it does give good reference points to investigate when travelling.