Customer Rating: 
Summary: The Bible of ollder world wines
Comment: There is no other referance book like it. Admittedly a very personalized review of wines that Michael Broadbent has tasted over his lifetime.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: the ultimate vintage book
Comment: Simply stated this is the best vintage book ever published. I am ordering a second copy as I keep the first in the wine cellar for making selections and need a second for my library so my guests can see what they are drinking. There is none better!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: One note of caution
Comment: Michael Broadbent is a justifiably legendary critic whose perspective is especially valuable in a Shanken/Parker-dominated world. This book is great.
However, one word of caution on this book -- a non-negligible fraction of his tasting notes from old wines are likely inaccurate, because the wines in question were likely fake. Namely, Broadbent (and many other critics) relied heavily on a German dealer/collector named Hardy Rodenstock for samples of the oldest wines noted in the book (by which I mean pre-WWII and especially pre-1900). For example, if you look at MB's tasting notes on pre-1900 Chateau d'Yquem, it appears that one-third or more of the TN's are attributable to Rodenstock-sourced bottles. Rodenstock is now the subject of lawsuits filed by two prominent collectors, Bill Koch and Russell Frye, as detailed in a recent WSJ article. He is steadily developing a reputation as one of the bigger [...] in the history of the fine wine business. This is not to say that most of the old wines tasted by MB weren't genuine, but because Rodenstock was such a major source of old wines, it is now difficult to know which were fake and which were real.
MB was likely a victim of Rodenstock's chicanery, pure and simple. But the responsible thing to do at this point would be to issue a new edition down the road with known Rodenstock-sourced bottles stripped from the book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of Wine's Grand Old Men
Comment: By Bill Marsano. We can divide wine drinkers into three classes. Ordinaire Joe, who'd rather drink wine than talk about it, is here advised to flee: This book will bore him stupid. The Wine Geek is just the opposite; for him wine is an excuse to prattle about clonal selection and hints of toffee on the nose. He'll love this book--will take it to bed with him. It is a gold mine of tasting notes covering many decades and innumerable wines from most regions of the world. The emphasis is on France, with Germany a distant third (there is no second), Italy a distant fifth (there is no fourth) and everybody else reduced to odds and ends. There's lots of stuff on champagne and port, too--a quintessentially British slant.Never mind: The author, Michael Broadbent, is British, and the British have always leant that way. He is also one of the Great Men of Wine: revitalizer of Christie's wine auctions since 1966, writer, advisor, globe-trotting taster and collector of anecdotes and memories. In Japan such a person is officially labeled a Living National Treasure.
That makes this book of value and interest to the third class of wine drinkers--the Sub-Geek (or perhaps wannabe) who recognizes that his enjoyment of wine can be enhanced by a little more knowledge of its history and traditions, its lore and learing, its famous places and personages. There's a lot of that in this book, and it's always modestly and charmingly delivered. The reader must patiently winkle it out, however. It's all wrapped up in sidebars among those endless pages of tasting notes (about 500 of them) and is sometimes hidden inside individual tasting notes themselves.
This is the sort of book that will grace a shelf for a long time. There's no possibility of reading straight through it, and that's the wrong approach anyway. This book sits and waits for those late evenings with a last glass and an inquiring mind. It is to be leafed through for the pleasure of Broadbent's company.
--Bill Marsano is a wine and spirits writer who has won a James Beard medal and other awards.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A reading indulgence.
Comment: Even if you haven't / will not try most of the wines tasted by MB, the mere description of the wines in his unique British style will make your taste buds shiver. A pleasure for all wine lovers - everything else put excellently well by the previous reviewer.
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