No matter that it won the Prix Lanson for Best Annual Wine Guide, one need only ponder any High Street and see "Which?"s own badges of excellence displayed with pride in the windows of supermarkets and small off-licences alike, to know that Atkins and Woods have written the definitive guide to wine in the UK. In encyclopaedic detail, their articles and entries assess every aspect of wine industry and culture, from vineyard to vendor to tasting society. Big corporations like Australia's Southcorp and California's Gallo currently dominate the business. Rightly, they pride themselves on the way the small producer, under their care, no longer has to overproduce, and can concentrate instead on crafting high-quality wine that the public wants to drink. The system, however, only works if the public is wine-literate: if £1.99 is all most of us spend on wine, £1.99's worth of wine is all any of us will eventually get-- which is why this book has become an industry essential. ... read more