The penguin good Australian wine guide
HUON HOOKE & MARK SHIELD
With most reference works, an electronic version can substitute
for the book entirely, but Penguin have made a wise choice in
providing their Australian wine guide as a combination of book
and disk. I like Australian wine, but I find the exotic names
baffling - it's great to have some guidance, and being able to
take the book down to the local boozarium makes it well worth
sticking with a paper version.
Unlike most electronic guides, this is not CD based, but the two
floppies are unlikely to make a big hole in your disk space. The
program does offer some features over and above the book - there
are maps, so you can locate a vineyard within Australia, and there
a more ways of cutting the information, for instance filtering
out all the wines above a certain rating. There are some surprising
gaps, though. There's no search facility, so to find a specific
wine, it's probably faster to thumb through the book. The other
disappointing omission was a lack of UK translation. The book
is Australian, down to pricing in Australian dollars. Given the
relative flexibility of software, it's a shame someone couldn't
add a section showing what's available over here, and at what
price.
Overall - some niggles, but a good, down-to-earth guide to some of the world's best wine.
Priced at £19.99 in the UK. Produced by Penguin books.