Matt Kramer's New California Wine

By far, the most complete and easily read book of its type. It puts all of the recent changes in the California AVA's in perspective.

I have already nipped into this book several times, especially before trips to nearby Santa Barbara wine country, and Kramer has never steered me wrong yet. Based on his recommendations, I experienced some great wines at Foley and Longoria - not really a GUIDE BOOK per se, no fancy graphics or easy to turn to index pages, but Kramer does have his own wine guide for this. I highly recommend for wino-folks living right here on the left coast.

Matt Kramer's New California Wine starts with a section that describes the thinking and mentalities behind the California wine industry (he named this part "Thinking California"). He then goes on to describe California's American Viticultural Areas (AVA) and different activities going on in each in a part named "Drinking California". He mentions quite a number of wineries - in ways that offer details that go beyond the usual, dry descriptions often found elsewhere. The "Thinking California" part of the book provides the reader with an excellent overview of the state of California wines - the thinking that has evolved the European wine mentality/tradition as opposed to the California approach to the crafting of fine wines. Kramer's writing style is quite entertaining - he's descriptive with word choices that vividly portray California. At the start of key parts of the book he sets the scene with a quote and then moves into descriptions that inform and entertain. In "Thinking California" his insights into changes and evolutions that have transpired in California wines through descriptions of the history, the wine plant, the climate, and the soil provide an overview helpful when thinking about California wines. In "Drinking California" he gives descriptions of areas (AVA) and different wine operations. Quite a lot of detail that I'll use when planning my next visit to California - the kind of detail one might want when doing advance planning - necessary when visiting wineries. As a native Californian who now lives in Europe I've tried to answer questions about California wines - what I've learned from Mr. Kramer gives an understanding of and a perspective about California wines that I'll find helpful. I'm glad I bought the book and consider its price to be a good investment.