George, Rosemary 1950-

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GEORGE, Rosemary 1950-

PERSONAL: Born 1950.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Bantam Dell Publishing Group, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER: Wine merchant, London, England, and Bordeaux, France, 1972–81; wine writer, 1981–.

AWARDS, HONORS: André Simon Award, 1984, for The Wines of Chablis and the Yonne; Tim Derouet travel scholarship.

WRITINGS:

The Wines of Chablis and the Yonne, Sotheby Publications (London, England), 1984.

(With others) Webster's Wine Tours—France, Prentice Hall (New York, NY), 1988.

The Simon & Schuster Pocket Wine Label Decoder, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1989.

The Mitchell Beazley Pocket Guide to Decoding Wine Labels, Mitchell Beazley (London, England), 1989.

French Country Wines ("Faber Books on Wine" series), Faber and Faber (Boston, MA), 1990.

Chianti and the Wines of Tuscany, Sotheby's Publications (New York, NY), 1990.

Lateral Wine-Tasting, Bloomsbury (London, England), 1991, updated edition, 1992.

(Editor, with Frank Prial and Michael Edwards) The Companion to Wine, Prentice Hall (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor, with Christine Austin) The Which? Wine Guide, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1992.

The Wines of New Zealand, Faber and Faber (London, England), 1996.

The Wines of the South of France: From Banyuls to Bellet, Faber and Faber (London, England), 2001, published as The Wines of the South of France: From Banyuls to St. Raphaël, Mitchell Beazley (London, England), 2003.

Treading Grapes: Walking through the Vineyards of Tuscany, Bantam (London, England), 2004.

(With Julie Arkell) Wine, New Holland Publishers, 2005.

Contributor to wine guides and to periodicals, including Wine, Decanter, and Quarterly Review of Wines, and to Wine Pages online.

SIDELIGHTS: British native Rosemary George became a wine writer after working for nine years in the wine trade, and she is one of the first women to pass the Master of Wine exams. George writes articles and columns for print publications as well as an online wine-related Web site, and has also penned several books, including The Simon & Schuster Pocket Wine Label Decoder, a small volume that helps the buyer choose a wine. In this handy volume George provides tips on acronyms, names, and dates and explains the factors that influence a wine, including the variety, the soil and climate in which it is grown, and, most importantly, the winemaker. She distinguishes between various types of wine, including fortified, champagne, and dessert wines, and concentrates on reds, whites, and rosés. Publishers Weekly contributor Molly McQuade wrote that "most newcomers to the wine cellar will find the book worth its price for glossary alone."

In French Country Wines, George focuses on lesser-known wines produced in the French countryside, from the Pyrenees in the southwest to Paris, eastern France, and Corsica. The book includes a generous number of maps, as well as appendices. In The Wines of New Zealand, she notes the investment made in that country's vineyards by both French and Australian vintners and the significant advances made in New Zealand in just a short time.

George made sixteen trips to the region that is her focus in The Wines of the South of France: From Banyuls to Bellet, resulting in a book that is part wine guide and part travel guide. Since the 1980s, when overproduction was responsible for labeling wines from this area as "ordinary," steps have been taken to reverse this perception. New growers and innovative production methods have made the wines of the south of France competitive with the best wines in the world. George visits vineyards from Banyuls, near the border with Spain, to Bellet, near Nice. She also provides anecdotes about the people and places she came to know, such as the chateau owned by two brothers who have not talked to each other for years. Also included are vintage guides and weather tables. The large volume is divided into sections that focus on the regions of Corsica, Provence, and Languedoc-Roussillon, the last of which has more vines than all of Australia. Within each of these sections individual chapters focus on smaller areas, and introduce the many estates George visited while doing her research.

A reviewer for Wine Doctor online called The Wines of the South of France "a landmark text for the wines of this collection of continually improving wine regions and vital for those that wish to explore it in any detail." Library Journal reviewer Wendy Miller felt that "given the area's current popularity for tourists, this book is particularly timely."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, July, 2001, Wendy Miller, review of The Wines of the South of France: From Banyuls to Bellet, p. 116.

Publishers Weekly, November 23, 1990, Molly McQuade, review of The Simon & Schuster Pocket Wine Label Decoder, p. 61.

Wine Spectator, March 31, 1991, review of The Simon & Schuster Pocket Wine Label Decoder, p. 55; June 15, 1991, review of Chianti and the Wines of Tuscany, p. 38; June 30, 1993, review of The Companion to Wine.