Let me start off by saying that I’m a big fan of Ms. Robinson’s work.  I personally think that she has a great wine tasting palate and an incredible knack of explaining wine basics in a non-pretentious manner that is easy to understand.  In my opinion her book, “Great Wine Made Simple: Straight Talk from a Master Sommelier” is a masterpiece.

However, in her annual “Wine Buying Guide for Everyone” pocket book, Ms. Robinson tends to be on her best behavior and watches all of her P’s and Q’s when commenting about each particular wine that she rates.  I only wish that I could be as polite as Ms. Robinson when trying to describe a really bad tasting wine!

What makes this annual buying guide great is that it focuses only on commonly found wines, unlike other wine buying publications that showcase so many obscure or hard to find wines that people like you and me will never have the opportunity to taste.

Ms. Robinson’s “Wine Buying Guide for Everyone” is a perfect title for this annual paperback book.  It’s a very user-friendly wine guide to wines that are found on almost every wine retailer’s shelves.  This pocket-sized guide lists and rates over 400 accessible wines commonly found on wine lists and at retail stores throughout the United States.  This paperback is packed with quick-reference tools including different “Best Of” lists and her personal “Top Picks” to name just a couple.  Ms. Robinson also does a fine job of assembling a wine and food pairing suggestions section as well.

Ultimately, what makes this guide, and much of Ms. Robinson’s work, so darn good is that she is in tune with what ordinary consumers want to know about wine.  She spends most of her time telling you what a particular wine tastes like rather than putting you to sleep with the stuff that the Average Joe could care less about.

The “Wine Buying Guide for Everyone” pocket book is a great practical, everyday wine tool that focuses on wines that you can actually find 9 times out of 10 just about anywhere in the United States.  My only beef with it is that Ms. Robinson tries way too hard to be a nice girl and exercises extreme caution not to say that a particular wine tastes so bad that she would be embarrassed to serve it to her dog.  An injection of some real grit and rawness would really make this annual buying guide exceptional!

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