Awards and citations:


1997: Le Prix du Champagne Lanson Noble Cuvée Award for investigations into Champagne for the Millennium investment scams

2001: Le Prix Champagne Lanson Ivory Award for investdrinks.org

2011: Vindic d'Or MMXI – 'Meilleur blog anti-1855'

2011: Robert M. Parker, Jnr: ‘This blogger...’:

2012: Born Digital Wine Awards: No Pay No Jay – best investigative wine story

2012: International Wine Challenge – Personality of the Year Award




Monday 27 December 2010

Two new ebooks: Georges Meekers and Ryan O'Connell


Two ebooks on lesser known wine areas have just been published: Georges Meekers' revised edition of his Wines of Malta and Ryan O'Connell's first venture into publishing with Wines of Carcassonne – The Cabardès AOC.


Georges Meekers@Medina, Malta

I have yet to see a copy of Georges' new book but details can be found here and it can be downloaded from Amazon here on a Kindle for £4.45.

Ryan O'Connell 

The Cabardès is a lesser known appellation just to the north of Carcassonne. Along with the Côtes de Malepère, it is on the border between the vineyards of the Mediterrean and those of the Atlantic. Naturally featuring grape varieties typical of both climatic regions.

Ryan's book can also be downloaded from Amazon onto a Kindle here for £2.21. It strikes me that this is still work in progress, although it is already a useful guide for someone visiting the region. He makes good use of the interactive map to Carbardès on page 9. However I would like more detailed profiles of the vignerons as some are rather perfunctory. Also more background detail would be good. Ryan mentions that Cabardès is cooler than the adjoining Minervois to the east. By how much? A few weather stats here would be illuminating. These details can easily be added in a later edition.
 

Also I'm not sure whether it is my screen setting but some of the text is squashed down – needing a few tweaks on the publishing programme to sort it out.

However, it is exciting to see the possibilities of self-publishing through organisations like Amazon.  

2 comments:

Luc Charlier said...

Jim, I’m thrilled at the perspective of knowing all about Malta’s wines.
Still, I’d rather read about Malta’s whiskies and Mathilda’s waltzes.

Anonymous said...

There is the old joke about Maltese wine:

The old vinter lies dying and summons his sons around him and has them lean close and gives his partng words of advice - "It is also posible to make wine from - grapes..." Connsternation all round,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (I was in Ireland for Xmas -5C in the day -15 or less at night - a chilly walk back from the pub)

Graham