Author Description

Product Description The Australian Wine Vintages 2004 Gold Book™ is the world’s number-1 selling pocket wine guide, having sold over 850,000 copies worldwide since its 1979 introduction. This unique and famous annually updated wine guide, the Gold Book is arguably the planet’s premier must-have guide to every drinkable wine produced in Australia and a handy resource for not only the ordinary consumer, but also the avid wine collector. In its 21st edition, and long considered the bible, the Gold Book is a 398-page, five-color, soft-cover, pocket-sized encyclopedia, which includes over 14,300 entries, 1,525 wines from 360 winemakers and full-color reproductions of virtually each wine label. Each wine is ranked out of a maximum of 5 stars by author Robin Bradley (including some superb wines which earn the Gold Star status - among the great wines of the world) In addition, the winemaker rates each vintage of each wine (from 1 to 7) and stipulates the ideal year to drink it. There is also a dollar value calculated for every entry (except where the ideal time to have drunk the wine is prior to now). About the Author Robin Bradley was born in Melbourne, Australia, to a musical family on St. Valentine's Day in 1937. His earliest experiences with wine were at the family's Sunday roasts, where all the children were given a glass of wine and water, the proportions of the former increasing and the latter decreasing as the children grew older. After matriculating at the age of 15, he found that Melbourne University would not accept him until he turned 17, so he studied to be a concert pianist. Lack of talent, he says, intervened, and, after a succession of jobs which included delivering groceries and teaching piano, he joined the A.B.C. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Writing Talks and Programming in 1957. During this time he was accepted as a member of Les Amis du Bon Vin, a small but intensely dedicated