Amanda Barnes‘ tome to the wines of South America, The South America Wine Guide: The definitive guide to the wines of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia and Peru, was published last month and is now available in hardback and as a digital book.
“I’m thrilled to finally have my guide to South American wine out and be able to share it with everyone, and thank you so much to the members who pre-ordered and supported me from the get go! The guide is really the culmination of my decade spent living in South America and was written on the basis of thousands of interviews with winemakers, agronomists and wine families around Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru and Bolivia.
“It’s a rather big book — it gained a bit of weight in lockdown and is now a chunky 528 pages — but I hope it provides a detailed guide to the continent’s wine regions: those that are both well known to members and also some off-the-beaten-path regions which will hopefully be new to even the most savvy wine experts!
“On the advice of some fellow members (thank you especially to Wink Lorch and Simon J Woolf for their help!) I decided to self-publish. It has been quite the journey, especially managing a freelance team based in Argentina during the pandemic, but I really wanted full creative freedom and control with the book. So on my head be it!
“One of the greatest challenges over these past two years was developing all the maps, which were in many cases first sketched by hand with the help of winemakers around the continent, and are the first of their kind to go into such detail in the wine regions of South America. When I interviewed Hugh Johnson in late 2019, I was relieved to hear that he very much did the same thing with his first edition of The World Atlas of Wine. Although while Hugh was sending his maps via post to winemakers, I had the benefit of being able to ping mine off over Whatsapp and email!
“The book is already available as a hardcopy online https://southamericawineguide.com/book/ and as an e-book version on my website and the cookie monster we call Amazon. If any members would like to review The South America Wine Guide, please get in touch. I’m really keen for feedback and would love some help from colleagues getting the word out!”