Amanda Barnes has been awarded the John Avery Award for her The South America Wine Guide book, which was described as ‘heralding a new era’ in wine travel books.
The book, which is the result of a decade of research conducted by Barnes while travelling the continent, details the wine regions, wines and producers of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia and Peru.
It highlights over 70 wine regions and maps out 40 in detail — many of which have never before been mapped or documented in the English-language, according to the André Simon Food & Drink Book Awards.
‘The South American Wine Guide is a strikingly colourful tome with a refreshing visual format’, said drinks assessor Rose Murray Brown MW.
‘It is a very impressive first book from a young writer, with beautifully descriptive prose and breath-taking images highlighting the raw beauty of this dramatic continent.
‘This is the culmination of Barnes’ journey across this compelling continent. In this beautiful book she inspires us to visit and discover isolated remote places, offering insights into local foods, wines and cocktails with handy travel tips on where to stay and how to cope with altitude,’ she concluded.
In another wine win, Inside Burgundy: The vineyards, the wine and the people (second edition), by Jasper Morris MW, was awarded the Drink Award.
Having been based in the region since the 1990s, Morris was said to stand out from his fellow Burgundy writers due to ‘being ‘a true local’.
This second edition spans 800 pages, with expanded coverage of over 1,200 vineyards, 300 wine villages and 700 domaines.
‘For Burgundy lovers there is nothing comparable anywhere in the world of publishing,’ said Murray Brown. ‘This seminal work is a highly impressive, extremely well-produced reference book and the most authoritative guide to this fragmented region.
‘Morris now lives in Burgundy – and is part of the wine community experiencing its ups and downs. His understanding and knowledge of the region is unsurpassed and this book really takes us ‘inside’ Burgundy offering us his own personal astute view of this celebrated region.’
Other André Simon Food & Drink Book Awards 2021 winners include Dee Rettali – Baking with Fortitude (Food Award) and Dan Saladino – Eating to Extinction (Special Commendation).
The André Simon Memorial Fund was founded in 1978 to honour André Louis Simon, who wrote 104 books throughout his lifetime. Past winners of the awards include Oz Clarke, Elizabeth David, Michel Roux, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigel Slater, Rick Stein and Hugh Johnson.
