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TEN YEARS OF WINE BOOKS
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Press Release,December 31, 2004
The New World of Wine forces faster and faster changes in wine book publishing.
The Gourmand Awards for wine books celebrated their 10th anniversary in 2004.
The awards started at the Frankfurt Book Fair as one single competition.
There are now Gourmand competitions worldwide, and books are received in approximately 30 languages.
After 10 years, 228 different publishers from 40 countries have received a Gourmand Wine Book Awards. Over two thirds won only once. On the other hand 24 publishers are the leaders with multiple wins: see sections 7 and 8.
This unique global view of the world production of wine books provides Gourmand with the following conclusions on wine book trends.
There are 3 markets for wine books
The traditional market, the UK, the US, France, Spain and Germany are
now only 55 % of the quality wine book production, and their relative weight is going down.
In the new market, the output is increasing fast in quantity and quality led, by Scandinavia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Brasil. Though they are traditional markets for wine consumption, the Benelux, Switzerland, and Austria are acting like new markets for wine books. Globally, the new market represent 20 % of the production.
The emerging markets are all small, but there are so many that added together they already represent 25% of the quality wine book production. The start up rhythm and the demand for wine books is quite surprising in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
Conclusion: The fact that the wine books markets do not parallel exactly the production or consumption of wine is another sign of the tremendous changes going on in the world drinks markets.
Wine and Spirits Promotion through books
Books are used more and more for marketing and promotion, either globally for countries or wine regions, or by specific wineries and brands. The best promoters with wine books are probably Italy, New Zealand and South Africa. Australia could do much better, given their cookbook expertise and strength of their wine markets.
Wine Guides
There are now wine guides for old and new consumers. The traditional established guides find new and increased competition every year. Independent panels are expensive to maintain, and more and more guides rely on one expert writer. Most emerging markets now have very interesting guides for instance Ireland, Israël or Slovenia.
Books on Spirits
They are increasing in quality and quantity faster than wine books, spurred by the demand of new consumers for spirits information.
The wall between food and drinks does not exist for new consumers. There are more and more books on matching food and wine, as well as cooking with wine, beer or spirits.
Photography is winning against text. In successful books, photography is increasing its share of the space, driven by the demand from readers.
Very few publishers only publish wine books, but some who are specialized have received the highest number of awards over 10 years:
Mitchell Beazley (UK) 16 awards
Feret (France) 7 awards
Wine Appreciation Guild (US) 7 awards
Carlo Cambi (Italy) 5 awards
Vinothek (Austria) and Pi-Erre José Penin (Spain) are also excellent, with 3 awards each.
A few big publishers have strong expertise for wine and spirits books. The following publishers all received 5 to 3 awards for wine books in the past 10 years.
The list of Best in the World wine books winners for 2004 will be released at the February 11, 2005 gala dinner in Sweden. All winners from the past 10 years who will come to Sweden will be specially and personally honoured.
Wine book publishing is an opportunity for small publishers. 73% of our winners are small publishers producing less than 10 books a year. It is often difficult to find these titles. The awards maximize their exposure.
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