The great Johnson

The great Johnson (Original title: Hugh Johnson's Wine Companion ) is a standard work of wine tasting by the author Hugh Johnson and was published in 2009 in the 6th edition . It contains ratings and tasting notes on more than 15,000 wines and their producers. The books are published by Hallwag- Verlag together with Little Johnson in paperback format. The English original edition first appeared in 1983.

Johnson is different growers , trademarks and trading houses and rated up to four stars. The stars are defined as follows:

• four stars: excellent quality for many years
• three stars: consistently high quality
• two stars: at least good quality
• one star: decent, consistent quality.

The book with some illustrations, tables and maps has almost 700 pages and describes the wines of renowned wineries from all wine-growing nations. In contrast to the annually published “little Johnson”, no value is placed on current vintages, but rather on background information such as cultivation methods and the philosophy of the winemakers. As in the smaller counterpart, the wine producers are sorted and rated alphabetically for each growing area, but described in more detail. In addition, every growing area is given a detailed, historical view. Half-page special topics such as “The aging potential of German wines”, “Style issues of Alsatian wines”, “Varietal and varietal wine” or “The most important grape varieties of Californian wines” round off the reference work.