About two years ago, a colleague of mine tried roping me into writing a book on the wines of Mallorca. I was all for it as Mallorca is gorgeous and there are some really interesting varieties and producers there. In the end, it didn’t really get off the ground and instead I ended up writing this report. In many ways that was a rather good turn of events as it turns out this book, Mallorca & Wine was being written and ultimately released in 2024.
Authors, Jürgen Mathäß, Thilo Weimar, and Wolf Wilde have presented a fine hardbound book that’s very nicely designed and in a compact format offering nice photos in a visibly-attractive package. While it may be a touch too large to take on holiday for some, it generally sits in a nice midway point where you can carry the book with you. Most importantly, I’ll take a hardbound edition any day over the format of the Classic Wine Library books which have to date been paperback and get very tatty very quickly despite costing 43€.
Mallorca & Wine is a very complete book with profiles for all the wineries on the island as well as history, maps, and a list of wine activities for those visiting. If you’ve any interest in the wines of Mallorca, it’s definitely a book to pick up as it will serve you well.
My main issues are twofold in that, there’s something of a strange weight given to profiles. Some, which are very important, dynamic producers like Mesquida Mora only see two pages. While others that are larger and frankly, less interesting, see more. Additionally, as the authors are German (or at least German speaking) there are larger profiles for wineries or other businesses on the island that appear to be German owned. That’s obviously fine and probably better for a German edition (which there is), but not English.
This plays into the other and potentially larger issue that the text is rather jarring to read. It’s hard to know if this English edition was mostly auto translate or not, but it’s very heavy text that doesn’t read like a native English speaker wrote it. The information is all there, but it will take a bit of patience to chew through it.
Beyond these issues it’s the most comprehensive and complete guide to the wines of Mallorca to date, so it serves its function well and works as a good jumping off point to great exploration.
★★★☆☆
Review copy provided by the publisher
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