Think of California wine, and Napa, Sonoma, and the burgeoning vineyards in the Central Valley immediately come to mind. In EXPLORING WINE REGIONS: The Central Coast of California, the third book of a series, Michael C. Higgins ventures farther south with a glossy and comprehensive look at the wines of the Golden State’s Central Coast.

The book is organized along conventional guidebook lines, and the assumption of easy familiarity with the language of viticulture demonstrates that this book is aimed at foodies and wine aficionados. Each region is dealt with in turn, with wineries, restaurants, and lodging-places receiving usually between one and two pages of coverage—complete with photography of vineyards, cellars, and tasting rooms that are frequently excellent and never less than good. Price ranges are appended for wines, food, and lodging.

What emerges is a good, straightforward guide to the Central Coast’s varied vineyards and associated eateries, though some of the wine descriptions are less critical than they could be. Author Michael C. Higgins is ultimately less interested in the strengths and weaknesses of this or that wine than he is in being effusive about the wines he really likes. One peculiarity is the inclusion of material that has nothing to do with wining and dining: a few pages devoted to the admittedly-impressive Monterey Bay Aquarium, and half a dozen pages that are given over to the wines of Mexico’s Baja California—which surely would have been better suited to a forthcoming addition to the book series devoted to that region.

The other element that takes the sheen off the production is the very large number of petty typos. The book gives off the impression of having been proofed by computer and not by the human eye, as most of these are mistakes that do not get picked up by the average automated spell-checker. On page 87 alone we see references to “Hansel and Gretal” and citizens who “rebel being citified.” “Americas” is used for “America’s” and Carmel-by-the-sea’s wineries are described as being “quite diversity.” Elsewhere we get “move” for “moved,” “onsight” for “onsite,” “an evolving wine regions,” “The furniture it’s extra comfy,” “This is an just a generalization,” and so on. For anyone reading at all attentively, the effect is distracting and frustrating. Given the effort expended on the book’s visuals, the perfunctory proofreading is a curious and disappointing oversight.

Michael C. Higgins’s EXPLORING WINE REGIONS: The Central Coast of California is a good, solid guide to the region’s vineyards, but certain peculiarities of content and large numbers of typos take the gloss off the production.

~Craig Jones for IndieReader