The latest compendium from Académie du Vin Library, and probably the most anticipated so far. Edited by Susan Keevil, the anthology brings together Burgundy’s most celebrated authors and experts, whose insights here embrace the two grapes (Pinot Noir and Chardonnay), the two slopes (the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune) and the hillsides that surround this region. They answer the questions everyone asks: Why do these wines taste as good as they do? Who makes them this way?

• Bottled Alive! How the best burgundies are still living, breathing and evolving when they reach our glass...

• What is a Burgundian? Jasper Morris MW reveals the true character of this far-from-saintly bunch...

• A Delicate Topic in Burgundy: the truth about Burgundy’s historic frauds and fakes

• Can Good Burgundy ever be for normal people? What chance is there for mere mortals when the A-listers and plutocrats snap up the best?

• Climate Change: Will Burgundy see our children into the future?

• Saints Preserve Us! The revolutionary growers who led Burgundy out of its medieval slump...

• Of Montrachet and Moon Phases: the way biodynamics has shaped Burgundy’s modern wines

• Wine Into Words: Burgundy’s most beautiful, evocative descriptions from the hands of the master scribes

• Contributions from Allen Meadows (aka Burghound), Jasper Morris MW, Douglas Barzelay, Eric Asimov, Jay McInerney, Aubert de Villaine, Gerald Asher, Tim Atkin MW, John Atkinson MW, Raymond Blake, Stephen Brook, Jeannie Cho Lee MW, Elaine Chukan Brown, Clive Coates MW, Randall Grahm, Anthony Hanson MW, Natasha Hughes MW, Daniel Johnnes, William Kelley, Don and Petie Kladstrup, Matt Kramer, Anne Krebiehl MW, Simon Loftus, Kermit Lynch, Jane MacQuitty, Alex Maltman and Sarah Marsh MW

"This book adds another tasty morsel to the Burgundian feast." Jasper Morris MW

"It should appeal to all wine lovers, the Burgundy enthusiasts of course, but also those who wish to discover this intriguing region. From novice to expert, there is something for everyone. Each page contains a fact, an idea or an image to taste and meditate on." Aubert de Villaine

When things turn out right for Bordeaux, as they frequently do, its wines can be sublime. They inspire thousands of tributes, from Samuel Pepys’ succinct reviews to the most rhapsody of Michael Broadbent’s tasting notes—in short, over 300 years of wine writing. On Bordeaux is a collection of the best bits from our best-loved wine writers, critics and commentators, set around ten themes that make Bordeaux tick. And who better to introduce the collection than Jane Anson, who writes in her introduction: “multi-layered, clear-eyed, moving and often extremely funny [this] collection of stories… celebrates, illuminates and renews our understanding of Bordeaux.”

An expertly curated collection of essays written over 50 years between 1971 and 2021, On California captures the essence of the state’s spectacular wine country. Across 39 articles by 35 authors, it delves into the hopes, fears and dreams of the 18th-century pioneers who first shaped it, and what motivates 21st-century visionaries who currently pave the way. It charts the triumph over phylloxera and Prohibition, the mighty influence of the Pacific, and the plus points of a seismic hot zone. Then how, at the whim of one modest English wine merchant, a simple blind tasting in 1976 made the world sit up and notice the wines this extraordinary region was creating.

California wine boffins, whizz-kids and scientists tell their stories on its pages—some via precious archive material, others through their thoughts mid-pandemic. We particularly enjoyed the articles from William Kelley (“Nowhere has the definition of ripeness been explored more thoroughly, or pushed to greater extremes, than in California’s Napa Valley”) and Randall Grahm’s penetrating essay on sustainability and a future made uncertain by climate change. But between the covers there is no dead weight.

The book includes contributions from Randall Grahm, Gerald Asher, Steven Spurrier, Paul Draper, Warren Winiarski, Dr William Kelley, Jane Anson, Elaine Chukan Brown, Karen MacNeil, Esther Mobley, Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Liz Thach MW and Kelli White, Hugh Johnson and Fiona Morrison MW, Harry Waugh, Harry Eyres, Adam Lechmere, Brian St Pierre and Natasha Hughes MW.

On Champagne brings together a compendium of thoughts, opinions and conclusions of the world’s finest Champagne writers under a single roof. Eight sections divide 41 essays into themes including the brands, styles, history (the ‘Eleven eras of champagne’), terroir, innovation and future (from Sherman tanks to spaceships). Complied and edited by the richly talented Susan Keevil, the essays—written between 1882 and 2022—weave together a tapestry of tales presenting the reader with a vivid and multi-layered collage of the region.

It’s a journey that starts and ends with capturing that sparkle in a bottle and, along the way, tutors us with the nuances of its chalky terrain, the determination of rebels from Ambonnay to Avize, and the mystery of a Champagne cellar under the sea. We meet the pioneers who created the great Champagnes of the past and the personalities who are greening this landscape, nurturing it through climate change to shape the exquisite Champagnes of the future. Bringing levity, the compendium’s heavyweight narrative is punctuated by historical essays such as Evelyn Waugh’s Fizz, Bubbly, Pop in the Swinging Sixties (“Gruesome attempts have been made in New Jersey to produce an equivalent”). Simply, On Champagne is an essential volume for every Champagne lover’s bookshelf.

Contributors include Tom Stevenson, Essi Avellan MW, Hugh Johnson, Serena Sutcliffe MW, Peter Liem, Tyson Stelzer, Andrew Jefford and Robert Walters, with the ‘modern era’ welcomed in by Evelyn Waugh.

This is the story of twelve friends who gathered to share and celebrate the most extraordinary wines of Bordeaux. Neil McKendrick, member and minute-taker for fifty-seven of the Club’s seventy memorable years, weaves the tale of this convivial group with the rigour of a Cambridge academic and the humour of a born raconteur. He celebrates the beauty of top-class Bordeaux and the splendour of each setting—from glorious country houses to rickety Dickensian boardrooms—in which these men were lucky enough to dine, serving up memories of vintages the likes of which we will never see again.

In The Bordeaux Club:

• ‘Well over 1,000 bottles consumed…’: Bordeaux’ top wines described by the brilliant Hugh Johnson, Michael Broadbent and Steven Spurrier

• Verdicts and opinions from the historian Sir John Plumb, ‘the rudest man in Cambridge’

• 1865, 1929, 1945, 1961, 1985, 1990… the highlights of these six famous Bordeaux vintages are revealed

• Haut-Brion, Lafite, Mouton-Rothschild, Margaux and Latour – the Médoc’s first growths appraised by the finest palates

• From the grandeur of Saling Hall (Essex) to the extensively portraited Master’s Lodge at Caius College, Cambridge: 16 perfect settings for wine enjoyment

• Keeper of the deepest cellar (and partner to most notorious wife), Lord Harry Walston’s irresistibly scandalous lifestyle explored

• Notes of the author’s extraordinary £1 purchases from the Caius College Cellar (Latour 1928, Lafite 1945) – for sale at this low price because the dons couldn’t drink them with pineapple…

• Abominations and anomalies, the wines that courted controversy: white burgundy, Moscato d’Asti and the contentious clarets of 1927

Steven Spurrier was one of the wine trade’s most influential figures. Over the years, he took the role of wine merchant, buyer, wine educator and lecturer; he wrote books, wine courses and over 300 columns for Decanter magazine. He also set up the breakthrough ‘Judgement of Paris’ in 1976. This memoir reflects Steven’s life charting the incidents, adventures, ideas and discoveries that formed his wine journey. Along the way, he had the privilege not only to taste the finest wines but to judge them and work with the winemakers who created them.

Hardback
Pages: 288
Published by Académie du Vin Library 2020

Arguably Johnson’s most enthralling and enduring work, The Story of Wine is one of the essential volumes on every wine student’s curriculum. It tells with wit, scholarship and humour how wine became today’s global phenomenon, varying from mass-produced plonk to rare bottles fetching many thousands. It ranges from Noah to Napa, Pompeii to Prohibition to Pomerol—gripping, anecdotal, personal, controversial and fun.

In his foreword the celebrated historian Andrew Roberts writes: “The genius of The Story of Wine derives from the fact that it is emphatically not a dry-as-dust academic history – there are dozens of those – but an adventure story, full of mysteries, art and culture.” This new edition includes Hugh’s view on the changes wine has seen in the past 30 years. It’s a cast-iron classic.

First published in 2005 as ‘Wine, A Life Uncorked’, this new edition has been updated by Hugh to take in two decades of change in the wine world. In the world of wine writing, Hugh Johnson is a titan. No one writes so infectiously on every aspect of wine, whether human or cultural, technical or historical. This book is peppered with anecdotes and personal recollections, infused with the sheer delight Hugh finds in his subject. It is a book with a story and a mastery of wine to impart.

In the book:

• First published in 2005 as Wine, A Life Uncorked, this new edition has been updated by Hugh to take in two decades of change in the wine world.

• The First Duty of wine: getting to know the luxury red wine icons Bordeaux and Burgundy (which has the lion’s share in Hugh’s cellar).

• Technical Stuff: Hugh learns about winemaking the hard way: by growing and making it his own French Sauvignon Gris.

• The Wilder Shores of Wine: tracking wine’s origins in Georgia, the cradle of viticulture.

• The Bordeaux Persuasion: from the Médoc to Martha’s Vineyard – Hugh seeks out the world’s great Cabernet Sauvignon-based reds.

• NEW Foreword by Eric Asimov

• NEW Digestif! In this new chapter, Hugh reveals the wines that give him the most pleasure – the bottles he keeps in his cellar today.

• NEW On ‘Bubbly’: Hugh finds sparkling wine perfection among the grandes marques of Champagne and the fashionable new fizz of English vineyards.

Flexibound

Pages: 351

Published by Académie du Vin Library 2022

In the words of winemaker Randall Grahm, Andrew Jefford is “the most thoughtful person we have writing about wine”, so for many wine lovers, a new Jefford is the equivalent of the release of a new iPhone to Apple fanatics. 

In this beautiful and varied volume of essays, opinions and articles spanning 2007 to 2022, the author shares his fascinating observations gathered over decades of discovery. Jefford listened to and admires wine, wherever it comes from; old-school pretensions are turned on their heads, style points are disdained, stellar prices are dismissed and questions are asked... 

The book includes an edited copy of Andrew’s transcendental lecture to the Wine Communicators of Australia in May 2012: Wine and Astonishment. The aim of this, Jefford writes, “is to make wine strange for us again, and in so doing to freshen or re-make our mental relationship with it”. There is no other book on wine like it, except perhaps, one of the author’s previous works.

Written by the author described by Decanter as “the world’s most informed and accomplished expert on the wines of Bordeaux—bar none”, Inside Bordeaux is a masterwork in scholarship. Containing over 700 pages of in-depth writing, maps that are almost alarming in their detail, and incorporating newly commissioned and (literally) ground-breaking research into Bordeaux’s terroir, Janes Anson’s work is, by a margin, the most up-to-date and scientifically informed book in the Bordeaux canon. Indeed, with the bar set so high, this is a book unlikely to be surpassed in our lifetime (unless there is a second edition)!

Anson has lived and worked in Bordeaux for almost 20 years, and Inside Bordeaux draws on her extensive knowledge of the region and its people, leaving no stone unturned. The book includes 20 appellation overviews, each providing a summary of the area’s history and wine styles, and detailed facts and figures. The author’s coverage of the Châteaux themselves is unusually wide-ranging (covering 800 properties), while also shining a light on the region’s oft-neglected corners of Fronsac, Lalande-de-Pomerol, Castillon and Francs, Bourg and Blaye, et al.

Even with all the producer coverage, the book’s core focus is on terroir and the role of climate and soil in the shaping of Bordeaux’s wines. Anson writes that the intention was to “start assessing Bordeaux in the way that we more typically do for other fine wine regions, such as Burgundy, Barolo, the northern Rhône—by its soils, and by how these individual soils react to different growing conditions year on year.” Such an important theme has never been subject to such detailed and accessible analysis.

To peel back these layers, the author enlisted the expertise of a team of renowned scientists at the very forefront of the research into this region, including internationally acclaimed scientist and professor at Bordeaux University, Kees van Leeuwen, viticulturist David Pernet, climatologist and winemaker Benjamin Bois, and geologist and terroir consultant Pierre Becheler. Their cumulative research was so far-reaching that the book’s scope almost doubled in size during its development.

Aside from its scholarly depths, the publishers have equally created a highly functional work, where you can quickly get to whatever information you are looking for. The maps (a number of which are fold-out) are impressive in their detail and ambition, giving us a chance to see the topography, soils and climate of Bordeaux in both a new light and a new level of detail.

To say this is a book no Bordeaux lover or student of wine should be without is of course an understatement. But the book also acts as a siren call to those of us who have strayed from the region, perhaps frustrated by Bordeaux’s static system of classification, arcane distribution structure, and the crazy prices of the most famous wines (of course many less-famous producers are now looking like great value!) Anson writes that Bordeaux winegrowers “no longer want to concede to Burgundy the moral high ground on terroir and are determined to prove that the concept in Bordeaux is not something frozen in 1855, and that instead the interplay between grape, soil, climate and man is becoming ever more refined.”

Bringing a new perspective to what is still the world’s most famous wine region, this just might be the book to help give Bordeaux back to the people. This in itself is a feat, but writing such a comprehensive book that also reveals the terroir of the region like never before is next-level. Inside Bordeaux is a remarkable achievement and we recommend it highly.

There are many books about this most captivating of wine regions—but nothing comes close to Inside Burgundy for its comprehensive depth and detailed information on the vineyards, the wine, the vintages and the growers of this storied region. Since its first publication in 2010, this work has become indispensable for Burgundy lovers and the undisputed benchmark reference on the region.

 The exciting thing we can report here is that the fully updated, second edition takes things to another level! This edition spans a staggering 800 pages, with expanded coverage of 1,200 vineyards, 300 wine villages and 700 domaines. It offers detailed insider knowledge on the places and people that make Burgundy such a special destination for wine lovers. Jasper doesn’t only cover the Côte d’Or, but also Chablis, the Hautes-Côtes de Beaune and Nuits, the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais.

 The book includes 45 full-colour maps shining a powerful light on Burgundy’s complex network of vineyards and villages. In addition to the revised and updated maps since the first edition, it also includes six completely new ones, which illustrate the plot-by-plot holdings in individual Grand and Premier Cru vineyards.

 It’s also worth pointing out that Jasper Morris wrote and released the first edition when he was for heading up the Burgundy purchasing of Berry Bros. He now works exclusively as a critic and lives full-time in Burgundy, so you can also expect and extra level of critique in the second edition of Inside Burgundy.

How to Drink Australian is the modern wine book that Australia (and a world of wine drinkers) has been waiting for. Authors Jane Lopes and Jonathan Ross will be well known to our audience, not least through their days at Attica and The Rockpool Group, respectively. Since relocating to Nashville, they have established a successful import and education business—Legend—focused on changing the prevailing attitudes towards Australian wines in the States (where the big players control an overwhelming piece of the pie). Years in the making—and you’ll quickly find out why when you have a copy in your hands—How to Drink Australian is the most important book written on our country’s wines and wine culture in a long time. Set across 500 pages, and with telling collaborations from Kavita Faiella, Mike Bennie and Hannah Day, Jane and Jon have woven together a perceptive analysis of every significant wine region, bespoke illustrations and artwork, and hundreds of producer profiles. At the same time, Martin von Wyss’s gorgeously meticulous maps are second to none, and the photography is superb. Put simply, Lopes and Ross have knocked it out of the park.

This is a remarkably detailed and comprehensive survey of Australia’s contemporary wine scene—everyone and anyone in the wine trade owes it to themselves to own a copy.

Signed by the Authors. Forget everything you thought you knew about wine. Discover a whole new universe of wine culture and experiences with the founders of London's award-winning Noble Rot Magazine and Restaurant. “In a realm too often weighted by pretence and peacocking, the Noble Rot boys have drained wine of its bullshit, with a brilliant road map to loving bottles both great and small.” JON BONNÉ

Winner: Guild of Food Writers Drinks Book Award 2021

Shortlisted for the Andre Simon Food and Drink Book Awards 2020

The Times Drink Book of the Year 2020

Simonit&Sirch’s Spurred Cordon Methodology for spur-pruned vines is the companion manual to Marco Simonit and Pierpaolo Sirch’s indispensable seminal guide to Guyot pruning.
First published in Italian in 2016, the English translation boasts more than 400 images and covers every step for professional or amateur pruners to follow to achieve optimum balance and longevity in their vines.
The efficacy of Simonit&Sirch's pruning methodology is backed by robust scientific theory and extensive testing in vineyards across the globe. These guides offers clear step-by-step instructions for pruning vines to maximise vine health and minimise wood disease, from correct establishment to late maturity.

Recent decades have seen a revolution in vine pruning, and now arguably the most influential book on the subject is available in English. First published in Italian in 2014, Guyot Methodology: The Vine Pruning Manual to Limit Trunk Diseases is a ground-breaking handbook, offering the reader step-by-step instructions to Simonit's renowned approach to pruning, from vine establishment to maturity.

SIMONIT&SIRCH’s pruning methodology is designed to maximise the health of the vine and to minimise wood disease. Its efficacy has been proven in vineyards across the globe. Marco Simonit’s book provide a step-by-step guide to the establishment, pruning and restructuring of vines.

In Simonit’s own words, “In this book, you’ll find a complete picture of what happens inside a plant as a consequence of pruning wounds”. You will also find a comprehensive methodology on how to establish and prune vines to avoid such consequences. In short, this is an essential volume for any vineyard owner, viticulturalist, pruner, or simply anyone interested in the science and best practice of pruning.