Wine Grapes by Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and Jose Vouillamoz

One of the inspirations behind this website was a TV program by Jancis Robinson, sometime around 1990. In the program she said something like

Since then I have read plenty of her books including Confessions of a Wine Lover and the World Atlas of Wine. And of course the Oxford Companion to Wine is always on my desk.

So I was delighted that Jancis, along with two co-authors has bought out this wonderful book.

Click image to order your copy

This book of special interest to all readers of this website. I use it almost on a daily basis. It is my ultimate reference for varietal information on this website.

A review of Wine Grapes

Written by my friend Mark Greenaway

Firstly, I have nearly every book on wine grapes and I am not easily impressed. That said, this tome is expansive, exhaustive and impressive.

It covers nearly 1400 distinct grape varieties; has 1242 pages; a table of variety by country of origin; 14 pedigree diagrams; a large bibliography; and 80 colour plates taken from Ampelographie (1901-1910). This is the seminal French work, and even the 1991 reprint of the 7 volume work currently sells for about 1300 Euros.

Back to Wine Grapes.

Each variety has a description, grape colour, synonyms, origin and parentage, viticultural characteristics, where its grown and what it tastes like. There is at least 1 entry for every letter of the alphabet (for those fellow weirdos among you who are interested in such things).

This book looks very impressive, a solid hard cover book in an equally substantial sleeve. Its contents match its presentation.

This is an important piece of work that will appeal to everyone interested in wine and viticulture. For the serious student it covers the current grape genetics, thanks to the input of Jose Vouillamoz. For those of you that are trying to joining the "Wine Century Club", or upgrading to become a double, triple or beyond member, then this book is full of inspiration. For those just interested in alternative varieties, then this makes a great coffee table book to just pick up and read an entry.

In short, if you are only going to have one wine grape book, then this is it! (sorry Darby).

If you are looking for hints for Christmas presents, any wine lover would love to find this under the tree on Christmas morning, especially if they read Vinodiversity.

Reply by Darby:  Well yes Mark, perhaps this book does put my publishing efforts in the shade. It is certainly a beautiful and informative publication.

buy your copy

This book is not cheap.  The hard copy will cost you about the same as a dozen bottles of good wine. The thing is the book will last a lot longer than the dozen bottles.

But the good news is you can get the Kindle edition for the cost of one bottle, and you can carry all that information around with you on your phone.

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