✒ Book Reviews
New Book Round Up – 2020
▴ Wine Conversation’s recommended books
Jane Anson’s new book, “Inside Bordeaux”, published by Berry Brothers & Rudd, is one of the definitive books on Bordeaux. John Stimpfig comments “It’s very timely, as Bordeaux has suffered some bashing in the recent past, and some people may have forgotten what’s special about it. Anson has recast Bordeaux in the light of terroir, highlighting its soils and the role of those gravel terraces; the maps especially are fabulous, and reinforce the point, as do the descriptions in the listings of hundreds of chateaux. It’s a big book, and outstanding, of interest to wine lovers as well as professionals. I’m not surprised it’s selling well, I think there’s pent-up demand for information like this.” Reviewed in Omnibus First Edition.
Hugh Johnson’s “The Story of Wine”, published by Academie du Vin Library, has been out of print for quite a while. Stimpfig says “Hugh Johnson is certainly the man with the golden pen, and this book, following on from his brilliant TV show 30 years ago, is an amazing work of scholarship—it truly is the story of wine. Hugh is like a time traveller, going from ancient Egypt and Greece, taking in so many of the great stories that occur in the broad sweep of history, right up through the 20th century. It’s timely, from the greatest wine writer of our age.” Reviewed in Omnibus First Edition and discussed in Let’s Talk About… “The Story of Wine”.
“The Wines of Germany” by Anne Krebiehl MW won the Louis Roederer Wine Book of the Year for her comprehensive new book on German wine. Published by The Infinite Ideas Classic Library this is a book every wine lover should have, not on their shelf, but in their hands, because if anyone is going to get people drinking German wine again it is Anne Kreibiehl. It is a remarkable feat of scholarship and research, but the power of this book is Krebiehl’s ability to explain the most complex of subjects, whether German wine laws or “mineral taste” which she describes as “a semantically treacherous term” with clarity and a captivating writing style which makes you just want to turn the page. Highly recommended.
“Gerard Basset – Tasting Victory: The life and wines of the World’s Favourite Sommelier”. The late Gerard Basset, who created the Hotel du Vin mini-chain, was acclaimed when he won the title of “world’s best sommelier”, and served as a judge in numerous wine competitions. Master of the classic Gallic shrug and understatement, he made it all look easy, but this memoir details his gruelling education as he climbed through the ranks of the wine world, and the arduous preparations for the tests that made him internationally famous. The book is unashamedly inspirational, and generously presents an abundance of insights into wine and its appreciation. Published by Unbound.
Recommended novels where wine takes a prominent role:
“A Gentleman in Moscow”, by Amor Towles, is a wonderful novel, and probably the ultimate lockdown book, as the hero is literally locked down, under house arrest in the elegant Metropol Hotel in Moscow after the Russian revolution. He is indeed a gentleman, the aristocrat Count Alexander Rostov, and he dines rather well there, and wine is interwoven throughout the story—the wine cellar of this grandest hotel has more than 100,000 bottles, and the hero is a connoisseur. Politics is woven through as well, nowhere more hilariously than when the hero upsets a sommelier, who complains to the authorities that the wine cellar is in fact counter-revolutionary; the politicians agree, and all the labels are removed from the wines, which are all then sold at the same price, in the name of equality. Our hero enjoys the challenge of what becomes a truly blind tasting every night with his dinner! Reviewed in Omnibus First Edition.
“Sideways”, by Rex Pickett, is the novel the great film is based on, and it’s very entertaining in its own right—there are many touches here that were left out of the film (including the reference to the title, which is actually a description of how they get when they’re intoxicated). It’s a lovely novel, a good blend of drama and comedy, often poignant, and then great humour as the author skewers us wine geeks hilariously—it’s often close to the bone, and done quite well. Reviewed in Omnibus First Edition.
“My Italian Bulldozer” is by the very prolific Alexander McCall Smith, who also created the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series and other novels. This one’s about a food writer who goes to Montalcino to research a book and discovers, when he arrives at the airport in Italy, that his car-hire reservation has been mixed up, and the only available vehicle is a bulldozer. . . which he accepts, and drives to his destination. He befriends a winemaker, whose vineyard is just a tiny bit away from the border of a much better appellation, and they decide to move the line just that little bit over, and improve his fortunes. There are complications, of course, unlikely but mostly comical—it’s an absolute joy. Reviewed in Omnibus First Edition.
Wine map guru Chris Foulkes talks about the history of wine maps, and Jane Anson’s new terroir maps of Bordeaux.