The book’s stated audience is undergraduate and post-graduate students, viticulturists and winemakers, and given that the authors have a superfluity of research post-nominals to their names, one can expect some seriously high-brow content.

And there’s nothing in the book that disappoints that expectation. This book is only for the most serious student of viticulture and wine, who has a ready grasp of science.  From the grapevine, to its structure, function, growth, and berry production, the reader is taken through the current science and offered insight into practical aspects of the science.

The mechanism of scientific literature review, summarising research studies, and outlining them in the case of ongoing studies, is the main channel for content in this book. So while, for example, studies on shiraz, grown in a particular location, suggested a positive relationship between berry colour and wine score, the authors exercise caution at the idea of extrapolating these data too far beyond the specific location. An advantage of the format is that detailed insight into particular aspects of each subject can be presented, and these are then rounded out with additional references, and explanatory sections.

On many pages a small portion of text is centred in the column and in a different fount, to highlight the key point being expounded in main body of the text, for example in the section on wine style and quality the highlighted text is ‘we define grape quality as the suitability of a batch of grapes to produce a wine of high quality of a targeted style. Suitability is the key word’. Thus chardonnay ripened to make Champagne wouldn’t make an exciting still wine.

Indeed, the practical application of the science is a theme running at the heart of the book. This is not high-brow content for the sake of it.  Coloured symbols draw the eye to sections where practical considerations are offered, or questions posed to the reader, for example, on the efficient use of water, or are small berries an advantage for wine quality?

Further chapters cover fruit growth, water relations, climate and training the vine for particular locations, as well as a look at the vine in relation to its environment, touching on terroir, organics and biodynamics.

Temperature and insolation are key themes of climate at the scale of macro, meso, and microclimate. Where a study had previously suggested a positive relationship between colour and wine score, other studies show the regional temperatures best suited to colour compound synthesis are found in cool to warm regions, rather than cold, hot and very hot regions. Thus the reader is able to build a complex picture of the factors affecting grapevine growth and overlay on it the styles of wine to be made in order to hone possible vineyard locations.

Each chapter is littered with pictures, diagrams, graphs and charts, and extensive bibliographies so readers can further pursue particular points that pique their passion. Additionally, chapter summaries then draw the reader back to the main points, providing a succinct presentation.

One gets a feel for how microscopically complex a thing it is growing grapes for wine.  Finding a decent soil is only the beginning, but working with the climate to best express grape flavours and aromas is a whole another story. Do you want more monoterpenes (floral, citrus), methoxypyrazines (asparagus, green pepper) or norisoprenoids (honey-like, stewed apple) in your sauvignon blanc, for example? And according to the answer, where should you plant, and how should you manage your canopy? This book looks at those issues through the medium of longstanding and the latest science.

It’s not the snappiest of book titles, but it does do what it says on the tin. It’s the fifth book (Bordeaux, California, Champagne, Tuscany) in a series of similarly titled tomes from the team at magazine “the world of fine wine”, this one written by respected experts on Spanish wines.

There is a small first section introducing the regions of the title, their physical environment, grape varieties plus practices in the vineyard and winery. It then provides producer profiles of around 85 of the finest producers, including a detailed mention for each producer’s finest wines, of the title.

Five regions fall under the remit of the book:  Rioja, Navarra, Bierzo, Galicia including Rías Baixas and the north coast – Basque country or the Cantabrian coast – those regions “under the influence of the Atlantic”, the preface explains.

Not unsurprisingly, some two-thirds of the book centres on Rioja, with the other regions vying for the remaining third, but Rioja’s continued pre-eminence in the wines of Spain undoubtedly justifies this split. I was left wanting more about the other regions, but perhaps this is simply because I feel at least a little familiarity with Rioja.

The authors do dissect modern Rioja’s issues before embarking on their producer profiles. We learn a little about its three sub-regions – Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Baja, where climate seems to be the easy bit, with one end more Mediterranean influenced and the other more Atlantic influenced. But the three main soil types do not correspond neatly with the three sub-regions, though Alavesa does seem to have the premium on clay-limestone soils, whilst Alta mixes iron-clay soils with alluvials.

We’re brought up to speed on the developed dichotomy of Rioja style between ’classic’ long, old-American-barrel aged wines and the ‘new’ style based on new French-oak maturation.

In the other regions, it was good to read that the legend linking albariño with riesling has been dispelled by DNA analysis. Given albariño’s level of genetic complexity, a Roman origin is mooted for this and other local varieties including godello and treixadura.

It is these regions in north west Spain, those sitting in the corner above Portugal, where some of Spain’s most innovative wines are being made. We are all-too-briefly introduced to leading lights of this corner of the country, the likes of Ricardo Pérez Palacios, Raúl Pérez (both of Bierzo) and Soledad Bueno (Rías Baixas), as well as to the numerous local grape varieties.

Given its format of short introductory sections followed by 2-3 page profiles, this is a good book to have lying around for quick, five-minute reads on producers, each profile given life and colour by the plentiful and thoughtful colour photographs of the people and their places.

I’d imagined this was going to be a book about natural wines under a slightly different name to draw us in. But the reader quickly grasps this book is about more than the narrow, ‘natural’, narrative. It embraces the broadest discussion of wines of place within a treatise around the various environmental issues affecting viticulture and winemaking, as the authors draw together current thinking on how a sense of place in wine is achieved, including the place natural wine has in that tapestry.

It neatly brings together the different, sometime diffuse, strands of issues relating to the practice of increasing sustainability in wine-growing. It groups the various current initiatives in one place, and opens up for thought the major issues relating to improving the sustainability of the ways vines are grown and wines are made, arguing a connection to, and stewardship of, the land is vital to express terroir, or typicity. They argue the logical extension of this land stewardship carries on into the winery, where as few human interventions and manipulations as possible result in original wines. (Wo)man they argue (quite rightly to my view) is of course a necessary part of terroir expression – there is no “bubbling brook of Chablis” they write!

It opens up the discussion on terroir, on organics and biodynamics, and on yeasts’, ripeness’ and alcohol’s contribution to sense of place. It’s not until chapter 8 that the natural wine movement is opened up, after all the various winemaking interventions and manipulations have been outlined – the very things that the ‘natural winemaker’ seeks to minimise.  Natural wines are a hugely opined topic of fashion in the wine industry, often with so much opinion and less substantiation, so it was good to read about the thoughtful origins of this movement in Beaujolais in the authors’ refreshing, dispassionate style.

Given the paucity of scientific evidence for so many terroir effects, the pair do well to emphasise their own beliefs and suppositions where science does not yet have an authoritative (authentic?) answer, for example, they summarise received wisdom about minerality (a subject close to my heart) and explore it via anecdote and experiential evidence, which is about all there is at the moment. On this basis, there are plenty of subjects raised in this book from which academic scientists might be able to build research projects.

Disappointingly the pictures are reproduced in black and white, which may be good for production costs, but it’s not necessarily great to identify what’s trying to be shown. A central series of pages of colour plates might have been preferable, especially as the images don’t always relate directly to specific bits of text.

The individual experiences of case studies give good anecdotes, such as Nigel Greening’s (Felton Road) use of goats, rather than herbicide spray, to keep thorn bushes at bay, which subsequently themselves become dinner. Or Frank Cornelissen (making wine on Mt Etna in Sicily) discussing the more extreme end of the natural/non-interventionist spectrum.

Packed in between all these topics are chunky, detailed sections on winemaking matters that inform the authors’ views, and gets readers up to speed on the facts around such things as manipulations, yeasts and faults. Who knew that Saccharamyces cerevisiae is a lurker that uses the creation of alcohol to beat off the yeast competition?

I’m intrigued that the authors advocate certification of sustainable practices but seem not to have the same view with regard to organics, biodynamics, or natural wine. In that all these approaches should form one segment of wider sustainability, I tend to think certification of any of the approaches is the only really measurable route towards that wider sustainability.

This book has me nodding my head in agreement and shaking it occasionally in latent debate all the way through – which probably means it’s hit the mark for the authors. It’s a persuasive read in a calm, eminently readable style which makes the complex subjects hugely approachable and comprehensible.  Given the importance of these subjects, that is great work. I can envisage readily-thumbed volumes of this sitting on the bookshelves of wine enthusiasts and professionals alike.

Gladstone’s earlier book – Viticulture and Environment (1992) – was a seminal text on climatic and geomorphological influences on grape growing, and any sequel to that book has been too long in the waiting.

In this volume the agricultural scientist explores the history and science of soil and climate in wine production, and normalises the term ‘terroir’ for Australasian usage, where in the recent past the term had been a preserve of European expression.

The book kicks off with a three-page definition of terroir with the only possible conclusion that it comprises the total geography of a vineyard’s locale, and includes man’s intervention as “good wine reflects the terroir(s) of its origin”.  Scale of site can be small or large depending on climato-physical parameters.

So far, so uncontroversial, and the rest of the first half of the book explores the innumerable interactions that go to make up terroir.  To this end, there’s plenty of science and numbers in the book for the academic and quasi-academic reader to get their teeth into, presented in an eminently readable and persuasive style. Occasional hypotheses and discussion paragraphs appear, such as one relating ‘grape ripening to root-produced hormones, influenced by a combination of both soil and atmospheric conditions.’ These are accompanied by countering arguments to the hypotheses, and a fully referenced text directs further research for anyone so inspired.

Effectively, Gladstones expounds temperature as the big climate driver of viticulture location and growth development, on which other big things overlay, such as continentality, cloud cover, luminosity, day length, wind and humidity.

He then neatly delves into above-ground geomorphology before exploring the below-ground environment of root functioning, where the influence of water is a common denominator of both locales. Temperature of soil and roots is discussed as a significant terroir effect.

Much of the second half of the book concerns itself with natural and man-made factors of climate change, with the author reviewing and critiquing previous studies as well as the premises for some of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) modelling.

Controversially, perhaps, Gladstones concludes that the effects of climate change, at least viticultural climate change, have been over-egged. He concludes viticultural Europe was warmer in the Medieval Warm Period of 900 to 1300 than in the late 20^th century, before submerging into the 15^th century Little Ice Age, from which Europe began to emerge properly only in the 19^th century. Gladstones suggests this as an explanation for the recent demise of very late ripening Bordeaux varieties carmenere and petit verdot, though it should be said the latter is in resurgent mood again in Bordeaux.

Gladstones presents his arguments in a likely and engaging read, weaving together the myriad factors affecting vine growth, the result of which is he poses more questions than he set out to address. There’s a huge amount of food for thought here for anyone interested in understanding why particular vine varieties do well in particular places, and where they might do well in the future.

Pun fully intended, this book offers a taster, as in an introduction, to the wine world, and the erudition of these four authors augurs well for an enjoyable and edifying read. And wonderfully edifying it is. The authors do a great job of bringing flavour alive on the written page, if such a thing is possible.  But don’t be seduced into imagining ‘introduction’ means coffee table book – there is no dumbing-down in this book, which is so much an all-in-one serious educational reference book.

Anyone wanting to cram on wine information could do well to read and inwardly digest this. Indeed there is information a-plenty in here for the non-novice, for example the section on ‘in-mouth’ textures and sensations brings together succinctly in one place, and explains, many of the terms used often to describe non-flavour aspects of wine – roundness, richness, tightness, texture.

The book starts with chapters on the story of wine, and vines and grapes, putting wine in context of the fermented beverage about which the thrust of the book concentrates.  This section neatly accesses much of the terminology of the wine world, getting the reader quickly up to speed with the language of wine.

As well as giving an engaging introduction to wine, the book introduces current themes such as regionality versus inter-regional blending, closure choices, the trend for grape varieties other than the ‘big six’ so-called international varieties, and wine and health. It finishes with a look at the food and wine pairing trend: matching or contrasting; power and weight.

Plentiful maps and pictures animate the world of wine and the diversity of vineyard environments around the world. These are complemented with easy to follow charts and flow diagrams to sum up otherwise complex information, especially in the main part of the book which details production, location, styles and flavours of the various categories of wine: sparkling, dry white, sweet white, red and fortified. Varieties are placed diagrammatically along the spectrum from light to full bodied, and snapshot boxes of flavour are there to help the reader pinpoint the sight, smell and taste summary for the main grape varieties.

While taking a global approach, the faintest Aussie slant to the perspective is to be expected, though one of the very few points for which I offer a Euro-perspective is that EU definitions of dryness levels differ marginally from the Aussie one. For example, EU dry white and red wines normally come in at less than 4g/l sugar (with exceptions). And classic dry reds in Europe are likely to be fully dry, that is, with less than 2g/l of sugar. Another notable point of difference is that a ‘standard drink’ of 10 grams of ethanol is Australo-centric.  Across the world units vary by country between 8 and 14g of ethanol.  But these points affect just two paragraphs of an excellent resource.

This is a bit like the wine equivalent of the Haynes car repair manual. It’s divided into subject groups, and within each category follows a useful question and answer format.

It doesn’t deal with any pro-active or preventative ‘winemaking’ in the vineyard, but deals with issues as they arise and may be experienced in the winery. So the book is targeting to be a ‘real time’ tool. Perhaps the preventative approach comes by reading it before the harvest.

As well as ‘pure’ winemaking issues, those of packaging finished wine and questions about winemaking equipment are included, with some questions appearing quite simple but yielding interesting and useful information, at least for a non-winemaker. For example, how many corks out of a 5,000 cork bale would I need to sample to assure a taint rate of less than one bottle in five cases?  And, what is stainless steel? And, how do I clean my wine tanks? The latter question yields a 33 point action plan. 

If the technicalities and options of problem-solving in winemaking have a regional bias, then it may be found here, as all the academic contributors are from USA institutions. In addition there are one or two non-academic contributions from practitioners outside the USA. Does this mean one should interpret that the USA has particular issues with Brettanomyces spoilage, as a full 54 pages are devoted to it; that’s more than 1/8^th of the entire book. Or is Brettanomyces a growing global issue that needs detailed attention? Nonetheless there are eminent names in the list of contributors.

Other answers are extremely succinct, for example, does filtration affect wine quality?  Answer – yes … but in both ways – it can clean up a wine, or take stuff out. Or, what is a yeast strain? Though this latter point doesn’t really qualify as problem-solving.

There is a mix of this type of short, information-providing entry of definitions, alongside the more detailed practical entries like how to perform a bubble point membrane filter integrity test, or how to store and rehydrate malolactic starter cultures. And while this is not an exhaustive manual on things that can go awry during winemaking and how to fix them, there is useful information here.

Read here for a review of volume 1.

Volume 2 of this erudite tale moves on to issues of winemaking and their effects on wine quality and style.  Further chapters are commissioned from specialists around the world, and a few major yeast, (and other winemaking products) manufacturers also share their expertise. 

Yeasts, oenologically good and bad, as well as research into genetically engineered yeasts, plus bacteria and enzymes are order of the day for this volume, both in respect of fermentation and maturation (sur lies).

Closures and various taints follow closely. Then icewines and sparkling wines each have dedicated chapters. Fortified wines are possibly an opportunity not to be missed in an ensuing edition.

Chapters review the current state of knowledge and practice, as well as targeting specific themes for greater detail. The chapter on enzymes kicks off with definitions and production methods, before outlining the regulatory framework for their use.  Methods of use and applications in winemaking are detailed, from the release of aroma compounds, to microbial stability, to increasing must yield and aiding clarification.

Given its trendy status, micro-oxygenation is explored in a combined chapter with oak alternatives and added tannins. As micro-oxygenation, with oak alternatives or with added tannins, is suggested as a (cheaper) alternative to barrel ageing, this arrangement makes good sense. The paucity of strong scientific study regarding some of the benefit claims of micro-oxygenation is stated. Despite the technique being in usage since its invention in the 1990s, it seems the first peer-reviewed scientific report was only in 2006.

The chapter on sparkling wine focuses on issues unique to bubblies, notably the foam, or the mousse. High quality results in a foam that creates a crown of relatively stable bubbles around the top of the liquid. This sort of foam is not found in liquids where the carbon dioxide is retained under pressure only. Good quality foaming bubbles need tensoactive compounds such as modest alcohol and glycerol to do their thing.  And we’re told 12% is the critical level of alcohol, above which wines are less bubbly. It’s probably no surprise that Champagne comes in at 12% abv.

These volumes state they are targeted at undergraduate and graduate level wine science courses. They seem adroitly suited to this audience.

This is self-evidently serious kit for the professional with individual chapters commissioned from senior academicians and researchers at universities and research institutes around the world.

Split into 3 parts, volume 1, by way of a neatly compiled collection of scientific papers, explains grape and wine sensory attributes, and measuring grape and wine properties, before exploring selected viticultural issues such as terroir and precision viticulture and how these issues can affect wine quality.  The papers bring together the latest thinking on aspects of wine quality.

The very first chapter succinctly summarises the various types of aroma molecule and suggests there are just over two dozen different odours that, in combination, explain most wine aroma nuances.

Consumers regularly (and erroneously) equate deep colour with high quality, and the paper from the AWRI focuses on why colour is so important, including aspects of astringency in red wine.  The complexities of managing colour creation in the vineyard are outlined.

In an era of increasing fraudulent practices, both at the luxury end as well as high volume brands, a chapter is devoted to authenticity and traceability, reviewing traditional and modern techniques used, such as HPLC (high-performance liquid chromatography) as well as FT-IR (Fourrier transorm infrared) and NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance), to ensure a wine is what it says it is. The latter two, we are told, are ‘more recently applied methods for determination of geographical origin and variety, respectively.’  

In terms of geographic origin, terroir remains an emotive word in the wine world, often defying colloquial translation, yet science determines to explain it. It seems fitting that this chapter emanates from terroir-central, Bordeaux. It states that terroir expression is enhanced ‘when grapes reach maturity at the end of the growing season and thus ripen in cool conditions’ so grape variety choice needs to be closely matched to the climate. But we are told any direct influence of geology remains elusive though experiments with soil have investigated relationships with grape composition.

There’s inevitably lots of chemistry in some of the chapters of this book, but even so, it’s not beyond the realms of the ordinary mortal. Ultra-detailed stuff can be skimmed without losing the thread of an individual paper.

This book, and its partner volume 2 (read review here) are likely to become part of the pantheon of the professional reference tool kit. They’re probably quite interesting for MW students too.

Elliott is a wine educator of very long standing, and in this book he brings together many years of specialist knowledge about Madeira.

He takes the reader carefully step by step, describing the various processes, challenges and issues of growing grapes in Madeira’s special sort of Mediterranean climate, as well as how the range of grape varieties has evolved in the modern era.

The initial fermentation of the must follows some similar stages to other wines, so, as well as understanding Madeira’s unique making process, readers will come away with some excellent details of general winemaking practice and some of the options that are available for making still light wine.

But it is the fortification and ageing process that make Madeira complex, almost indestructible and delicious.  Elliott explains how neutral grape spirit is used so as not to superimpose any of its own flavour on the resulting wine, and why the moment of fortification varies according to the style of wine being made – sweet styles being fortified early in the fermentation to retain as much natural grape sweetness as possible.

The complex maturation stage, which involves artificial or natural heating of the wine and some interaction with oxygen, are explained succinctly, as are the effects of this process on style.  Blending according to style and age specifications on the label is explained.

Elliott also devotes chapters on how best to store, serve and enjoy the various styles of this robust liquid, including explanations on the typical flavour profiles for each style. He even provides some food matching suggestions and some menus of ‘Madeira suppers’.

This book is jam-packed with facts, including some fine detail of the winemaking options employed by some of the eight remaining Madeira producers. Their need to carefully co-ordinate the harvest from more than 1, 300 grape growers gives ways to some specific logistical considerations. The contact details and profiles of the eight are provided, as is a list of the styles of Madeira each makes.

This is subtitled “The rise of women in the global wine industry”. We have the occasional woman in wine breaking the glass ceiling – the widow Clicquot was arguably one of the earliest, but this book occupies itself with charting the rise, with reasons, of 21^st century icons, mostly but not exclusively, renowned producers from across the world.

Context for the book illustrates that wine has evolved beyond its early domain of men. It is not just in the UK that women now comprise a core group of wine buyers by virtue of their doing the supermarket shopping.  And the production of wine, especially at the top end is peppered with iconic women who have carved their niche, and continue to polish it.

Rather than individually profiling each woman Matasar neatly threads their stories into themes across countries, contextualising each location before illustrating women who have succeeded, for example, despite the chauvinistic attitudes of France, albeit some inheriting ‘accidentally’ by dint of no (interested) male heir, such as Corinne Mentzelopoulos of Château Margaux, Anne Gros and Anne-Claude Leflaive, both of Burgundy. 

Italy too, has its prejudices, she outlines, countered, in part, by a formal network – Le Donne del Vino (women of wine) – which now spreads beyond the country’s borders.

The new world has arguably less tradition to equally preserve and overcome, and women in California, for example, comprise 10 to 15% of the state’s winemakers, though ‘disproportionately linked to the upper end of the industry, making coveted wines in minute quantities that sell for enormous amounts of money.” Something that sounds a little similar to the old world situation.   

In Australia, Matasar points out, the august Roseworthy college admitted its first woman – Pam Dunsford – as recently as 1972.  Women now comprise some 40% of oenology graduates, including the poised Louisa Rose of Yalumba.

Academics and educators such as Prof. Dr. Monika Christmann, Dr. Ann Noble, Dr. Carole Meredith and Mary Ewing-Mulligan, are highlighted in one chapter before looking at the cream of high profile sales and promotion which focuses on folk like Serena Sutcliffe, Hazel Murphy and Becky Wasserman-Hone.

This book’s discursive structure makes it an easy read, a stroll through the vineyard reviewing the whole, rather than a list of each vine comprising the vineyard.  And it’s a stroll laden with the succulent fruit of personal histories and evolution.

This is subtitled “The great wines of Burgundy through the perspective of its finest vineyards”.

In Burgundy, the quality echelon is embedded in the appellation system, which means that the top level of quality in Burgundy corresponds to a geographical area – also called grand cru. 

There are 33 grand crus vineyard sites, each individually named. Together they account for less than 1% of all of Burgundy’s production. This book explores the 32 located in the Côte d’Or. Chablis grand cru is not considered.

Superimposed on this geography – those 32 sites – are the sometimes many growers that have vines in the appellation. This is already complex enough and Norman’s other 2010 publication, The Great Domaines of Burgundy, (with Charles Taylor) looks at Burgundy through the eyes of individual producers.

Promotion to grand cru status is at least theoretically possible, so Norman also explores a handful of the top premier cru vineyards.

All 32 of the grand crus lie in the 50km by 1km stretch of faulted limestone outcrop that is the Côte d’Or. The universal truth is that some vineyards consistently produce better wine than others, thus the theme of terroir necessarily runs deep – the idea that specific site and all that it encompasses: soil, geology, grape varieties, climate, weather, under wo(man)’s husbandry, determine quality and individuality. Norman makes sense of this by breaking up into bite-sized chunks for discussion these components that we think comprise terroir: husbandry, soil, topography, morphology, geology, pedology and climate.

He also explores the grape varieties – just pinot noir and chardonnay – as well as touching on the diaspora of these two varieties. Clones and climate are also explored in more depth, as are managing vintage and vineyards.

Despite a 2,000 year history, Norman reveals pinot noir played minority fiddle to gamay until the latter part of the 19^th century. But since then an ongoing quest to improve quality continues to pervade.

Occupying more than half the book, each of the Côte d’Or’s grand cru vineyards is detailed, with size, number of owners and average production. The principal owners are listed, and emboldened for a particularly good source of wine.  The microscopy of the Côte d’Or is thus succinctly revealed. And for each grand cru Norman outlines the major terroir effects and offers comments on the styles to be found in each grand cru.

In Clos de la Roche, for example, the average vineyard holding is 0.43 of a hectare. This Morey grand cru is also revealed as the source of some of the best, and most widely dispersed, pinot noir clones, which are subsequently detailed in Chapter 6. By comparison, the scale of holding in Bâtard-Montrachet is nearly half that in Clos de la Roche.

This is a fine read and reference volume, and in conjunction with the earlier book, this one adds further nuance to one’s grasp of arguably the most diverse and complex patch of dirt in the world.

Over the past decade since this book was first published it has become a must-have information and reference tool for anyone interested in how wine is made.

This third edition is more than one-third bigger than the first. New things since last time include, for example, histamine and allergens, green harvest, flash détente, an expanded section on variants of carbonic maceration, esters, mannoproteins and reductive taint. If you’re unsure of what any of these, and other things, mean, the explanations are all there.

Indeed the book sets out its stall to explain the science of winemaking for non-scientists, and this it has always achieved extremely well.

As with all wine quality, it starts in the vineyard, taking the reader, step by step, through the production process and options.  With winemaking there is no one recipe, or formula.  Many different options exist depending on what the winemaker might be trying to achieve, so for example, whether to remove the juice from the grapes by using a basket press, batch screw press, open or closed bladder press, or a continuous screw press, is an important decision. Bird describes all these pieces of kit (and so many others), as well as pointing out the main benefits and drawbacks of each.

Who knows (apart from readers of the previous edition) what pH actually stands for? The revised EU limits for total sulphur dioxide are tabulated, and the new EU legislation is all in here – 1493/1999 replaced by 479/2008, which has brought in PDO and PGI for wine, bringing it in line with other foods.

Despite the sometimes dry nature of the subject matter, the book is down to earth and readily approachable, and it’s sprinkled with sometimes droll, personal observations.  One might not ordinarily expect an explanation of wine technology to contain phrases such as “Equally delicious … “, or “Once the exam has been passed, poetry can develop”,  but this is Bird’s way of reminding the reader that, despite its sometimes technical mode of production, wine is all about taste, flavour and pleasure.

I would have liked to have seen included in the fortified section at least a nod to the production method of Australia’s iconic Rutherglen muscats; maybe an entry for such things as pyrazines and thiols.  But perhaps some of these are still too esoteric for the mainstream. It’s a small detail, and I’m nit-picking. 

This remains a thoroughly stalwart volume for the bookshelf.

Because this is a print on demand book, Waldin sent me pdfs to review.  Which means it’s impossible to get a feel for the heft and smell and visual impact of his book. But ultimately no big deal – it’s the content that’s important.

Waldin’s first book on biodynamic wines was written in 2004, and he later made his own wines using biodynamic techniques in the south of France. So he is evidently a passionate advocate of biodynamic viticulture.

His book follows a logical process – outlining the origin of biodynamics, before detailing the preparations / treatments / infusions and what they do.  It is a little weird, though, having a chapter on how the book works as Chapter 10, which might have been better placed at the front.

Waldin’s definition of organic viticulture is a little disparaging, especially given the number of certified organic producers he cites in part 2, and I feel he rather glosses over the issue of copper build-up in the soil which is an issue for both organic and biodynamic viticulture. He does, though, devote a paragraph to this rather serious issue later in the book (p 130).

His ‘origins of biodynamics’ takes the reader thoughtfully through the ‘scientific substance versus spiritual signs’ arguments before embarking on discussing the preparations, with interesting history, anecdote and example, as well as the details of what each comprises and does; how to make and when to use. 

The importance of certification is addressed, as he says “As biodynamics has become such a buzz-word in wine there is a predictable trend of dyed-in-the-wool conventional wineries miraculously becoming “biodynamic” overnight.” This does mean when it comes to the wine, the onus is on the buyer to check the actual status of any producer.

Part 2, which comprises nearly three quarters of the book, gives the details of organic and biodynamic growers across the world, by country. I found this a little confusing as organic cultivation is incontrovertibly different from biodynamic cultivation. So reader beware: organic is most definitely not biodynamic.

Each country gets an introduction detailing some of their important organisations (each region in France), as well as the relative importance of combined organic/biodynamic viticulture. So about 1% of Australia’s vineyard hectarage is certified organic and biodynamic, about 3.5% of Austria’s vineyards etc., and the appendix usefully lists all these in a chart. The likelihood is, though, that most of those hectares are organic rather than biodynamic.

Waldin’s first sentence for each producer is their certification status which is unambiguous and helpful, though one or two producers appear to have been ‘in conversion’ for much longer than it takes to convert. 

As a minimum each producer has contact details listed. Most producers get a little or larger biography, and there are plenty of enjoyable stories among them. A few icons, including Alvaro Espinoza of Chile, Jean-Michel Deiss of Alsace and James Millton of New Zealand also get a picture.

Waldin rightly makes no comment on the quality of the wines being produced. A method of viticulture, certified or otherwise, gives no guarantee of better quality than any other method of viticulture.

This is a really good and enlightening read.

Physically the book is sensorially retro, with a sweet-earthy feel and smell, though it doesn’t say it’s been printed on any sort of ethically sourced paper, which probably means it hasn’t. It’s all attractive touchy-feely earthy tones and matt-finish pictures, which gives the whole thing something of a natural feel. And given that improving sustainability is a thread through the book, such a presentation is no surprise.

Allen succinctly sets the climate change scene as a partial motivating force for the ‘new Australian viticulture’ before delving into the main thrust of the book – terroir – and the producers who work to embrace and express it.

For 30 years and more the Aussies have diss-ed this French word, which has no encompassing translation, but means, pretty much, a combination of the land, the soil, the vines, the climate, the weather, (wo)man’s husbandry and stewardship, which results in wines that taste of where they’re grown. A sense of place. It’s wryly ironic, then, that the paradigm shift in Aussie viticulture which Allen explores involves the adoption of the terroir mantra, and more sustainable ways of growing grapes. But about time, frankly; Australia has hugely diverse vineyard regions.

The lion’s share of the book is devoted to discussing these new, and some well-established but evolving, pioneers. Allen brings them alive on the page, with pithy passages from the horses’ mouths. In this big section, interspersed among the producer listing, and on buff-coloured pages for ease of reference, are some detailed texts of the more prominent personalities for whatever classic, iconoclastic, fanatic, romantic reasons. For example, Michael Dhillon of Bindi is on these pages, as are the likes of Phillip Jones of Bass Phillip, Ron and Emily Laughton of Jasper Hill, Julian Castagna of Castagna and Peter Gago of Penfolds to name a few.

On other pages, highlighted in a greener hue, are small essays on wine industry developments such as Australia’s fortified wines, biodynamics, packaging and Tassie bubblies etc. It would have been good to have had a list of these anecdotal essays in the contents, but that’s the tiniest of gripes. The featured producers are all emboldened in the index.

The timing of the book could be a fillip for the Australian industry as it moves away from its old image of bargain basement ‘sunshine in a bottle’ wines to something more regional, more individual, more distinctive and distinguished.

As an aside, for UK readers to buy some of these wines, there may have to be an equivalent paradigm shift of shopping habits to indie merchants.

Chocolate Unwrapped, Sarah Jane Evans

Master of Wine Sarah Jane Evans is also one of the founders of the Academy of Chocolate, so she knows about taste, flavour, texture and those other nebulous associates of palate pleasure.

Be warned, this is not a book about everyday, ‘industrial’ chocolate. Cadbury’s (Kraft) is not listed among the more than 80 ‘proper’ chocolate producers profiled by Evans. Though Green and Black’s, which is owned by Cadbury’s, is.

Chocolate tasting notes read in a similar way to wine tasting notes, where aroma is just as important for chocolate as it is for wine. For Hotel Chocolat’s The Purist Singe Estate Dark, 72%, Evans writes “aroma of earth, red wine, redcurrants; taste: a lively character of red fruits opens up to savoury, textured roast, with a full palate and light grip of tannin on the finish.”

And where wine has the delicious sound of a cork popping (screwcap cracking?), and wine glugging into a glass, so it appears chocolate has a distinctive ‘snap’ – a technical term to describe the noise made as a piece is broken off.  It should be clean and crisp, Evans says in her chapter on ‘how to taste’.

The wine analogy doesn’t stop there. The new enthusiasm for chocolate focuses on increasing proportions of cocoa solids, and ‘terroir’ – site specificity – single origin, single estate.

Evans takes the reader through the history and process in a succinct first section, which is easily an excellent point of continual reference. It crosses countries, deals with Fairtrade and health (antioxidants).  That Evans has also made wine and chocolate matching something of a specialty area of expertise is no surprise, though she restricts herself to a modest part-page in this book to that particular challenge.

Section two is the directory of 82 chocolate producers from across the world. Each gets one double-page spread, offering a neat, single field of vision, reference. A bar of chocolate has been selected from each producer and organoleptically analysed, so the book could just be good reading, or could be a learning tool for someone wanting to get serious about chocolate – buy the bar and follow Evans’ notes while you taste your own.

UK producers are strongly featured in the book: Artisan du Chocolat, Chococo, Choxi, Demarquette, Hotel Chocolat, Melt, Montezuma’s, Paul A Young, Prestat, Red Star, Rococo, Sir Hans Sloane, Thorntons, William Curley, Willie’s Delectable Cacao, which must say something about the country’s love affair with chocolate.

This is a super book.  Though perhaps I should declare a conflict of interest – I love chocolate.

The weight of this ambitious tome may break the back of a less substantial coffee table, but don’t let that be a deterrent. Do consider mail order though.

The brief for the team of 38 writers, with specialist country or regional interests, was to recommend the best wineries in their specialist area, as well as emerging producers who may become future classics. Some 4,000 wineries from across the wine-producing world are listed, with a tight profile on each winery and its style.

There are also introductions to each region, with maps and plenty of label, and full bottle, shots which remind the reader what the book is all about. I prefer the full bottle shots, though they take more space. I can envisage grasping the bottle and feeling its shape and heft, and pouring it, which can’t be done so easily with just the label shot.

Rising stars are helpfully asterisked, and frequent sidebars provide snippets of information on interesting and extraneous matters. They are usefully headed, for example wine architecture (the new Cos d’Estournel cellar), wine people (Denis Dubourdieu, John Gladstones, Alvaro Espinoza), wine and food (Burgundy’s Bresse chickens and Epoisses, Rhône truffles, canard in France’s south west), wine travel (Vergisson and Solutré of Maconnais, Alsace, Liguria), wine styles (Provence Rosé, carignan renaissance, several pinot noir stories), etc. Sidebars on the other page highlight the main grapes and recent vintages for each region.

Websites are detailed and we’re told if a producer has no visitor facilities.

My main point of irritation is the horizontal line separating producer entries in fact doesn’t separate them. The line divides the text from the address/website of the producer above the line. A small point, and it’s not too onerous to acclimatise.  

Another small irritation is that producers are arranged alphabetically by the first name rather than the surname. So you must know that Selvapiana is a Fattoria, that Angerer’s first name is Kurt, that Pingus is a Dominio, etc., but as this book seems more for thoughtful browsing rather than specific reference, this is no big deal. Just something to be aware of.

Otherwise the book succeeds admirably. It’s easy on the eye, there are some picturesque double page picture spreads, and the texts are written in friendly and informative styles.

Reading Between the Wines, Terry Theise

This is accessible and entertaining wine philosophising that puts the poetry back into prose portrayal of wine.

Theise elevates those elements about wine that have nothing to do with taste, per se, but everything to do with tasting experience – the quietness, rather than noisiness, of a wine; a wine’s reserve, rather than its ostentation; the pleasure a wine confers. And he, says, you cannot jump in and grab a wine’s content and soul, you must be patient and wait for it to come to you.

Whilst most of the wine world is pre-occupied with de-mystifying wine, and making it massively accessible, Theise refreshingly devotes a chapter to re-mystifying it. Wine is supposed to be complex he writes. He suggests we imagine wine the way we view beauty, splendour, awe in a piece of music, of art, of a country landscape. Clearly he is discussing wines of place, of personality, of particularity.

Theise creates imagery and artistry to counterpoint the science of wine about which so many students of wine, quite normally, concentrate their time. It is with the factual understanding that Theise’s idiosyncratic philosophising is the more enjoyable. 

Greatness in wine is touched up, as are aspects of flavour that comprise more than the structure and ‘physical’ flavour of fruit, wood, lees etc., as is the emotional response that some wines elicit in their consumers.

Theise’s delightful, personal and rich journey has lessons for all who appreciate wines of place. It’s likely to open a reader’s mind to novel ways of thinking about, examining and describing wine, and anyone remaining unsure that some wines are more than the sum of their individual parts should read this book.

Riesling in Australia, Ken Helm and Trish Burgess

Subtitled “The history, the regions, the legends, and the producers”, and that is exactly how the book is organised in its treatise on arguably the finest grape variety for still white wine.

The first chapters are quite technical, thus, for example, the book usefully opens by setting the record straight on the true riesling moniker. Given that riesling used to be one of the most renowned and revered grape varieties in the then wine-making world, (i.e. Europe), it’s probably no surprise that riesling became a generic term to describe any white wine (a misnomer possibly now assumed by chardonnay).

Despite the confusing nomenclature, the authors begin by attempting to unravel the origins of riesling in Australia, region by region, searching historical documents for the earliest references to both viticulture in general and the variety in particular, before going on to outline the status quo of riesling in 21^st century Australia, which country has the second-largest plantings of this variety in the world (a long way behind Germany).

Chapters on riesling viticulture by Louisa Rose, the chief winemaker at Yalumba, and on riesling flavour by Dr. Leigh Francis, a sensory research manager at the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), help put riesling in perspective. The variety’s minority stake in Australian viticulture is highlighted at just 2% of the national crush, as is riesling’s need for cool temperatures to preserve the variety’s delicate aromatics. Francis easily embraces the monoterpenes and norisoprenoids of riesling’s delicate aromatics like old friends in an excellent chapter accessibly analysing riesling flavour.

The not so technical part of the book looks at the influence of nineteen Australian riesling luminaries including the Barrys, Jeffrey Grosset, Andrew Hood, and Andrew Pirie. From the individual stories these pioneers provide, some sort of framework for the Australian riesling paradigm can be pieced together, both growing and making. Passion and single-mindedness become evident as no small ingredients.

Given riesling’s “ability to reflect the region which retaining true varietal expression” (Louisa Rose), not so much attention was given to identifying and explaining regional variation in Australia for the grape variety, which, as riesling is grown in almost all of Australia’s GIs (geographical indications), must be considerable. Those GIs cover a broad range of climates.  

However the book does finish by listing some 550 producers who make riesling in Australia, which would enable a leisurely personal voyage of style and region discovery to be made.

The Great Domaines of Burgundy, Remington Norman and Charles Taylor MW

This long-time, must-have reference book for the major properties in Burgundy has been wholly updated. The third edition has drawn on the expertise of Charles Taylor MW, an acknowledged expert on, and merchant of, domaine wines from Burgundy (and elsewhere).

Each village commune in the Côte d’Or, for this is on what the book concentrates, is given an introduction including a map charting the village, premier and grand cru plots. The grand crus, and their acreage, are listed. All this brings to life the small scale of top Burgundy production. Chambolle-Musigny has just 176 hectares (ha) of vines, of which 24 ha are grand cru. Puligny-Montrachet has 229 ha including 21ha of grand cru. Bordeaux’s Château Lafite alone is 100 ha, yet 71 vignerons share the Puligny land, giving an average holding of a microscopic 3.2 ha. Thus the necessary minutiae of detail required to gain a sensible understanding of domaine Burgundy is all in this book.

The reader can build up a picture of broad stylistic differences between communes – Gevrey-Chambertin’s power and muscle, Chambolle-Musigny’s finesse and elegance, or Vosne-Romanée’s silkiness and opulence, though stylistic differences between producers are oft-cited as equally important. 

The neat, producer by producer, layout has changed little since the 1996 second edition. The number of producers discussed has grown by fifteen, but this includes thirty-nine new entries, as others have dropped out. Newcomers include Fourrier (Gevrey-Chambertin), Louis Boillot (Chambolle-Musigny), and Michel Niellon (Chassagne-Montrachet).

Given that some domaines appear to have similar names, it is good that at least some of the intricacies of familial lineage can be unravelled by careful reading, although a few diagrammatic extended family trees would have fitted in well here. Marrying into the family of neighbouring vignerons seems far from rare. 

In addition to these two elements, about 15% of the book is devoted to issues of making wine in Burgundy, such as soil, climate, the use of oak, organics/biodynamics, as well as the two grape protagonists which sit diametrically opposite each other: adaptable, forgiving chardonnay versus intolerant, slightly OCD pinot noir. These ‘essays’ are rich with examples that illustrate changing practices and fascination for the continued mystery of some aspects of terroir. Vignettes of intimate observations by passionate growers detail the intricacy of Burgundian viticulture. They reveal insights that may both develop and frustrate the reader’s grip of knowledge of this region, but it’s certainly not a book to be missing from the Burgundy lover’s bookcase.

South-West France by Paul Strang

This is a long-awaited follow-up of Strang’s 1994 book ‘Wines of South-west France’, and it deals with a quietly dynamic area of France’s vineyards that too often flies under the export and knowledge radar because of its complexity and the plethora of indigenous grape varieties and appellations.  As Strang says “the South-west is at the opposite pole from globalisation.”

The book travels through each region, including its Vins de Pays in a logical and consistent format. Each chapter begins with a map and representative image, plus a short fact file on the appellation – such things as the grape varieties, area planted and other regulations.

For each region Strang evocatively unwinds the history and culture that litter this part of France to reveal the individuality and sometimes quirkiness of the current situation of each, before the best producers are discussed, followed by details of other producers the author feels worthy of note. For example the reader learns of the méthode gaillacoise sparkling wine, more ancient than Champagne, and experiencing a revival, he says, being sweeter and “appealing to the taste of younger drinkers, who may view it as a halfway house between coca cola and Krug.”

One delimited geography, two completely different appellations: unravelling Madiran and Pacherenc produce has been made much simpler by the inclusion of a useful table summarising at a glance which producer does which, most successfully, of the multiple possible styles . 

Strang gently brings to life these individual appellations, and their winemakers, dealing with all the necessary wine ‘purist’ stuff such as climate, grapes, soils, and adding plenty of additional flavour, personality and perspective to these too often, too little-known wine areas. Jurançon reads like an idyllic olfactory-fest during the long harvest period “apple-and-pears … lemons and grapefruit … apricot, almonds, figs, mandarins … while the latest-picked grapes will give the richest juice, recalling honey, mangoes, guavas and caramel.”

All of which make this book part text-book (though completely lacking the dryness sometimes associated with those), part contacts book and wine tourism route planner, and part one-stop-shop for vinous knowledge in this disparate part of winemaking France.