Wine

One or two for the suitcase?

Holiday opportunities may be limited but you will still have time on your hands, so consider wine books old and new, writes Neville Smith

Writing about wine is a little like describing music; interesting and frustrating in equal part. Unless you have the luck to be drinking the thing the writer is describing it’s close to pointless and in its way distracting too because of confirmation bias.

But read we do, in newspapers, magazines, online and in endless books. Wine is a pastime that lends itself to the nerdy world of books and vice versa. The great vintages, the legendary chateaux; the playboys, bad boys, brokers and other shady dealers, fortunes well spent and wasted, there is plenty to enjoy.

Traditionally the business was a scholarly one: ranking and rating, classifying and recommending. Some wine books are perfect for keeping a door open, not because they are badly written, but because wine develops while print does not. The problem extends to styles and fashions, since a fine writer can write about emerging regions and makers but be overtaken by events and changing tastes.

Some tomes are timeless and can always be recommended. Among these are the reference works that are regularly updated and written with the necessary authority.

Chief among these are the high priest Hugh Johnson’s World Atlas of Wine and Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine. For a novice trying to get their head around countries, regions, styles and types, these are always good to have by you.

Our lady of the blessed maceration still writes weekly in the Financial Times and her writing is ideal if you want to keep abreast of the mainstream. Michael Broadbent’s Vintage Wine is another reference point, though as we will see, reputations are there to be tested.

This brings us to what might be called the entertainment section, books that might not be on the curriculum but should be read under the covers. Chief among these must be The Billionaire’s Vinegar, the rollicking tail of the infamous ‘Thomas Jefferson bottles’ and other drinks of dubious provenance. With both protagonists (including Broadbent) still alive, Wallace is circumspect but the whiff of a spoiled bottle is hard to dispel.

I’d also recommend A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine by Jay McInerney, whose side-hustle as wine critic for House & Garden takes him around the high rollers and deep cellars of the Big Apple’s wine scene with aplomb.

Combining the nerd factor of the first group with the flourish of the second, kudos once again to Noble Rot, whose new tome rounds up some of the best features from its magazine plus some new bits to deliver the wine book du nos jours. From unaffordable cult wines to obscure iconoclasts, great restaurants and even some recipes, this has it all. ●

Two (more) to try

EVEN WITHOUT BEING able to pin the tail on his suspect, Benjamin Wallace’s The Billionaire’s Vinegar (widely available) still provides a glimpse of the super-rich collectors and the things they are prepared to believe in pursuit of the ultimate bottle. Wine from Another Galaxy sums up the Rotters’ approach: whatever your taste, buy properly, drink well, eat heartily, regret little and be prepared to get involved with the weird while keeping one eye on the classic. ●

“Wine is a pastime that lends itself to the nerdy world of books”